My family and I have a wonderful experience living at AKA. From the moment we moved in, we've felt…read morewelcomed and genuinely cared for by the entire team. The building itself is beautiful, well maintained, and has a true sense of comfort and community. The maintenance and cleaning teams are always responsive, helpful, and take great pride in keeping everything in excellent condition. The front desk and security staff have consistently been kind, professional, and welcoming. A special thank you to Angelica and the leasing team for always being thoughtful, attentive, and committed to making residents feel valued. It's clear that there is a lot of care and pride behind how this community is managed. We are truly grateful to call AKA home. Having a team that listens, cares, and goes the extra mile makes such a difference. Highly recommend!

Excellent experience staying at AKA! Scott provided great assistance and the property is beautiful.read more

I've lived here almost two years and overall I've had very few negative things to mention about the…read moreTalmadge. The Talmadge is a historic apartment building right at the corner of Wilshire and Berendo. From my upper floor window I can see down Wilshire Blvd, the Griffith Observatory, and Hollywood. Service here is pretty good. The 3-4 door guys are all really nice (24 hours a day). They have never lost one single item of mail, and I get a ton of packages so you don't have to worry about being home when FedEX/UPS/USPS come here to deliver your mail. The Talmadge has all different sized apartments. I live in a 5 bedroom apartment. Two of the rooms have their own bathroom, and then 3 of us share the 3rd bathroom. Also, note one room is technically like a dining room converted into a room, but it's very spacious. Our monthly rent is $3,999.00 + $125 for gas = $4,078 a month. That's split (unevenly) 5 different ways so it's really one of the cheapest places to live in LA. Here are some positives about the building: *TWO blocks from the Vermont/Wilshire Metro Station *LOTS of bars/restaurants that you can walk to. I'm looking at you, Line, Brass Monkey, R Bar, Palm Tree LA, S Bar, Da Sung Sa... *There is a courtyard where you can relax, and there's even a grill that you can borrow for a cook out. Some people reserve this on weekends for parties. *Residents are super friendly. As of this writing most people that live here are over 30 and/or have a family. *There is a trash chute that is in between apartments buildings so that you can get rid of your trash easily. *You can put an air conditioner in your window. *The walls here are super thick. We blast, and I mean blast music, and have never had a complaint. Also, I've never heard the people next to us, below us, or above us. *Although there is now a sign prohibiting going to the rooftop...you should just ignore it. The views from the rooftop at night are beyond breath taking. You can see all of downtown. It's really a shame that the Talmadge hasn't put money into the roof to add a fire pit and seating like at the newer buildings that you can see from the rooftop around us. Now onto some of the bad things: *It took SIX MONTHS to fix the laundry room. The laundry room consists of 4 washers and 4 dryers for all of the residents to share. Laundry costs $1.50 and the dryer costs $1.25. *The work out room is a joke. The treadmill has been broken the entire time I've lived here. Therefore there is no working treadmill. There are some dumbbells and machines, but it's small and bad. Plus you have to "check" out the key to get in there and it's a bit of a hassle. There's a stationary bike and an elliptical, but that's about it. *It is $125 a month to park your car at the building. It is a valet type service where they will bring your car up to the street level when you're ready to leave.... Or you can park across the street for $85 a month and go get your car yourself. *Dust here is awful. I don't know if it's an LA thing, but my room is forever dusty. *The water gets shut off about every other week from a 9-5 period. This can be problematic you know if you forget that it's a day when they shut off the water. *There are constant film crews here. They will overtake the lobby of the building and the parking surrounding the building. This also means that they overtake the elevator. This annoys some residents, but it doesn't bother me much as I always make a point to go eat their free food in exchange for them hogging the elevator. *The maintenance guy is super nice, and I really don't ever know if it's his fault or he's too busy, but he isn't exactly on demand. You might be waiting a while for repairs. Luckily we haven't had too many things break, other than our door, and he repainted our bathroom. *If you get cold, you CANNOT control the heat. Some staff member at the building turns the heat on and off for EVERYONE (however, our apartment does have a working fireplace although I've never turned it on) After reading about plenty of other horror stories at apartment complexes I'm pretty satisfied with the Talmadge. Every apartment building has pluses and minuses, but luckily no deal breakers yet. Also of note, my rent has NOT increased in 2 years.

