The Smith

Morgan Woodruff

The Smith: My 28 months. TL:DR — The Smith Development is $7.2B college dorm. There is far too much to write everything about how shockingly bad a building this has become. The net-net is that if it wasn’t for the pathetic, unprofessional, untrained and deceptive staff you’d be left with a building that is not a home. Why is this review so long and detailed? Because it’s real and I’m real. So when you see a five star review with no comments and the building profusely thanking them you wonder why does this profile not have a picture, why is their name completely devoid of Googleability? You are not living in an actual full-service building. You are living in a building that has the appearance of one. Packages are routinely mishandled/not delivered/delayed. Contractor wonders where my laptop was? I googled the label only to find out it never left the building meaning it’s still sitting on the back counter for the concierge to have the professionalism to do work. A positive is on the gym is actually perfectly done. The common areas and amenities are routinely rundown and unkept. Empty beverage cans. Furniture is strewn everywhere, cushions filled with dog hair and filth. Undergrads (they claim are not allowed) however they occupy the vast majority of the studio and one-bedrooms and treat the garbage room recycling area and maintenance staff like slaves. To have the luxury of a garbage chute on your floor and not have to worry about putting out the garbage is such a great thing and in a big city yet these children continue to be allowed to run amok. So embarrassing to watch a porter clean up trust fund Children’s refuse. Smoking & vaping in the common area. Punchlist items for the building that were promised when we started our lease or never completed years later. Finger-pointing and excuses are the norm. Four general managers over two years. Eight different office staffers over two years. The "concierge" staff does not work for the building owners - they are subcontractors hired by Greystar. Think about this for two seconds: the actual touch point, the pulse of any full service building is the concierge desk, and they outsource it. Abusive “maintenance manager” that pretends the building belongs to him and mansplaining comments about how things are done. We had to speak to Greystar corporate in order to get him banned from entering our apartment because we kept seeing him on our video camera making up excuses about smoke alarm violations. Simple stuff, like a door not closing properly because you can see the hinges were never installed correctly (we were the first people to occupy our unit). Pull out the screws, move the hinge, pop them back in and problem solved. I did it in 90 seconds. "we don’t rehang doors ma’am". A beautiful rear facing courtyard filled with dog waste, drug paraphernalia and homeless person excrement next to $60,000 Janus et Cie furniture. All "protected" by two massive steel security gates that never, ever locked. Not only a security issue near Mass & Cass - but a simple fix that went unaddressed for three years. Greystar blamed Suffolk. The building operates on the new LEED green theory of net-negative pressure meaning fans in the bathroom are always on (read: nonexistent) and exhaust fan above your stove vents into your apartment - awesome. Our refrigerator was replaced three times because it opens into the corner of the counter permanently damaging it and after a period of time rendering it useless. Let’s just put in multiple new refrigerators until the tenant moves out and then another new one when the new tenant moves in. Semiannual tenant appreciation pizza party. Surely in a private 10th floor lounge made for events. Nope. 20 pizzas strewn about the lobby. Monthly dog wash area causes the fire alarm to go off. Valet carts are impossible to get. USPS mail room is awesome. FedEx/UPS/Amazon sitch is a nightmare. If you move into the building you’ll be downloading a total of five apps. My $0.02!

Temperance Brennan

Please don’t live here. Unethical leasing office and unbelievably high rent increase. Very shady place

Corey Lonee

I would recommend considering other nearby apartment buildings. Lived here for two years and already the building is looking beat up. For the price it is not worth it. Also the leasing staff is really unethical...so many stories...including a cute elderly couple who told me the leasing office altered their account statement at the end of the lease. Shady office staff, workers who don't care, nonstop construction noise, Big Mess!

Theodore Brown

Living in the Smith was nice until it was time to renew the lease. I expected an increase but was unprepared for the absolutely stratospheric 35% increase over the previous year's base rent once concessions were factored in. Even if you for some reason choose to ignore the concessions, the rent increase over the base rent after one year is 20%. The Smith now has the dubious distinction of having the most aggressive rent hikes of any place I have ever seen or heard of. Worse, while the building is complete, a new building is under construction immediately adjacent to it. Depending on where you live in the Smith, the effects may only include increased noise and general quality of life issues like reduced parking for a year. If you live on the south side of the building, then the experience will be worse, with declining views and natural sunlight eventually ending in a total eclipse by the new building. If you do decide to live in the Smith, make sure to prepare yourself for a major rent hike every year. If you contact the staff, they may offer you a small decrease to the total rent hike, to something closer to 10-15% increase over the previous year's base rent. Other residents have also reported receiving offerings of lower rates (still representing at least a 10-15% increase over the previous year) after providing notice that they will be moving out. I should also mention that Greystar is totally unresponsive when you ask for information on why they are increasing the rent so aggressively. Update: The trash chutes seem to be in a constant state of disrepair, frequently refusing to open, causing people to dump their bags of trash in the garabage chute room. Seems to be a problem affecting multiple levels.