Cielo - Seattle, Washington

Victoria M. C.

I live at Cielo Apartments in Seattle at the intersection of 8th Avenue and Seneca Street. And I love it here!

I have lived at Cielo going on four months now. Before I leased, I read the reviews. I know that some reviews were negative, and I would like to dispel any concerns you may have if you are considering moving to Cielo.

First, the elevators are NOT slow, and they are NOT frequently broken. I have never experienced a long wait or even noticed an elevator out of service. There are three perfectly working elevators. If there was an elevator problem in the past, it has been remedied.

Next, I am not aware of any parking garage problems at all. The entry/exit gate functions correctly, and I have neither seen nor heard of car break-ins or vandalism since I moved in. It’s always well-lit, clean and organized in the garage.

A new management team was hired just before I moved in. The new team is getting things going in the right direction. Brandon is the main leasing agent, but also a superstar in my opinion. He has a cheerful and energetic personality, and is working hard to make everyone happy. He is so accommodating and pleasant. Anthony and Edith (managers) are also fantastic. They form a powerhouse team with the goal of making Cielo the very best that it can be.

Since I have lived here the management has hired a new maintenance crew and restructured the concierge team. My apartment was so nicely cleaned and prepared that I found nothing that needed immediate attention by the maintenance crew. The concierge provide many valuable services for the residents such as supervising entrance to the building, accepting your deliveries, and even handing off your dry cleaning when the cleaners make their rounds.

More improvements are planned to be implemented soon, such as general beautification of the hallways on the residential floors and refreshing the elevator interiors.

Be sure to check out the amazing amenity spaces on the ground floor and at the top of the building. The views are spectacular. There’s a gym and social spaces that are really impressive.

I love my apartment! It is on a higher floor facing Mount Rainier, and I have a balcony. However, there are interesting views in all directions, and if you don’t get an apartment with a balcony, don’t worry because the windows are big and tall. The tasteful finish-out is like a clean palette for any style you would like to create with your furnishings. The wood-look floors are luxury laminate, and are super easy to keep clean. There’s central air conditioning (thermostat controlled by you), full-sized washer and dryer, and fully-equipped kitchen with microwave and dishwasher.

You will be near I-5, but with the windows closed, you will barely hear any highway noise. It is a busy neighborhood, so you will occasionally hear muffled ambulance or police sirens. The north side of the building might be a good location choice if street noise bothers you. It faces a park. And of course, a higher floor will also be quieter. As far as neighbor noise goes, I have heard no disturbances. The apartment walls must be well insulated. But I imagine that there is a possibility that the units directly above the pizzeria could hear noises.

That pizzeria, by the way, is open late and has a full bar, and additionally has good pizza by the slice and big salads. There are, as well, two grocery markets with delis on the corner just steps away from Cielo. Both have a surprisingly large inventory for such small spaces, and they make delicious sandwiches. Very fast and convenient.

There are many restaurants and shops within walking distance because Cielo is located in First Hill near Belltown and Capitol Hill. I walk to my hairdresser on 1st Avenue, my pharmacy on 9th, Starbucks Reserve Roastery through the park, Nordstrom on Pine, my dentist on 8th, my doctor on Seneca, Whole Foods (two locations are equidistant from Cielo), my dog’s vet on 12th, and even Pike Place Market when I want some fresh flowers or other goodies.

Martin B.

I moved in to Cielo to a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom September 2024. The price for the quality of the home and the views is extremely good- similar I’ve seen around was about $800 more.

I see many complaints about the building and management. Perhaps I am just lucky but I’ve not had any issues. People typically only leave a review when they are upset. I am not upset, I’m satisfied.

There has been a string of the elevators going down regularly the last few weeks. While inconvenient, the elevators are back up and running usually a few hours after going down. This tells me that management orders repairs as soon as there are any issues. In addition to that, I’ve noticed broken light fixtures on my floor are repaired promptly without my reporting it.