Cant even get into the building because security is indignant and rude, manager is unreachable and…read moreprobably for the best because she doesn't want to talk anyway. Spend your money elsewhere.

This place is truly a nightmare. One of the worst apartments in Hollywood. This building is…read morecompletely unlivable from the fact that you can have entire appliances in your unit in need of repairs and the maintenance staff and management won't even TRY to fix things until months later. Good luck trying to get on the phone with anybody. The property managers "phone number" is a random Uber driver in San Diego! So there's no way to even contact any higher ups if there even are any! When you request for things to be fixed, they lie and say it's already been fixed so they can collect rent from you without doing their job as a landlord. Not to mention you will be sharing the building with roaches and rats that are out day and night. There's constant brawls happening in the halls in the middle of the night that leads into the hallways, homeless people living right outside the building and sometimes making their way into the building and roaming the halls begging for drugs and food. I went two months without a functioning toilet or shower and after several complaints I was never reimbursed for having to pay for the repairs. This building is old so things break and need to be fixed all the time but they will delay you to make repairs as long as they can. The new management is very shady and never gives any answers to problems because they're trying to push all the old tenants out while they do illegal repairs on the building. They'll lie and say you haven't paid your rent when you have so they can attempt to scare the remaining people living here into leaving. Truly despicable. Look elsewhere for a place because this is a haunted house at this point.

I lived in Cherokee Villas for 2 years and I very much enjoyed it before moving out in February…read more The building is all studio apartments, with a very friendly variety of different working people mostly aged 20-30's but inclusive of all ages. I loved having a huge area with windows in the kitchen, and the interiors are fairly modern with a cool-toned grey walls and a chandelier. Loved having a full size fridge, compact stove/oven, and spacious walk-in closet. The onsite manager, Jessica H, is wonderful. She is always courteous and responsive via phone, email, or text, and always responded in a way that showed she genuinely cared about the experience of the residents. When I had a hornets nest outside my window or my pilot light was out, she made sure it was taken care of even when I was at work. Even now that I've moved to another area, she always lets me know if a package accidentally gets delivered there so I can come pick it up. Having strong management was definitely a bright spot of Cherokee Villas. Thanks Jessica!! I rate this building 4 stars because of the parking situation. I did not like having to pay $144 a month to park in the city lot, which often left me waiting in a 5 minute line of tourists to get into the structure. Also I lived on the third floor, and I did not like having to walk all the way down to the basement to use the washer and dryer. Oh well! Other than that, this apartment is exactly what I needed for the two years I lived there!

Run for your life…read more Don't believe a word the manager tells you. She's very close friends with the owner and will do anything to get you to move in. Once you're in, you won't get a bit of sleep with all the crazy people screaming and flipping out. And if you complain or get on Donna's bad side, they will increase your rent by hundreds of dollars. They tell you that you'll need to sign a lease that they are giving you a discount, but that's how they get you in year 2. Don't waste your time, living here was the most stressful year of my life. Also, don't fall for the cookies, drinks and candy on the table when you walk in to view an apartment. As soon as you leave they hide it. All smoking mirrors.

We are fortunate and blessed to live in a building where we feel like our own community and treat…read moreeach other like a loving family. Neighbors even take care of each other's pets - walking, housing, feeding - and have even adopted tenant's pets and took care of those that needed homes and care. Residents walk together to Larchmont village, even with management and staff. We feel like a family or like we are in a "Friends" TV episode. Many people who live at Los Altos are very loving and caring and share that energy with their neighbors...we have built a community here. I'm especially grateful to the management team and staff for how they genuinely care about us all.

