Ryan is amazing, he went above & beyond to get a unit for my startup business. It's a great community with friendly & welcoming people. The building is secure & maintained. read more

When we launched our start up music company we needed a location with flexibility to make changes and to be surrounded by other creative minds. I do not understand why all the negative reviews or low ratings as our experience was quite incredible. Management was fantastic and they do a great job letting you know if your rent is late or if you're being too noisy or if there is any work and updates being done to the building. They also made the move out process crystal clear and how we could get all of our security deposit back by changing the space to how we found it. We left the space to pursue other careers however I would go back and lease at ActivSpace in the future for any arts, music, crafts, and woodworking hobbies or businesses. Special thanks to Richard for the easy move in and move out process as well as support for our business. read more

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DO NOT RENT HERE! The old manager (Jason) was great - the new one doesn't communicate, is arrogant, and a total @$$#0!3. Read all the reviews here - the building is built incredibly cheaply, the management sucks, and the owner is apparently also an idiot. The trash facilities are totally inadequate, the new manager (Richard, the @$$#0!3), is freaky weird about stuff. Besides he's pushy and stupid. Have I mentioned DO NOT RENT HERE? It's also incredibly LOUD. read more

This business does indeed rip you off. Do not bother to paint your space when leaving, having purchased the required paints($30+ ea. gal), and performing a professional level paint job (done this before for employment)- they still charged me for: Clean up and re painting costs! And they do constantly interrupt access to some bullshit 'upgrade' without any compensation other than voluminous off gassing. read more

The last three months or so, the owners have been remodeling units across from my 4th floor office -- converting what was an actual apartment with a bathroom into smaller workspaces. This has gone on for months. So noisy I sometimes I cannot talk to clients on the phone over the noise. No communication to me around this before or during -- my emails ignored. I am a freelance writer/designer. I work 9-5 weekdays out of the ActivSpace unit I have rented for two years. I depend on this space to make my living. I have been working from home a lot just to avoid the awful conditions -- hammering, sawing, banging, workers yelling and talking (and coughing from the dust and fumes) right outside my door. More concerning is there has been a great deal of dust and fumes. I have had a respiratory illness for weeks and I am starting to wonder if there's a connection to breathing in this dust. I asked via email on August 24th for a disclosure as to what I was breathing in and a timeline on how long this remodel would occur. I wrote Larry Klatt, the owner, Stacey Atkinson and Mark Wascher -- no one replied. That was two months ago. Yesterday, I got dizzy, a severe headache and nauseous and had to leave my work space. I think I got poisoned from the toxic fumes. I had an alarming tightness in my chest for hours. Today my throat hurts and my airways feel irritated. I've been coughing for months, by the way. The onsite manager I spoke (David) to seemed have no idea the remodeling was happening (which is pretty weird since it is so loud and obvious). I managed to get Mark Wascher on the phone today and he refused to disclose any information and sent me to Stacy Atkinson. When I told him she wasn't responding, he said I could reach out to HIS boss, but the "protocol" was to communicate with this person only through the U.S. Mail, not email. I wish I had never rented here. I'll see if I can post a photo of the dust outside my door. Update - One day later and no one, not a single person from the manager/ownership, has responded to my emails and voicemails. This boggles my mind. I've never had such an unresponsive landlord. read more

ActivSpace requires a deposit with an application for rent. At the time you pay the deposit you do not receive a copy of the proposed rental agreement. If your application for rent is accepted, your deposit is nonrefundable. Once you receive the contract, you find that ActivSpace requires a minimum 6-month tenancy or you forfeit all or part of your security deposit. However, in the same contract ActivSpace reserves to raise rent with only 14 days notice. When I pointed this disparity out to the Ballard ActivSpace manager she advised me that the contract terms would not be rewritten but that ActivSpace would not raise my rent within the first 6 months. In month 5, my rent was raised. In addition, after you sign the rental agreement, you are presented with a list of rules that include such things as prohibition from using extension cords in your workspace. There is only one outlet in the room. It is impossible to operate power tools in the space without use of extension cords. The former manager at my location frequently sent out emails to tenants, inventing new rules, such as "you cannot put wood in the dumpster" and "you cannot park overnight on property adjacent to ActivSpace that is, in fact, not owned by ActivSpace." In conclusion, the contract terms for ActivSpace are onerous and deceptive, the rules they implement for use of the space are unworkable and the efforts they make to implement new rules to an already onerous set of rules are offensive. I'd avoid ActivSpace if at all possible. read more

This is getting surreal at this point... I received a phone call from the management two days ago, asking about my concerns and asking me to consider removing my review on Yelp. I promised that I would consider it. (No, I haven't done anything to this point.) This morning I received an email from the manager of the Ballard ActiveSpace, stating that, "Based on your on-line comments and those shared with me during our August 20, 2013 conversation, ActivSpace has concluded that you are very unhappy at its property and with its approach, so it is best we part ways." They are terminating our rental agreement and giving me 30 days to vacate because they don't like my Yelp review or my comments on MyBallard.com. Here's a link to my original Yelp review: http://bit.ly/150A6uZ Here's a link to the article on MyBallard: http://bit.ly/186yCRI read more

These guys are absolutely fabulous. I have had no problems at all with management, my space is exactly what I wanted, and the community here is great! I love that people are super friendly. I was informed upfront about the forfeit of half the deposit with a stay less than 6 months, which I personally think is reasonable. Parking could be better, but I'd rather have cheap rent than a dedicated parking space, so I can totally live with that. I highly recommend activspace! read more

I moved into this building with high hopes and was let down short after. The management at this company is only after money. They do not care about their tenants or the business they are running at the facility. Both onsite and offsite managers do not do anything on a daily to help out with the building, other than asking for your money and telling you when the building is going to be shut down due to new paint. My advise for potential new tenants would be to look elsewhere. There are so many share work spaces in the city to choose from and Activspace could be the worst. This one time they shut down the entire building for 3days to re-paint and did not offer and one pro-rated rent. We could not access the building, our computers/equipment, but we had to pay rent those days? This did not make sense to me, and things like this kept happening. These corrupt crooks need to be ran out of business! read more

This place is the great rip off. Management does not communicate. The place is a dump, especially the bathrooms. I have rented here for five years and am finally free. Do anything you can to NOT rent from these people. read more

I rented a work space garage unit here for 2 1/2 years and loved it. Great location with great fellow small business owners. There is a real sense of community there. The Manager is also very helpful and easy to deal with. read more