The reality is any building that has elevators is going to have times where they go down. Here is no exception. But the elevators are extremely quick, and having three for a community this size is perfectly adequate. If an elevator being temporarily inaccessible is a deal breaker for you, I would not recommend living in any high rise or above any floor you wouldn’t otherwise feel comfortable taking the stairs to.

Nathan T.

My time with Cielo over the last 2 years started off mediocre but has regressed into an actual nightmare, and somehow every week it keeps getting worse. I’d like to preface by saying please do not be fooled by these couple of recent 5 star reviews, they are so obviously fake. I’ve read all of the most recent reviews and can attest that every single one of the horrible things people are mentioning are all true.

My biggest concern is that my heating and AC have both been broken for nearly 8 out of the last 12 months, including this last month where we’ve been getting below freezing temps every night. Despite submitting work orders and sending multiple emails over the past few weeks expressing how uncomfortable my apartment is without heating, management has completely ignored them all, along with any request for a temporary solution (space heater) or a timeline for when this will be resolved. For the 6 months that it was broken last year, I received nothing but vague “we are waiting on parts” updates from them, but now I don’t even get those.

If that wasn’t bad enough… my roommate got sent to collections because of the leasing team failed to fix a problem they created. He received a parking ticket due to a broken parking pass (which was broken when it was given to him upon moving in), and management promised to waive the ticket. Nearly a year later, he was sent to collections. Completely forgot it ever happened at this point. I spoke to a leasing agent about this, and he told me that it’s not their problem because that was a former management team that failed to follow through with their promise. I emailed management and they said they’d immediately resolve the situation. After continuous follow ups and empty promises that it would be resolved soon (I was told about 5 different times it would be resolved ASAP), he was actually sent to collections.

The building’s garage is horrid. There’s broken glass in parking spots from shattered car windows that never get cleaned up (constant car break-ins), homeless people occasionally roaming the garage, and endless amounts of trash and broken kitchen appliances piled throughout. Recently my car was broken into and hundreds of dollars of valuables were stolen. Within a week, my roommate had his plates stolen off his car while he was out of town (which were later recovered from a stolen vehicle). There are no cameras in the garage whatsoever, and instead, residents are told that it is their job to profile individuals that enter the garage on foot (very common for residents to come in through the garage door), deem whether or not they seem like a criminal, and report it to the staff. After this all happened, I even asked the staff for the manager’s phone number so that I could give them some suggestions on ways to make the garage safer, but was told I couldn’t because they are “too busy to speak with tenants over the phone.” Why is resident safety not a top priority?

I could write an entire book about all the stuff I’ve had to go through living here but I feel as though the other recent reviews cover those pretty well…

On the bright side, their concierge team has improved a lot recently and they’re all pleasant to speak to.

Cale F.

Former resident here.

This was a terrible experience for me and my boyfriend. We stayed from January 2024 to July 2024 and can say for certain that we made a mistake leasing here. At several instances, there would only be one elevator working. The gym had poor ventilation and half of the equipment didn’t work. These so called “luxury amenities” are useless and broken most of the time. The concierge and maintenance staff were nice.

Working with the leasing staff was horrendous. In my little interactions with Brandon, he would be dismissive and rude. He was not pleasant to be around. Any prospective renter, please read the reviews and avoid this place. The City of Seattle should investigate this property and the leasing staff for their poor management. If I could give zero stars, I would.

Arun D. C.

I was a resident of this apartment previously, requesting to verify things accurately before trying to nullify my review. I was going to go easy on the review , but after your attempt to nullify my review like this here you go :

Every day in the property was a terrible experience and only someone who has lived there can understand the pain.

1. Extremely rude leasing staff , who can lie to any extent to sell an apartment.
2. Things broke down from day 1 , and a maintenance request took forever to be acknowledged.
3. P2 parking was a dump , it made me tear up looking at the Teslas and Mercedes standing next to a filthy and smelly dumpster with regular break-ins
4. Should I start with how we were overcharged for every utility , there was a hefty communal electricity fee , that was not supposed to be in the first place and was nowhere in the lease.
5. Of course there has to be a separate section for Brandon, the rudest and most unprofessional leasing agent I have seen.
6. The company changes policies at their whim and justifies them on the pretense of management change. Example is the communal electricity.
7. The sign says timings of the leasing office but the leasing agents run on their own schedule , have seen many people had a tour booked but the leasing office is shut , super unprofessional.

