Altamira Apartments

If you're thinking of moving to Altamira, I highly recommend shopping around first. Other places nearby like Link and Mural have all of the same nice features (view of the water/mountains, close to Alaska Junction, etc.) but at Altamira you're also guaranteed to get a leaking parking garage that might damage your car paint and totally unresponsive management staff. More details below for those interested.



As of November 2012, Seattle DPD building code enforcement is investigating Altamira for leaky cracks in the parking garage ceiling that leave calcium deposits on people's cars. You can plainly see the lines of calcium on the ground beneath the cracks. Both my wife and I had this happen to our cars, and it costs about $120 to get an exterior detail because calcium is corrosive to paint. Altamira refunded our car repairs but refused to fix the garage. I started a thread on the Altamira message board about it, and at least 3 other people have had identical experiences.



I do want to qualify what I said about the apartment management. I initially thought Justin Ackerman and Christine Husheback were part of the problem, but after going to their supervisors it became clear that they were just the messengers. But one word of advice: if you find yourself talking to Amy Curtis (building manager) about this, do yourself a favor and just ask for somebody else. While others were only unresponsive, she plain-old lied... twice. 1) When I contacted Joe Manca (her boss) because she stopped responding to emails/phone calls for several weeks, she pretended to have left a voicemail on my phone. 2) She wrote in an email, "The owner has identified a product that will be applied this week for testing in one area. I will be sure to keep you advised of our findings." But when I followed up later, she ignored my emails and phone calls again (more than 10 tries over about 2 months). I even visited her office in downtown Seattle and left a hand-written note, but still no response.



So yes, Altamira is nice in some ways, but terrible in others. You can do better.



(Just a final note... The person I talked to from Seattle DPD said that they get a lot of complaints about Altamira. I'm not sure what those are about, but it sounds like a good few other people could write reviews just like this one.)