The amenities are nice and easily accessible, and I've been content with my stay for the most part…read more I've been living here for a little over a year now, and throughout the hardships and mishaps I've experienced with things such as, but not limited to, the difficulty with moving units (expect a headache using findigs.com), the security concerns (something has been stolen from the "secure" 4th level parking garage), mailroom inconveniences (on the behalf of the couriers), and maintenance issues (mainly the elevators), the staff has been great with assisting and handling everything. Namely, Ariya and D'Angelo have been more than helpful with taking care of the tenants. It's easy to tell when someone cares about their job, as well as identifying the integrity they bring to the property. Whenever the couriers are lazy and fail to properly utilize the parcel lockers, I've been able to consistently rely on Ariya and D'Angelo to make things right. They go above and beyond the scope of their job, and are very easy to communicate with. This is the kind of warm reception that one would want to interact with. I'm not sure of everyone on staff's name, but I can appreciate the general cleanliness of the high traffic areas of the building, along with the speedy responses to maintenance requests, amongst other things. One thing that I cannot stand is the fact that some of my neighbors choose to ignore the leasing agreement by smoking (especially cigarettes) in undesignated areas, causing me to not enjoy keeping my windows open, for concern of second hand smoke inhalation and cigarette stench permeating my unit. I've also experienced a few noisy neighbors who choose to ignore the 10pm noise curfew. The units cost too much to deal with inconsiderate neighbors! These complaints, as well as the loudness of Hollywood Blvd. are the main causes for my three star rating--all of which I fully acknowledge aren't the responsibility of the building staff. Thanks for attending my Ted talk.

My wife and I have been tenants of Adam for 5 years, since we were living in Long Beach…read more It has always been a pleasure to live on the properties he manages, because we know he genuinely cares about his tenants' well-being and takes pride in ensuring everybody has the best living experience. Every time we need something from the front office, it is taken care of swiftly, and the same can be said about any maintenance request. It also helps to have such a fantastic group of coworkers like D'Angelo, the supers Juan and Manuel, and the cleaning ladies Maribel and Socorro. They all make living in the heart of Hollywood extremely pleasant. If you're considering moving in, it is definitely worth it. The amenities (pool, gym, BBQ), the size of the apartments, but it is the people who work here who make this location the best choice. And P.S. If you're moving here, get Starry Internet!

ETA: This building is extremely unsafe. Residents are currently being terrorized by this group who…read moreare casing and swarming so they can steal packages as well as do push in robberies which have been rampant. Here's some pics of the group. Management is doing NOTHING to address this. No additional security, they seemingly lease to criminals, they allow illegal airb&b's. This building is going to complete sh*t so fast under the current management and ownership. I would strongly warn anyone considering living here to think twice. This building is unsafe, poorly managed, and the package theft situation is completely out of control. I have had what likely amounts to thousands of dollars in packages stolen from the mailroom or even from directly outside my front door if I do not pick them up immediately. Management is aware that package theft is a major issue in this building, but nothing meaningful is done about it. At a bare minimum, someone from the building should be regularly sweeping the mailroom and placing loose packages into the package lockers. That is not a luxury service. That is basic property management. But they cannot even be bothered to do that consistently. The lack of responsiveness from management is a theme here. When something needs to be fixed, even when it is important, getting a response or resolution is often slow, frustrating, or nonexistent. At any given time, at least one of the elevators seems to be down, and it can take days or even a week to get an elevator repaired. Because of that, residents often have to use the stairwells, which creates its own safety issue. The stairwells and common areas frequently feel unsafe. I have repeatedly encountered people smoking what appears to be hard drugs in the stairwells or right outside the building. Cars are broken into all the time. There is supposedly security patrol, but one person cannot realistically monitor a property of this size and all the problem areas. They clearly need more security coverage, but instead residents are left to deal with the consequences. The building also has constant false fire alarms. The fire alarm goes off so often that it feels like it happens every other day on average. That is not just annoying. It creates alarm fatigue, disrupts residents constantly, and makes it harder to trust that the building is being managed responsibly. The amenities are also a joke. The pool and hot tub have been unusable, and they were broken for a long time before management made any meaningful effort to fix them. And of course, the pool repairs are happening right as summer arrives, when residents would actually want to use it. Between the package theft, lack of safety, unreliable elevators, unsafe stairwells, constant false fire alarms, broken amenities, and management's refusal to take basic action, this building has become an awful place to live. Unfortunately, some of the residents or people coming through the property also make the situation worse. and management knows who they are but enforces no consequences for their crimes. Packages disappear, common areas feel unsafe, and management acts like this is just normal. I would not recommend this building to anyone who wants to feel safe, receive their mail, or live somewhere that is actually managed with care.

