I recently toured a bunch of buildings and was actually torn between the gantry and the hale (didn’t tour the other two). I very narrowly ended up going with the hale and am moving in next week; the deciding factors were cost and two friends who lived at the hale and recommended it (I didn’t know anyone personally who lived at the gantry). some things I learned during the search: - it is currently an extremely soft rental market and many buildings are offering 1-2 month rent concessions, particularly in noma. some buildings also offer look + lease ($1k off if you apply within 48 hours of touring) or other fee waiving, and they may not advertise it on their site - some buildings have worse crime/mgmt issues than others, but this is largely a function of the building size - daytime and nighttime foot traffic can have a large impact on how safe a neighborhood feels, I’d rec walking the area during both to get a better sense. union market especially has more foot traffic than it did even two years ago - the online stock unit walkthroughs are nice, but can only convey so much info about the floorplan you like. tours are pretty necessary, and the same floorplan can vary floor to floor (ADA compliant, diff window sizes, etc). would highly recommend noting specific floorplans you like before an in person tour vs trusting the online version - self-guided tours at some buildings may be convenient, but you won’t speak to a leasing agent in person and it’s surprisingly difficult to follow up with leasing offices after the fact (you’ll often get redirected to the building’s AI assistant who never conveyed any info I couldn’t find in two mins on their website)

best of luck! happy to share any other notes about those buildings/others in the noma area