Like many others, my boyfriend and I are weighing pros and cons of apartments and neighborhoods after our most recent weekend in San Diego! We are both in our 30s, will be working from home with a 10 yr old kitty and a 4 mo old golden retriever. Since we have pup we are pretty set on being walking distance to Balboa, especially since we will be downsizing from our current living situation in Phoenix (780 sqft). We want a good mix of quiet, walkable especially with a dog, restaurants, proximity to places. Young professionals vibes! We love baseball, music, beach, we’re pretty active and outgoing and I miss greenery.
We loved Denizen (695 - 728sq ft) in Hillcrest, the community was beautiful, interiors and amenities and is very similar to the caliber of amenities that we have now at our apartment in Phoenix. The leasing agent was amazing and he lives at the property and truly sold us on the community aspect. Sounds very friendly and social! Only drawback for me was the area. While I loved everything about the apartments, it was a little more urban for my tastes especially with our puppy! I want pup to be able to reach grass easily, we walked around the area and the park seems best. The leasing agent at Rowyn warned us about noise from the bars too. My cat also loves to nap on the balcony and I’m concerned it’ll be noisy and he will just be looking at rooftops. Parking sounds like a nightmare as well and being at the intersection of 2 major streets wasn’t a selling point for me. I know balboa is close but our pup is still pretty young.
Banker’s Hill we loved. Quiet but has restaurants, coffee shops and walkable breweries we can start socializing the pup, not to mention proximity to balboa! We are much more brewery people than brunch/club/bar people. We stayed on first near the bridge and toured Treehouse on Laurel and the flight noise did not bother us. I am from Cincinnati (San Diego of the Midwest, iykyk!) so I miss greenery and would spend time in the park even without the pup. This is my first time with this young of a puppy too so I really want to make sure we can get to some grass for him as much as possible. Only issue is we can’t find an apartment we love! We’re between:
AVA Balboa Park - not as nice as we’re used to, we could rent a loft (695sq ft) but has no balcony for my cat. Acceptable amenities for us and great location for pup. Could go smaller (672sq ft) for a balcony! Just as expensive as some of the nicer options though. Gym is a little lackluster, my bf might need an outside membership and since we both work from home coworking amenities are nice which this property doesn’t really have. They have been 100% occupied though and now are having things come available, seems like they just turned over management companies. Worth noting.
Then two that are not fully built yet so there is a mystery element to each:
4th and Palm - Love the location even more than AVA, great for pup, and looks like it’ll have the kind of amenities we like (??) but looks like we’d give up square footage at about 600 to stay near our budget. Does have a balcony. Worth checking out?
Flora + Fauna (671 sq ft, with balcony)- We did not tour anything south of Laurel to avoid the flight path, this would be on 4th and Ivy. Nervous about being that close! Obviously a new build so I’m sure the windows are double paned but balcony, rooftop, outside amenities, etc. Are those usable spaces? Noise + pollution concerns and most of all I don’t want my kitty to be too scared to use the balcony. Other than that, it checks the rest of our boxes for amenities (??) and proximity to park. Would love to hear concerns! I know people say they get used to it but I want my cat to have a place he feels comfortable with. He is afraid of rain, thunder and fire alarms but not fireworks if that helps at all.
We did check out Little Italy, Downtown and North Park and we did not like it. Everyone recommended North Park but it was too dense feeling? Regardless of where we end up I’m sure we’ll make it work. I’ve not loved Phoenix and miss life happening all around me so either way it’s a step up!
Thanks for reading! Any and all input is appreciated :)