Charles River Landing

Properly this maintained beautifully, service requests responded to quickly, staff go beyond the call of duty to help to help make Charles River a great place to live.

I’m so happy to share my experience with Charles River Landing. My Husband and I relocate every few years or so, because of his profession. For the past two years we have lived at CRL and we feel comforted by the fact that CRL has been a place where we feel rooted and can call home.
The staff is really on point and friendly. They have a willingness to accommodate even the smallest of tasks in a timely manner, knowing that it might make our day a little easier.
The building and grounds our well maintained. We have always felt comfortable and safe here.
We also, love the location of CRL. We have quick access to the highway, downtown Newton or Needham, and the local restaurants.

Have lived in two different apartments on different floors in nearly four years. Noise from neighbors hasn’t been a problem in either one. Maintenance was superb, from replacing a broken window to light bulbs. Location is handy to the city or metro area.
Amenities as mentioned by others, are quite nice. The garage parking is wonderful especially during the winter. Wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the Boston area.

Great size, plenty of closet space, on-​site gym & pool, but the sprawling layout and the frequent middle of the night fire alarms are a drag. With fire doors and sprinklers, there is no need for someone a half mile away (really!) to have to evacuate because of a prank or a «technical malfunction.» These alarms are so frequent that the Needham Fire Dept doesn’t seem to take them seriously anymore. I also have an apartment in a similarly sized building in Manhattan and haven’t had a fire alarm in 10 years.

They’re sure to hit all of the checkboxes for amenities (pool, game rooms, movie theater), but in all my time here (more than a year), I’ve never used any of them. The rent is extremely high and fees abound.
The reason I have to give this one star (and can’t wait to leave) is the aforementioned noise problem. It’s more than an inconvenience when someone upstairs from you jumps out of bed at 5AM on a Sunday — your walls will shake. Crying baby in an adjacent unit in the middle of the night? That’s now your problem. I (used to) work from home a lot but the nearby noise makes that impossible. When people on the conference call are asking why you’re calling from a bowling alley because the kids upstairs are rolling around on the floor, we’ve left the realm of inconvenience.
Management knows they have a shoddy construction issue and gets plenty of noise complaints to which they will feign action («We spoke to the people upstairs for you») but they won’t do anything. There really isn’t anything they can do. Of course, if they admitted that from the beginning, or made some concessions on the cost, that would be a professional response, but that not how CRL rolls.
If you’re dying to spend $ 40K a year to live inside a bass drum,
they’re dying to take your money.

it has decent amenities. You can hear everything (ie I know when my neighbor open kitchen cabinet or walk anywhere, I can hear what my next door neighbors are saying in the adjacent unit) My neighbor above me stays up to 2 am four days a week (so that’s my bed time). The management staff has been unable to do anything about it.

I lived here for two years and lived in two different layouts. They were both one bedroom layouts with a TON of space. The size of these apartments is great. To have a full laundry room, a huge walk in closet, and a huge U shaped kitchen was awesome.
Although I do love the apartments I do have to agree slightly with one of the other reviewers. You can definitely hear your neighbors, but it is a community, so what did you expect? If you want perfect silence you can live in a cabin in the woods. If you want to live in a convenient location you have to compromise somewhere. Compared to other places in the area Charles River Landing is not a compromise.

Only worth it if you can get a subsidized unit — to pay the full rent here is to be thoroughly ripped off. We moved here in early 2013 and after 10 months we are sick of it. The only bright spots for me have been the extremely friendly and courteous maintenance staff and the coffee machine in the lobby. Really.
Units are nice to look at, finishes are definitely a step above your average apartment home but this place is all about appearances. Walls are so thin we can hear neighbors footsteps and TV noise, even when not turned up. The building is very large and not well planned — good luck if you live on the far side away from the office, it will be a 20 minute round trip to pick up your mail. Recently there have been several incidences that indicate that CRL is in decline already — false fire alarms (3 times in the past 2 months), my husband and I constantly smell weed in the hallways (plus since we have been here we have encountered a first floor hallway that we have nicknamed «the gulag» because it constantly smells like an Eastern European prison camp mess hall). My husband was threatened by a teenager in the elevator, who remarked to his friend «I could rob that guy» while they were riding down. Driving through the garage is taking your life in your hands — residents here have no respect for anyone but themselves and we have had several near-​misses from reckless drivers. We received a notice that our non-​subsidized rent is being raised 10% next year (check their prices online and do the math) — we were leaving anyway but that was the nail in the coffin for Charles River Landing.

My wife and I moved to Charles River Landing in February of 2013. We have lived here now for almost a year, and we have experienced several problems, noted below:
Parking: Kids skateboard down the parking ramp, there are not enough mirrors and I have been almost hit by other drivers several times.
Noise: I can hear my neighbor talk in the apartment next to me. Nothing I can do about it, the walls are built way to thin. Every appliance in my apartment is the loudest appliance I have ever had.
Safety: The fire alarm has gone off every other week for the past month and a half. I was on my way home from work, and I was threatened by a group of 3 teenagers. I did nothing to deserve this, as they got off the elevator and I got on, I overheard one of the boys say that «he bet he could rob me». Everyday I smell pot in the elevator. Run from this place, we are moving in a week and cannot wait to get out of here.
Construction: Heater is loud. Several issues with the construction in our unit specifically, the hardwood floors were not installed correctly, there are huge gaps in the floor. The bathroom has tiles that are chipped and are coming apart. Looks like the place was thrown up too quickly.
Staff: Staff is all a bunch of 22 year olds, they have no idea how to run the place. All they do is sell apartments and they get annoyed when I come down to get my dry cleaning (I generally have to interrupt a sales pitch to a prospective tenant to get a package or my dry cleaning). One of the women in particular is very rude and unpleasant. I went to get my package, and she could not find it. She swore that we didn’t have it. I waited for another member of the staff and she found it.
I have lived in several apartments over the last 10 years, this by far is the worst. With the rent that they charge, you should not have to put up with the harassment.
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Great property with awesome amenities and nice units! The leasing staff and property employees are all extremely nice and helpful.