Alight Gainesville, gainesville-fl

It's not a bad apartment complex but some of the recent changes are baffling. I renewed and my rent went up $10, but the renewal offer for this year is a whopping $110 increase. Another thing that didn't need to be an issue but has become one is the guest parking, which in my 14 months here has gone from free to still free but fewer spots, to paid but residents get 48 hours of free time per month, to fully paid. The pool has been closed for 50% of the time I've been here. It's a fine apartment, its spacious, and the maintenance staff is pretty good and timely, but the prices have been skyrocketing since our manager changed last fall, and it is not nice enough to warrant these price increases.

“In my experience, the staff here mostly repeat whatever policies their corporate company sets, especially when those policies feel like they’re just about making more money. I was charged $120 for having a visitor because their parking rules change so often that it’s hard to keep up with them.Amenities have gotten worse or become dysfunctional over time. The pool has been closed for months and still isn’t open for summer, the garage gates don’t work, the elevators are turned off often (so you have to go up to 6 flights of stairs to get to your car or apartment), the key fobs cost $80 to replace even though you can buy the same model online for around $20, the parking passes cost $150 to replace and are basically just plastic, and the printer breaks constantly.When you try to complain, the on‑site management can’t actually fix anything because they’re just the employees who have to communicate whatever The Scion Group LLC decides. It feels like residents are stuck dealing with the consequences while corporate makes the decisions.Recently, the visitor parking system changed in a way that feels like it’s designed to generate more revenue. What used to be parking for residents’ guests is now open to anyone who wants to pay to park at the community, while our own guests can only stay for 48 hours — including weekends and overnight — before we get charged $3 an hour. None of this is in the leasing agreement we signed, and they already changed the policy once in the middle of the lease year.I’m wording this clearly as my personal experience and opinions because the lease includes a clause about not ‘injuring the reputation of the property.’ I’m simply sharing what I’ve personally dealt with so future residents know what to expect.”

Living at Alight was the WORST decision I could have made this summer. I was taking summer classes at UF and subleased an apartment here and my experience was everything but pleasant. The day I moved in, I was not expecting to have to deep clean the entire place due to the state the previous tenants left the unit. The entire common space floor was sticky with visible layers of dirt, the washing machine and dishwasher were filled with mold (and the dishwasher with rusting silverware), the walls were covered in dirt, the couch was completely torn up, the fridge didn't shut all the way, and there were two trash bags left by a pervious tenant sitting on the balcony for god knows how long infested with maggots and caused flies to enter the unit which were a pain to get rid of. I literally had to bleach the balcony to get whatever viscous residue had leaked from the bags off. The more I cleaned, the more I found. I understand it was the previous tenants responsibility to maintain the cleanliness of the apartment to their preferences, but how was it allowed to get that bad? Did not a single inspection happen? There is a place to view past inspections on the resident portal, but there hadn't been any, so why include that? They emailed about an upcoming inspection during my few months there but I don't think it ever happened, or at least I was not home for it and it was not documented in the portal. Maintenance was helpful with the fridge issue but that's about it. They replaced one couch cushion and had new couches sitting outside of our doors for weeks leading up to move out. I had a water stain on my ceiling in my bed room and someone came in while I was not there and stood on my bed to spray paint over it. How do I know that? There was spray paint on my bedding. Why would I put in a request for something that isn't going to get done correctly? WORST OF ALL: My unit was infested with grain beetles. When I noticed them coming out of the baseboards in the kitchen, I thought, I think I can try to get rid of these first because of my last experience with the water stain, but I ended up putting in a request and pest control came by and told me I had to throw out all of my non-refrigerated items and deep clean all the cabinets, and if they came back, that means I didn't do it well enough. As you may be thinking, yes they came back. I am a full time student with a job and barely had the time to do this extra cleaning ON TOP of everything else I had done for this place so I simply kept some pantry items in the freezer to avoid the beetles getting in there and reproducing. And to make everything so much better, the pool was closed almost the entire summer due to the pump breaking. I understand that wasn't anyone's fault, but it sucks that one of the only things I was going to enjoy there was closed. I had reached out to management shortly after I moved in about all of the concerns I had about the condition of the unit and they did nothing. Now I have cleaning fees charged to my account after I'm moved out???? What could I possibly have to pay for after EVERYTHING I did WITH MY OWN TIME AND MONEY. Absolutely infuriating. If you read all of this, thank you and I hope you DO NOT live here ever!

EDIT: Our AC is broken. It will not be fixed for days. The apartment is currently at 86°. Maintenance came to give us an air circulator that has not lowered the temp for 4 hours. They are still painting our entire interior tomorrow at 8am even though we move out in a month. They are also making US cover all of their furniture for the painters, when that is a job for maintenance or the painters. On top of that they threatened to fine us $250 if not completed. Photos attached. My male roommate and I lived at alight for two years and resigned for a third year only for management to try and separate us into different units based on gender. They couldn’t make any arrangements work so we were forced to break our lease (which they of course charged us $200 for) in order to stay living together. We happily signed at a new apartment that actually follows housing laws on not discriminating based on gender. It’s annoying that there is no self service for packages- when you order something, the front office emails you to come get it from them. This can be frustrating when you order something you need asap, because when the office is closed on Sunday and evenings, there’s no way of getting your packages. There have also been a few times where I have never gotten an email for a package even though I know it’s been delivered. Our washer has had issues for months now. The best thing about Alight is that parking is cheap. But there’s homeless people in the garage pretty often. Couch cushions will constantly peel even when replaced because they use the cheapest furniture. They recently asked us to take everything off the walls in the apartment and move all the furniture and be out of the apartment for the whole day to paint the walls. This was during graduation / finals week. We obviously refused because we are moving out in a few months anyways. Maintenance is seriously tone deaf with situations like this. Overall I am just ready to move out! So are my roommates.

I lived here for my last two years of college and have only good things to say. Rent is relatively cheap considering the proximity to campus, the parking is the cheapest you will find, and the office staff were helpful and concise about acknowledging issues and handling package deliveries.