Normally I say take online reviews with a grain of salt, but for this one I say buckle up because…read morethe only happy ending is that we broke our lease early and no longer have to live here. The neighborhood, while out of control of the building is not safe especially if you are a single woman. What is in control of the building is how they manage security. Interestingly enough with a reduction in security presence there was an increase in incidents of homeless people entering the property. Often ending up in areas of the building that only people with fob access should have access to like the gym, bathrooms in communal areas and most recently on the 7th floor of the building banging on apartment doors and trying to enter residences. With the last incident we were unable to get ahold of security downstairs at the desk or via the phone. We also never received a response from my email complaint. During our last month here the gate to the parking garage was broken and left wide open, behind said gate are stairwells and elevators that do not require fobs and go directly to the floors where apartments are. In an email sharing the gate is broken, we were told there would be an "increased focus" on monitoring the gate. However every time we left the property there was not a guard at the gate nor at the desk monitoring the cameras. Anecdotal? Yes, but the lack of security lead to a homeless person actively convulsing being found in one of the stairwells. If you advertise a gated parking garage in a neighborhood with high crime rates, then that garage door becomes ineffective at keeping us safe then the building is absolutely responsible for increasing security until it is fixed, which they did not do. Do you enjoy taking the stairs? If you are thinking of living in this building I sure hope so because the elevators are constantly out of service (we're talking multiple times a week). Maybe this has something to do with them letting the inspection lapse by 8 months. Packages are constantly getting stolen, maybe if they hadn't gotten rid of the concierge that was previously available or the day time security this wouldn't be an issue but unfortunately I had 5+ packages stolen in the 16 months I lived here. Maybe they consider 1 package stolen every 3 months good stats, we should check with corporate. During a recent fire alarm test, the building provided less than 14 hours notice that they would be conducting testing for hours the next day. While I understand tests are required, it's against the law to enter residences in non emergent situations without 24 hour notice which unfortunately they did. We were not sent a letter or and email regarding our renewal, but I was called with 1 hour left until the leasing office closed saying if I didn't sign my renewal today our rent would have a significant increase compared to the "special rate" they offered us in the communications we never received. Upon breaking our lease we had to pay 1.5x rent, while it was in our contract we left because our safety had been continuously compromised and they were not willing to negotiate even though they were negligent. We also only received 1/8 of our security deposit back due to them charging us for cleaning regardless of how we left the unit and to repaint even though that's just a business expense for a land lord. A building should not be advertised as "luxury" given the circumstances listed above. I'm not an unreasonable person, I understand that things happen however how a company navigates situations is a true test of their professionalism and unfortunately every situation that occurred was either ignored or we received a canned generic response with no action to prevent things from happening in the future. If you value your safety, your peace of mind or your sanity stay far far away from 5550. Side note, Marcus from the leasing office was always incredibly kind but unfortunately one employee does not make up for our 16 months of being miserable and concerned for our safety. Reducing security and raising rent to maintain your profits is icky, do better.

