Rita Atkinson Residences

Stayed here in graduate student housing while attending a graduate course at the medical school here at UCSD. I liked the place I stayed at. The apartment was located on the 9^th floor, so we saw the La Jolla skies over the highway. Close to many beaches, many of the colleges on the campus and more importantly the medical school. Parking however was a hassle. My fiancé stayed with me and liked the place. The sky’s were beautiful every morning.

I am writing this review from the perspective of a spouse in married family housing.
My honey and I have a 2 bedroom — 650 sq. ft. Before move in I was frustrated by fruitless searches for images of the interior of apartments at The Rita. I found out later the reason is that there are many different layouts that are distributed in lottery style. It is total chance whether you will be incredibly lucky and get the penthouse with a wall full of windows and a small porch or you will get stuck on the east side on the first floor by the dumpsters where the heat builds and the air stagnates. You won’t get to see the place beforehand and you don’t have much time to decide if you want it (that was so different than the other places that I have lived for the last 15 years but normal is not what you get when you live on a college campus so there is that)
The location: So close to class for my honey (He’s an engineer) and also on a few great bus lines. Walking distance to grocery stores. Black’s beach blows my mind it is so beautiful. And other than that there is nothing to do. Parking is an issue so mobility can be challenging.
The apartment: My honey and I did pretty well for ourselves since we got a corner unit. The layout is sensible even if the bedrooms are tiny. From what I can tell all units have great storage space, pantries, extra closets, a giant island in the kitchen. The concrete floors are great. The temperature in our place is generally comfortable 72 — 76. There is no AC in the building and we have never used the heaters. We love our fan though because air flow can be stagnant in the building.
The tenants: This is not a building where people make eye contact or say hello. Its just not the culture here. The management tries to host events and bring people together but usually people just come for the food and leave. I have literally never seen my neighbors (that is not normal for me, but again college campus). People stick to themselves sometimes this translates to a lack of consideration — every quarter we go through a round of days of the hallways smelling like hot garbage because new tenants take a bit to learn the garbage system (its not hard, but there you go). Generally everyone is fine but the lack of community has been hard. I especially miss knowing other married people.
Maintenance and Janitorial team: responsive, friendly and competent. I have had such good experiences with the support staff here I can’t praise them enough.
Office: Adequate. Not always very friendly and run by a steadily changing stream of students so service can be hit and miss. As a spouse I feel as if I am not ‘really’ supposed to be here. There is no system for me to get messages about packages addressed to me. I had to get really creative to get a triton card to pay for laundry. I don’t get responses to my emails or inquiries, etc. The few spouses I have met on campus have also expressed similar sentiments.
This is the beginning of our second school year here 2015 — 2016. It is affordable, safe, incredibly quiet and still I cannot wait to move next May. If you are considering married family housing and are used to having community, parking and things to do where you live this may be a challenging place for you. Best of luck to you in making the right decision for you.

Pros:
–Cheap (Rent ~$ 480, Utils: $ 4; internet extra)
–Close to fellow students
–Nice kitchen (granite counter tops!)
–Close to Biomed Library and Main Gym
–Short run to LJ Shores
–Environmentally Friendly (I no longer feel guilty about littering!)
–Helpful staff
Cons:
–No overnight parking!*
–Concrete walls may suck the life out of you
–Concrete floors are great for shattering dishes and small electronic screens
–Cramped living room and bedroom
–Not much natural light
–Very little extra space to put a desk
Recommended For:
–Med/​Pharm Students
–People who like to begin their day with a run to La Jolla Shores /​Black’s —
–Cyclists
–Grad students who want to moonlight in Valet Parking
Not Recommended For:
–People who use their car on weekdays
–People who like to work from their Apt or off Campus
*(this can be a dealbreaker; if you have a B permit, you can park in the V spots after ~4pm, but you’ll have to move your car by ~730am. You can park all day in the B spots by BML, but they fill up from ~8am to 3pm. The closest overnight lot is by the playhouse, which is a 15 min uphill walk)

I lived here for a little over a year and I had a wonderful experience. I love the feel of my apartment, the people in the office and housing services are always quick and very helpful and friendly (in a building of like 400 units or so, the people in the office actually remembered me event though I barely see them), and it is cheap and a very convenient location.
I’ve had plenty of friends who live here and love to complain about it because of the fact that there is bare concrete everywhere and feels too cold and sterile to be a ‘home’. But for me, what sold me on this place are all the little details that make living here enjoyable. Ventilation is very well designed and simple, every room in my apartment is very light and airy, there are really good study areas inside the building, vending machines, bbq area, it comes pre-​furnished with very comfy beds (the couch in the living room ain’t so comfy, but it does the job), and the administration tries to sponsor social events every now and then (I’ve never gone, but I appreciate the effort).
Everything about this apartment is about efficiency, while retaining a good level of comfort. It is LEED certified, but you don’t really notice any detriment to quality of life as a result. Mainly, I think the building is just plain beautiful, especially at night.
a few gripes:
Any sound made in the living room or kitchen will propagate quite unimpeded to the bedroom, so if you are like me, then you may want to invest in earplugs. My other complaint is parking: there once was an amazingly large parking lot right next to Rita, but for whatever reason, UCSD decided to prohibit overnight parking there, so if you drive, your only option was to park off-​campus or elsewhere in campus. This problem has been eliminated by UCSD tearing down most of that parking lot to construct a new building, so even if we wanted it, there is no convenient on campus parking nearby. (this of course is not Rita’s fault, but that of UCSD as a whole, so no hard feelings.) My apartment never had this problem, but some friends of mine have had sort of crappy units, either due to location in the building or an unfortunate floor-​plan and they can feel a little stuffy or cramped. Regardless, once you remember that you are paying $ 460’ish plus $ 5 utilities per month for a single these complaints should vanish.
Overall, I’d say this is a wonderful apartment building, by far the best I’ve lived in. If you an incoming graduate student, I suggest you apply for on campus housing here. If it weren’t for the 2-​year max on campus housing rule that UCSD has, I’d want to live here for my entire Ph.D.