Campus Walk Beau Trace

I have lived in this apartment for 4 years (all of law school plus 1 MA degree year). The building is not the newest or prettiest, but it is bright with lots of big windows, clean, pest free, close to school, and has lots of space, including a large kitchen. A parking pass for the lot outside the building is free with the lease-one per resident. The management company is normally very responsive to maintenance requests, but sometimes you need to follow up and push them. They have treated me fairly and been flexible with adding a different roommate to the lease every year for a $50 fee. The heating and pipes rattle a bit. The laundry room is in a neighboring building and is small, but the apartment is a block away from a nice public laundromat, which I prefer using. It should also be noted that the building does not allow pets (except certified service or emotional support animals) but it does allow smoking and candle use. The doors to the individual apartments are connected to an internal hall/ stairwell, so if your neighbors smoke you can sometimes smell it. The front door of the stairwell hall that opens to the outside is not locked, but I have generally not had security issues.

I've been reasonably happy with my apartment so far. The apartment itself is large, and the living room has a "study nook" with a built in desk, which has been a lifesaver. There are windows on two sides of the apartment, which makes the lighting nice. I'm moving next year, but only because I really wanted an apartment with a washer/dryer and I found one even closer to the law school.

The good:

-Super close to the law school (~8 minute walk)

-Reasonable rent for a large one-bedroom near campus

-I had one or two maintenance issues right when I moved in, and these were rectified quickly. I have had no maintenance issues since moving in, which I think says good things about the quality of the apartment.

-Front office is quick to answer non-maintenance questions over email

-The surrounding blocks are all students, but the weekend noise doesn't often make it up to my third-floor apartment

-There is a dishwasher and a dispose-all

-The bathroom and kitchen have wood laminate, which is much better than tile in my opinion

-The heating and air conditioning are central and distribute pretty well

-The internet is sometimes spotty when I'm trying to stream video, but I have had few to no issues when attending online class.

The wish-it-was-different

-The lease requires that I pay for carpet cleaning when I move out. This is apparently not uncommon in Bloomington, but I'd never encountered it before.

-I haven't moved out yet, but I have heard it's rare to get your full security deposit back.

-I don't use the dishwasher because it doesn't clean very well

-There's white high-pile carpeting in the living room and bedroom, which is very common in apartments (and probably dampens sound) but I'm not a big fan.

The bad

-Water pressure is not good and water does not get very hot.

-The parking lot in front of my building is on an incline which makes things very slippery in the winter - be careful!

-I got locked out once at night (totally my fault). Campus Walk has an emergency locksmith who came out pretty quickly. There's an after-hours lockout fee explained in the lease, but it can only be paid in cash on the spot. That's also in the lease. Lockout fees are common, but many apartments tack it onto the next month's rent or allow payment by credit cards or checks. I had to go find an ATM in the dark, which I did not think was safe. I spoke with the landlords about it, but they were dismissive of my concerns and seemed to think I was complaining about the fee and not the method of payment. This is not a reason not to rent an apartment from them, but if you do, be sure to keep some cash in the apartment for an emergency (or just call a different emergency locksmith).

Overall, I had a decent experience living in this apartment. It was pretty spacious with big closets and not terribly outdated. There were some issues with homeless people going through the trash and hanging out in the laundry room. There also was no security, so anyone could just walk into the buildings. Additionally, a few of my packages were stolen. The lack of control of the building is why I recently moved out last month. Still, it is super close to the law school, affordable, and I never felt particularly unsafe. It was a quiet building.

If you're looking for a cheaper apartment close to campus, it's a decent choice. But there are some big problems. All of the appliances are extremely outdated and they will not be replaced, the walls are paper thin, the office workers are often rude and unhelpful, and the office refuses to plow and salt the parking lot during winter. They also take away a huge chunk of your security deposit regardless of how clean you return the place. The maintenance folks are very nice but often take several tries to fix the issue. They told me they would be replacing the fridge completely as it was malfunctioning since the day I moved in, but they never did and instead took four months and 5 maintenance trips to put a temporary fix on the fridge. Overall, would not recommend living at any of the campus walk locations.

Apt is close to campus. They had trouble filling apts because of Corona so I got a great deal on a 2bedroom.

Biggest perk of apt is the closeness to the law school. Parking is reserved (not assigned) but crowded.

No in-unit laundry. Only 4 washers and 4 dryers for 4 buildings worth of people.

Wouldn't trade anything for the location. So close to the law school, campus, downtown, and Bryan Park! Mostly undergrads live in the building and in the area, so it can get loud. But there's a decent grad student discount. The building/units are older, but maintenance requests are fulfilled relatively quickly (with some persistence from the tenants). Management staff, though, aren't particularly nice and can be difficult to work with. Not enough storage space, but the rooms are decently sized. No pets!