At Meadows Crossing we meet a lot of college students who have never rented an apartment before when we show them what we have to offer. Because living independently is a new experience, they don’t always know what to look for. That’s completely normal. Let’s go through a list of which apartment features matter most for optimizing student life off campus.
Touring an Off-Campus Apartment Near GVSU
When you take a tour of an apartment, your first impression may be of the size and condition of the rooms, the amenities available, and the cost. These are all important, of course. However, there are other apartment features that also make a real difference in how easy and enjoyable it will be to live there – and many of these features are completely overlooked. Here are 5 features we think you should seriously consider before you sign a lease.
Location
If your apartment community is far from campus, you are going to waste a lot of your scarce time commuting instead of studying, working, sleeping, or relaxing. Life is too short for that.
Meadows Crossing has the best location of any apartment community at Grand Valley. When GVSU buses leave campus, they take students directly to Meadows without any stops. When GVSU buses stop at the Meadows Crossing bus stops, they go directly to campus without any stops.
Not only that, but when you live at Meadows Crossing, there’s a GVSU bus stop near your front door. Our residents have only to walk 550 feet or less to get to either of the two GVSU buses that transport students to and from campus.
Privacy
How much privacy is enough? It depends on the person. Privacy is something you may not know you need until you don’t have it. In many places, the apartments are designed with the bedrooms leading off of common space like kitchens or living rooms. Everyone knows your business because they have a front row seat to your bedroom door. Awkward.
At Meadows Crossing, we incorporated hallways into our townhome design. Hallways allow bedroom space to remain private. Our residents do not walk out of their bedroom in front of a live audience. Additionally, every bedroom at Meadows Crossing has its own private bathroom for more privacy.
Property Management
If the management of an apartment community is not responsive to problems that arise, your living experience will not be very good there. Every apartment will have problems. Accidents happen, and appliances break. Roommates and neighbors have conflicts. That’s to be expected. Good management should be committed to ensuring that the living experience is not filled with problems and hassles and that it’s easy for residents to use the amenities and meet their obligations.
Reading online reviews is one way you can get an idea of the management quality. If the company has many great reviews left consistently over time, you can be sure that the management cares about their property and their residents.
Property Maintenance
Some properties do not take care of maintenance – either daily or emergency maintenance of the property. When you go to tour an apartment, make a note of how well kept the grounds are. If they are not well maintained in terms of the landscaping, building maintenance, or snow removal, you should look elsewhere.
At Meadows Crossing we have had both residents and their parents comment on how well we take care of our people here and keep the property up to the highest standards.
Safety
Our townhome living design at Meadows Crossing eliminates common areas like building staircases and hallways. There is parking available right outside your apartment entrance. This makes it safer for residents and visitors to navigate at night or in inclement weather. It also eliminates many opportunities for germs to spread.
We have also taken measures to eliminate germs in our common amenity areas. We’ve applied MicrobeCare to our amenities and installed bipolar ionization devices on our common area furnaces to protect our residents from microbes. We are proud of the work we have done to keep our residents much safer from germs and disease during the pandemic and afterward.
Which Apartment Features Matter Most?
We hope that this blog gives you some things to consider when choosing an apartment community off campus near GVSU. At Meadows Crossing we’ve done our best to create a place that makes life more productive, enjoyable, and safe for our student residents. If you have any questions about Meadows Crossing or our apartment features, please call us and arrange a tour. We would love to show you around!