Updated Review I'm…read morewriting an updated review for the building I live in, and I want to be fair, honest, and detailed. About the Morning Cart Situation Someone recently complained about a person coming to their door early in the morning asking for the cart. The carts are meant to be shared by all tenants -- once you're finished, you're supposed to bring it right back downstairs. It's not meant to be taken up to your apartment, loaded with your personal items, and returned whenever you feel like it. That's just basic courtesy in a shared building. Mishaps Happen -- What Matters Is How Management Responds In any apartment building, things will happen. That's just life. What truly matters is whether management is proactive and actually works to resolve issues -- and The Avenue does. Every time something has come up, they've addressed it. Past Issues With Dogs There was a time when some tenants thought they were above the house rules and let their dogs roam freely. That was unsafe and unfair to everyone else. Management stepped in and handled it, and that problem is no longer happening. ‍ Leasing Office - Tom Deserves Recognition We are extremely lucky to have Tom in the leasing office. He is always proactive, helpful, and genuinely cares about the residents. He's one of the reasons this building runs as smoothly as it does. Security & Nighttime Concierge They replaced the old security with nighttime concierge, and I couldn't be happier. These guards are skilled, alert, and proactive. They make the building feel safe, and that peace of mind is priceless. Pool Noise - Resolved Years ago, the pool area brought a lot of unnecessary noise, especially after hours. A nighttime concierge at the time contributed to that problem. Management handled it professionally, and that employee is no longer here. Again -- they were proactive. Pest Control - A Huge Priority This is extremely important to me. They stay on top of pest control, and that matters a lot, especially in Hollywood where roaches, rats, and other issues are common due to the homeless crisis and items being brought in from the street. As long as tenants follow house rules and don't bring in street furniture, we're in good shape. Cleanliness & Porter Staff The building is kept clean. Clemente, our porter, works hard every day to maintain a clean environment -- even though some people can't seem to hit the trash can. His work is appreciated. The Yoga Studio Downstairs I won't take a star away for this, but I will be honest: The yoga studio brings in too much outside traffic. The mail area gets hot, steamy, and smelly, and it doesn't feel like a resort-style environment when strangers are constantly coming in and out. In the future, it might be better used as a rec room, an extended office space, or even a larger maintenance room -- something that benefits residents directly. Staff Changes Over the Years It's been sad to see some great employees come and go -- Mary, Werner, Werner's brother (amazing maintenance), Adam, and others. Adam used to offer early-bird lease specials where your rent wouldn't increase if you renewed early. Those were the days. Extra Fees I do want to mention the extra charges. I already pay my own gas and electric, but the building adds their own property-related fees on top of that. The porter fee alone is over $50 per unit. With the number of units here, that adds up to around $12,000 a month -- and we all know the porters don't get paid anywhere near that amount (though they should be paid well). It would be great if new management reevaluated these charges so long-term tenants feel encouraged to stay. Final Thoughts At the end of the day, we've lived here this long because of: * Cleanliness * Proactive management * Safety * Great location (close to the 101, Sunset, and the boulevard) No building is perfect, but this one does make an effort -- and that's what counts. We just hope management continues improving and considers adjusting some of the extra fees so good tenants can stay long-term.

I been living here for over 6 years at THE AVENUE and this is MY HOME..! From the Maintenance crew…read more.. go Izzy and team.... to the leasing and management team (Brendan , Thomas ,Paisley and Alexis)....I know they dealing with a lot of issues and personalities like ME ( OCD).... but I know no matter what.....they have their tenants back and needs covered.....sometimes it takes a little more effort but they got you!!!! if you like living at a unique community... this can be your home ... it will take a lot for me to leave this spot. Spacious apartments ... great building!!!!!l..lots of great personalities!!!!

We've rented in cities for over 20 years and never had such a horrible experience. Move-in was a…read moremess -- we were denied entry despite following management's exact payment instructions. Then we discovered we lived under a squatter with nonstop noise, screaming, and marijuana smoke at all hours. Management acknowledged the issue but did nothing meaningful -- they offered worse, more expensive units and refused to cover moving costs. Now we have a newborn with respiratory issues, and the chaos continues. The building is dirty, trash overflows, and communication is terrible. Not worth the premium price. Avoid this disaster of a building.

The Leasing office is very very friendly…read more V, the leasing agent is professional, knowledgeable, and genuinely cares about residents. Ultimately, when moving, V made it very smooth and is always quick to help with any questions. The apartment itself is well-maintained, with nice amenities and a welcoming vibe. The other people in the leasing office is also extremely friendly and professional.