VELA Apartments

Do not move here. Let me succinctly tell you why:
1) There's a pool alarm that goes off 3-4x a week in the middle of the night waking everyone up. Management wants to fix it but told me they don't have the budget to lock the gate at midnight and stop the alarm.
2) I know of at least 8 car burglaries in the past two months - windows smashing. No one feels safe.
3) I've seen my neighbors being hauled out in handcuffs and sent to jail.
4) Homeless sleep next to the property regularly and we... don't have the budget for real security they say.

I loved living here before but I'm tired of hearing "I can't fix it" when it comes to safety. Lee mas

Absolutely HELL of an experience here. This is worth the read…

Day 1: Vela gave up our apartment we paid to have held, told us to take a less desirable one or take a hike. This apartment has been the worst place I have ever stayed in, and I’ve been in 27 difference places.

The upstairs renters used their patio as a poop/pee spot for their animals, which leaked down to our patio and rendered our patio a useless/uninhabitable BIOHAZARD that could easily make our dogs sick or even worse. 9... months of constant communication with management and they never solved this issue. They kicked out the upstairs renters and put in new ones. THEY DID THE SAME THING! After emailing management with plenty of proof, videos and pictures of them washing their poopy/pee balcony with chemicals down to our balcony, MANAGEMENT STILL HAS DONE NOTHING! Emailing the manager and REGIONAL MANAGER and they have done nothing but ignore me and make false promises saying they will “talk” to the tenants. This is 8 months going on 9 months now with no solution. Over 50 emails begging for something to be done and nothing.

Resident events: If you have a normal job, you will never be able to attend resigned events as they only schedule them 3-5pm. The staff at this community puts in the BARE MINIMUM and calls this place “luxurious.” Along with dirty hallways, constant break-ins, stolen packages, trash NEVER being picked up on time, I have absolutely nothing good to say about this community.

Paying a few hundred dollars a month in amenity fees for WHAT? Broken gym equipment, no cleaning supplies ever in the gym, gross facilities, hot tubs full of foam and chemicals that can burn you, a fountain bigger than the pool? Is that necessary? Doors unlocked by key fobs always broken, elevators constantly broken, smell of weed everywhere.

I can keep going on and on about how awful this place is, but I think you get the point. Management will most likely try to respond to this saying none of it happened, but I have all the emails, all the photos and videos to back up everything I’ve stated.

Please stay away from this place! Lee mas

Run away as fast as you can. I wrote out all of our problems with Vela and its staff, but it was too many characters to fit in the review. Some highlights:
- It routinely takes more than a week or two for any maintenance requests to be completed.
- Multiple exterior doors are frequently left open for anyone to come in and out as they please. This has been brought to the attention of the staff who say they are “trying” to fix it, but nothing has been done. This complex is absolutely not secure... .
- omeone threw a bunch of sauce (probably marinara, who knows) on the wall of one of the public hallways. This was left there by the staff for nearly a week. Once is was brought to their attention they simply painted over the sauce on the wall, while leaving all the residual sauce on the floor, INCLUDING THE CONTAINER THE SAUCE CAME IN. We had to contact them AGAIN to clean up the floor and the sauce container, and they didn’t clean that part up for another 36-48 hours. Lee mas

This was an outstanding place to live. New, clean, great amenities, location, well maintained. Since Shelton Cook took over a couple months ago it’s gone immediately downhill. Maintenance is now as bad as I’ve ever seen, workout area is constantly in disarray and filthy, packages aren’t held in the office, properly is generally dirty, parking rules aren’t enforced making with cars parking wherever they want and often blocking other cars in, pet waste everywhere and a generally feeling of apathy... from the staff. No longer worth the high end $ for rent. Prospective renters beware. Lee mas

I have been a resident of VELA since August 2017. I wanted to write this review to let future renters know exactly what you are getting. There are really three issues: the developers, the City of Tempe and the new management company. Each of the following points are based on fact - not opinion. I will update this review anytime with new, updated information.

1. The developers have taken over the area by VELA. They close walkways by the lake, it is noisy, lots of small bugs and... driving/biking is dangerous in some cases. I most recently had to the complain to the City of Tempe about The Watermark developer closing a major walkway. The city took care of the issue, but it is clear that the developers around VELA care only about themselves.

2. Everyone who lives on the lake pays additional fees/assessments to the City of Tempe. Since the city regularly has events on the lake, they have little sympathy for those who actually live and have to get around. I have talked with numerous city officials and city council members. They are nice, but nothing gets done.

3. The new VELA management team. You expect transition issues with any new management company. However, the lack of communication to residents and the general disorganization by the property management is concerning. A good example: they changed the company that handle billing for water. No EMAIL or notification to residents, and now I have been billed for double the amount of previous months -- no resolution at the time of writing this review. Certainly you expect more for the monthly rental price. Lee mas