I can go on all day. I was going to simply summarize this with a one star rating , but trying to claim that my review is not from a resident has definitely made me leave this big review with the ordeal that was my stay at Cielo.

Stay away if you can.

hellonam

Do people really just park like this, get out, look how they parked and just leave? Sometimes theres not a single spot available because of these mfs.

On top, littering everywhere and park without parking permit.

Imagine paying $225 a month to drive up and down for 30min just to find parking after a long day of work.

Dante T.

My roommate and I have been living here since April 2023 and it has been nothing but a nightmare. Every single day for the past few weeks has been extremely inconvenient due to this poorly managed building. There will most likely be an updated review closer to when our lease ends because there is just way too much that has happened.

When we first began the leasing process, we were quoted and promised a 14 month lease with discounted rent each month because of a special move-in offer. When it was time to renew last year, we noticed we were being asked to renew 2 months early and when management was asked about this we were informed that our leasing agent had illegally given us a 14 month lease because it was unnotarized. Our new move out day is extremely inconvenient due to our school and work situations. Before this, our application was actually denied at first because the leasing agent had accidentally ran someone else's social security number that did not meet the requirements.

About a month after move-in, our apartment flooded, as well as many other units. This caused water damage to a large portion of our floors and baseboards. The damage was not addressed until a month later because they forgot and we had 5 industrial sized dehumidifiers in our apartment that they expected to be on 24 hours which were extremely loud. They also expected us to pay for the electricity bill that month which was very expensive.

We have had parking tickets placed on our car, two that were supposed to be waived by management because our parking pass was broken, however, these tickets ended up in collections about a year later because management did not follow through. We have also received other tickets in the mail from months prior without even having a citation placed on our car.

The resident parking garage has no cameras and cars are broken into, vandalized, or stolen all of the time. My roommate's car was broken into a few weeks ago and my license plate was stolen this past week while I was on vacation. Hostile homeless people have snuck into the garage multiple times creating an unsafe environment for residents.

The HVAC in our apartment and many other units were broken for MONTHS from the beginning of summer until November. The temperature in the apartment became extremely warm during summer and currently our HVAC is broken again and the apartment is freezing.

All three of the elevators have been broken everyday for almost two weeks now and people are having to walk up/down as much as 31 floors. There are many elderly and disabled people living here who are unable to do this.

Aside from all of the things that are happening to us, the building is just becoming in bad shape and very unappealing. The elevator walls are all scratched up with words and there are windows on the rooftop that have been broken for months. We regret moving here and strongly encourage anyone else considering moving to Cielo to not lease here.

Jon H.

I am a previous resident of Cielo who had leases with both the old and new management that ran the building, and I’m here to tell you: stay as far away as you can until there’s another new management team.

While the building has its problems here and there (most notably/recently all 3 elevators being frequently out of service all at once in a 31 story building), the main dumpster fire is the current management and leasing team. Take a read through any of the previous reviews (aside from the painfully obvious fake reviews they planted with professionally taken photos of amenities to make themselves look good) and you’ll see most complaining about Brandon in leasing and Anthony the building manager.

I haven’t had too much interaction with Brandon, but anytime I have it was always dismissive and rude. As for Anthony, he has been a huge pain ever since ending my lease. The man may as well be a ghost. I moved out at the end of October and as of writing this review (end of December), have still not heard anything back about deposit refunds or finalized move out costs. I have emailed him directly or called the poor concierge team consistently over the last two months, trying to get a reply, but he always happens to be busy and forgets to get back to me. I am currently at the point of getting the City of Seattle involved as they are violating renter’s rights outlined in the Renter’s Handbook.

Don’t lease here until you can personally verify Anthony and Brandon have been replaced.