Solara Lofts

I’ve lived at Solara Lofts for over three years now, and I love it. The building is beautiful, well-​maintained, and located in a great spot close to the Gaslamp, Little Italy, and Balboa Park, but not in the thick of all the craziness. While the building has its share of issues, so does every condo building downtown and elsewhere.
With respect to Todd B’s review:
–The A/​C not working is an issue with the homeowner he was renting the place from, not the building.
–The charge to use the service elevator is also something that should have been resolved with the owner of the unit if he wasn’t going to be able to use it. Why would you pay to use something that you don’t get to use? Every building that has an elevator will have it break down sometimes.
–No arguments with the washer/​dryer sitch and the lack of external venting. But some of the units’ owners have upgraded to a higher quality set of washer/​dryers that don’t take as long to do the job.
–The A/​C in the racquetball court is fixed (is it not cool that there’s a racquetball court at all?), and despite the lack of water fountain in the gym area, there are locker rooms that have full restrooms, showers, and saunas. Bring a water bottle. Seriously.
–Can’t identify with the stuffy hallways or neighbors. Maybe your bro is on a boring floor. I’m close friends with several of my neighbors and many of the folks that live here are young 20 – 30 somethings with vibrant social lives.
Solara has excellent amenities, security, and beautifully finished units. Many of the units (even 1BRs) have two garaged, side-​by-​side parking spaces, which is VERY unusual downtown. It’s in a really convenient part of town close to many freeway entrances and exits, and is a little more affordable than places down in the Gaslamp or Little Italy.
I plan on living here until I’m ready to leave downtown for the ‘burbs, and I would recommend the building to anyone who wants to live the city lifestyle and still have money left over to actually enjoy it.

My brother has a lease for one of these lofts. It looks really nice at first but then he found out the A/​C didn’t work when he first moved in. (They finally got that fixed). The service elevator wasn’t working either during his move in, even though he had to pay for someone to be there to operate it for him. Then the combination electric washer/​dryer struggles to dry a t-​shirt since it is a sealed unit with no air outlet (go figure?!). The racquetball ball court hasn’t had any A/​C for two months. There isn’t even a water fountain in the gym area. The hallways always smell stuffy (the few neighbors we’ve run into are stuffy also.)
Not the kind of place I’d want to live.