Velo

Motel 6 and Velo… what’s the difference? Not much. To start, there are homeless people wandering around or sleeping in common areas on a reoccurring basis, and cars getting broken into all the time. This place has absolutely zero security and management does nothing to boost security. Instead, they will tell you to call the police or to avoid using the main door so that no one sneaks in. Your apartment unit is breaking down every month and maintenance will apply bandaid fixes so good luck with that. You can pay a similar amount elsewhere in north loop for way more amenities, safety, and a better quality of life. Management cares about one thing and it’s money; they will gouge you every chance they can. If some random throws a couch in your dumpster, guess what, you’ll pay for the removal. I had my apartment professionally cleaned after I moved out, but I still got charged a “cleaning fee”. The place was insanely clean. Your apartment will be very cold in the winters so bundle up, and you’ll pay insane energy bills all year round as these units are not sealed. I could go on and on but I’ll leave it at that. I rarely write reviews, but this is warranted, especially if it helps you not make a bad decision.

VÈLO, located in the North Loop, is a modern building with nice amenities and comparable pricing. Unfortunately, all of these positives are irreparably marred by a management team that can only be described as wholly incompetent and expressly disinterested in resolving even the simplest day-to-day issues of apartment building life. The issues themselves are numerous: Poor ventilation and installation in the bathrooms causes recurring mold and mildew problems. Public areas are plagued by insects, shoddy cleaning, and supply issues. Dog owners refuse to pick up waste in front of the building and on the 2nd floor deck (from the gym you get to enjoy a direct view of dogs pissing on the deck’s astro turf bocce ball court) and are not reprimanded. HVAC systems are underserved. Rent checks are cashed unpredictably. And the entire building seems to be in a continuous state of mild chaos. Individually, any one of these issues is to be expected in apartment living. The crux of the problem, and what makes it impossible to recommend VÈLO as a home, is the management's complete unwillingness to even try to do their job. Correspondence with management is unreliable at absolute best - we had to personally stop by the office every single day for over two weeks just to make sure that progress was being made on our bathroom’s mold removal (and they still did such a half-assed job that the mold has already returned). Maintenance will often cancel requests from the app with no explanation. And when they do bother to stop by your unit, they do so without warning and their work is so poor that the problem always returns. No building is perfect. But the building management team of VÈLO should be humiliated at the rate at which extremely simple issues repeatedly exceed their abilities to address. How difficult is it to instruct the custodial team to clean common areas? How difficult is it to resolve a mold issue, or to clean HVAC units? Challenges that tens of thousands of buildings swiftly and easily resolve every single day across the country leave the VÈLO team dumbfounded. And the result is a deep and persistent dissatisfaction from a growing host of residents. Until sweeping personnel and policy changes are implemented property-wide, we cannot recommend VÈLO. Look elsewhere for North Loop living.

yes

The office staff have been super helpful and very friendly. I enjoy living somewhere where the office knows the residents.

One negative is the recent change to charge residents for water trash and sewer. I am rarely home and yet I have a bill every month for $35 for other people's use. One wonderful selling point of Vélo was that all services were included in rent. Now it's just another building.

Jay and Marriah do a marvelous job keeping the apartment building clean, near, quiet, and friendly. I would highly and DO highly recommend it.

It was a great apartment but hard to recommend when it is so expensive.

My only complaint is that I can hear each step the neighbor upstairs takes, it rattles the light fixtures when they walk. I think it's a combo of construction and a loud neighbor but it's disruptive - especially late at night and early in the morning.

I personally love it, but its not necessarily cost effective for all of my friends.

It is in the perfect location downtown. Close to so many great things in the Northeast Minneapolis, North Loop, warehouse district, mill district, etc. I would not recommend this apartment community because it is very expensive.