My wife and I have lived at Royal Mills for over 3 years. We are very happy here in the "Mills" community. I recently read a review of Royal Mills and found some inaccuracies in that review. Yes the rents are high, but if you look at other rental communities in the area, you will find the rents higher for less amenities.
Our rent is $1750 per month for approximately 1800 square feet. We have two bedrooms, two full bath rooms, a great room comprising the living area and dining area, a kitchen and an office/den. The rent includes heat and water utilities. The utility that we pay is the electric.
There are two parking garages here, a large upper garage and smaller lower garage. The rent INCLUDES one parking space. If you need a second space, its an additional $50 per month, or you can park across the street at the Greenway Bike Path parking lot. (I do not recommend parking on Providence Street) Yes, both garages are a mess with road sand from the winter and they definitely need to be cleaned. However, our vehicle is secure and warm in the garage, so we don't have to worry about vandelism. Yes, you may have to walk 5 minutes or so to get to your vehicle in one of the garages, but that walk can be out of doors in the summer or completely in doors during the winter, or during rain storms so that you are not exposed to the elements. You can reach either garage walking completely indoors from anywhere on the property.
We do not own a dog, so we do not visit the dog park. I do know that there is a very large hole there, which according to a communication that we recently received will be addressed and repaired before the end of the month. There are other numerous holes which it appears, the dogs that visit the park, have dug.
There are gas grills located on the deck and they are supplied by Royal Mills, as well as the propane fuel required for the grills to operate. We have never had an issue with the grills operating properly. The only occasional issue is that there are too many tenants and not enough grills.
When the electrical power goes down (which has only happened to us twice since we have been here, there is a generator that kicks on. The generator is not capable, nor is it meant, to supply power to the entire property. The generator supplies power to the fire suppression system as well as the main elevator... That is all. It is more than adequate and power is usually returned within a few hours. How many people who own their own homes have the luxury of a generator supplying their electricity to their entire house when the power goes down.
As far as the carpets are concerned, we recently requested that our carpets be cleaned and with a week maintenance was here and spent the afternoon in our apartment with the steam cleaner. They did a great job.
Speaking of maintenance, if you have an emergency, such as loss of heat or air conditioning, which we had last winter, they were in our apartment within a few hours of us calling. In our situation, I discovered that the heat was down a 5am. I placed a call and got the answering service and we had heat again by noon. The maintenance crew does a great job here. If you have a non-emergency, (such as your microwave died) you may have to wait several days for the problem to be resolved. While I'm on the subject of response to tenants needs, we have never had a single issue that was not acted upon very quickly by the property management here.
Just a quick note on the air conditioning. The apartments here have 17 foot ceilings. Given that fact, the air conditioning system does a terrific job. We are always comfortable during the hot and humid summer months. But, there is a price to pay for that comfort and yes, your electric bill will hover between $150 and $200 per month while using your air.
As far as our gym is concerned... I have seen what other rental properties have tried to pass off as a gym. No our gym is not LA Fitness, but it is large and well equipped. There are three tread mills, two eliptical machines, two stationary bikes, one four station universal, a bench press / military press machine, a quad / ham string machine, a lat machine, free weigh dumb bells, kettle bells, a tricep dip station and a punching bag. I work out in our gym four or five days per week and it beats the hell out of paying $30 bucks a month to LA Fitness.
As I stated at the start of this review, my wife and I could not be happier here. We have, and will continue to, highly recommend this community to others. No rental community is perfect, and God knows we have our issues (windows not cleaned in 3 years) but we are under new ownership since April and that ownership has been spending quite a bit of money here in the form of cleaned carpets in the corridors, freshly painted walls in the corridors, new carpeting where needed, new TV's in the gym, new paint on all railings, etc. In short, its a great place to live! read more