Reflections at the Wharf

The location is great, prices are below the city's crazy high average for units this size, and the culture among residents is one of minding one's own business unless something egregious is going on, but being willing to help/share info etc. when it's asked for. There are, however, a lot of issues. The main one is that the boiler system, which governs both HVAC and hot water, is consistently inconsistent because it's an old building, and there's nothing residents can really do about that except... open windows when it's randomly 80+ degrees in their apartment. Elevators, laundry, parking lot lights, and even sometimes exterior doors have also been known to break, neighborhood safety and building security are hit or miss, and because management does basically nothing to make package delivery accessible, packages often just get left in random spots. The leasing office is also often difficult to work with, in fairness to them in part because it feels like residents are always up in arms about their frustrations, so renewing your lease, getting a parking pass, etc. can often be a chore, although I've always been able to get it done.

I'm giving it one star because the prompt says 2 is 'ok' and 1 is 'poor', and this is clearly a review of a 'poor' building. I can put up with all of this stuff because the benefits of the location are really good for my lifestyle, while I can kinda just suck it up when it comes to the problems, which are nevertheless pretty serious. If paying low rent while being able to get to Navy Yard and Safeway very easily, and U Street/Petworth/Columbia Heights/work along the green line with a tiny bit more work, is worth playing interminable email tag games with leasing and having it randomly be too hot for clothes in the winter to you, come live here and we can ignore each other. Lee mas

Pros: Location, Parking Lot and the neighbors / community who look out for one another - most of the neighbors have been here a long time and take pride in the space/ building. Cons: Management and leasing is beyond unprofessional with verbal and written communication. Their lack of basic comprehension, mutual respect and critical thinking is highly visible with the lack of care and planning when it comes to make strategic decisions, communicating to residents or making sound judgement. While I... understand the building is basic and pretty self sufficient - it is their obvious neglect of the building and working offsite which is causing a steady decline in the safety, cleanliness and overall appearance of the community. Shady practices and knee jerk reactions / corrections is all you can expect as a resident until they are removed from management. Lee mas

Lived in this building for 2 years, and it was okay for the first 9 months. In March 2020, things got bad – First, The Bernstein Company fired the building manager without telling us. The new building manager never responded to emails unless I sent a follow-up a few days later. During summer 2020, they removed all staff from the building’s leasing and security office, again without notifying us. We were eventually told that staff would now work from the offices at the luxury apartment down the... street, and that no security personnel would be onsite from then on. Then, management left both the former leasing office and the former gym “under construction” for months, while the gym was being turned into a second package room for some reason and the office was being turned into a new gym. A few times, groups of tenants met with the building manager and her supervisor, but both employees seemed uninterested in communicating with tenants or resolving our concerns.

Other changes made it clear that they didn’t care about quality of life in the building as well. When we moved in, daytime guest parking passes were free, there was a Comcast representative for the building, and the basement had an indoor recycling area and a table where tenants could give items away for free. Over 2020, management took away all of these amenities, all without any communication with tenants. It felt like The Bernstein Company abandoned the building so they could instead focus their resources on their nearby luxury apartment.

The worst part about living in this building was the terrible HVAC system. Our apartment faced south, so the large windows grew hotter and hotter throughout the day, baking the entire unit. Just one small window in the unit opened, leading to poor circulation. Even with the window open, fans running, and all blinds closed, temperatures in the apartment regularly reached the 80s. Units have no thermostats – the building controls the temperatures, so on hot days in April or October, there was no AC at all. Even at full blast, I don’t think the building’s AC system was prepared for the summer temperatures, and it broke often (and with a building manager as unresponsive as this one is, that’s not a situation you want to be in).

We had some sweaty days working from home in 1001 @ Waterfront. Only move into this building if you have a high tolerance for frustration and can secure a unit that doesn’t face south. It's cheap for the area, but you get what you pay for. Lee mas

The building is very old and you cannot control the AC unit. There have been far too many days where my apartment was reading 80 degrees and all I could do was to pray for cooler weather. Lack of communication and honestly lack of care from the management team.

The management of this building is horrendous. Unresponsive, unprofessional, just a mess. Maintenance isn’t great, the “gym” has barely anything in it, the only good thing is the units are decent sizes and have nice views but still... not worth the headache of living here.