Discovery At Cortez Hill

Undoubtedly one of the top buildings in the downtown San Diego area! Having been around the San Diego downtown area for years, and as a former resident, I can legitimately say it doesn’t get better than Discovery at Cortez Hill!
The location is unbeatable… located in Cortez Hill, right at the top… you’re perfectly located between Balboa Park and the Gaslamp. You live downtown, but you’re far enough away from the hustle and bustle of Gaslamp (and all of downtown) and are still within just an Über ride away. Cortez Hill has a neighborhood feel and is like a sanctuary in the downtown area.
The building itself is well built, the units are gorgeous, the building is very quit, and the residents are very friendly. A true sanctuary in downtown! The amenities the building offers are unbeatable… 24 hour security/​concierge, rooftop pool and fitness center (with hot tub, sauna, steam room, and locker room), business center, conference room, courtyard, and monthly community events. Discovery at Cortez Hill is 5 stars and a true gem in downtown San Diego!

I have lived at the Discovery at Cortez Hill for 2 months now and I have to say it is so far has been one of the best properties that I have ever lived at. The location and amenities are great. I especially love the rooftop pool, sauna/​steam room and the courtyard garden in between the towers. There is a very helpful 24 hour guard service/​concierge and overall a great management and maintenance staff.
However, the best testament for how great this place is has to be the residents who truly seem to love the place and seem to never want to leave.

I’m very torn with this review. Discovery is a great building with really nice units. The front desk and cleaning people are fantastic. They get a five out of five for sure. We’ve lived here almost 10 months and for the first six of that we couldn’t have been happier. Problem is this place has turned into a frat house in a very short period of time and because of that we had to give it three out of five.
The pool and hot tub area used to be a great place to go and relax in the sun but now it is filled with groups of drunks and smokers. The entire area is clearly marked as nonsmoking but try telling that to the drunk 20 something who could give a crap about anything but hooking up with the bimbo he’s invited over. I will say that if you complain the front desk people are on it and do something about it. Problem is who wants to deal with that every time you want to use the place.
Parking in downtown buildings is a pain and the spots are always too small, Discovery is no different. On the plus side the parking spaces are assigned. However, the spots are tight so if you end up with a spot next to a person who parks like a jackass or drives a giant truck (as was our case) you’re going to have problems. The one time I did complain to the HOA via email I got serious attitude, basically saying it was my problem to figure out.
The units themselves are really nice, most with great views of downtown. The floor to ceiling windows give you an amazing view of the bay and downtown. You do hear the ambiance, firetrucks, and car alarms but that’s true anywhere downtown and you quickly get used to that. The floor we live on only has four units and for the first three months we thought we were the only ones living there it was so quiet. Turns out there was someone living right next to use the entire time. We never heard anything the entire time he lived there. Recently a family moved in down the hall. You can hear them (and their screaming children) when they’re in the hallway and yelling at each other through the door when you’re dropping trash off but other than that it’s pretty quite in our unit. I’ve never understood why if you have children you’d want to live in a small downtown condo but to each their own I guess. You can hear the people above us even through the concrete floor. We call them the stompersons because there is no way normal people make that much noise or move their furniture around every day like they do. They must stomp up and down the hallway and across the living room to make that much noise. It happens so often we’ve almost gotten used to it although it is irritating, it’s not bad enough to make a big deal about with the HOA, but that’s just us, other people may feel differently.
Bottom line, we love the building but are getting real sick of the new frat house mentality of the place. We thought we’d spend a little more to avoid that but with real estate the way it is people are renting their condos out to the first people they come across. It’s too bad, Discovery could be a great place to live if it weren’t for the frat house folks.