14 West Elm
14 West Elm Street
Chicago, IL 60610
Review Date: 5/31/2010
Review: The building is pretty nice, though it is VERY LOUD!!!! The bar on the first floor is very loud and open until 4 am. The door man, Michael is fantastic. Management recently changed b/c the company wanted it to be run by family. The management now really sucks. I love the building strictly for the location and even as much as i love the building, i moved out because of the management.
Review Date: 11/3/2009
Review: I lived at 14 west elm for 4 years, in a studio apartment overlooking Rush/State street triangle area.
Positives:
1.Location – it is situated in a great area, I really liked my studio – got plenty of light and had great view. The best units are the studios 01, 02 units – the bigger units in the building get a view of the alleys!
2.Building staff (Sam, office manager) & doorman (Mike) – Sam the manager, is a good guy and will do his best to keep you happy. However, he does not have a lot of power, the owners just don't care and run the place on bare minimums. So unless upper management/corporate changes, the office managers can't really do much for you.
Negatives:
1. Old building – in 4 years I lived there there was absolutely no improvements, and there was a great need for them in the common areas and actual apartment units. Elevators (only 2) are always breaking, on weekends it is impossible to get in the elevator because they are mostly used by people moving in/out.
3. Rent price – yes it is gold coast and the rent was not too bad but every year they would try to raise it. Yes sure you can raise rent, but not if you have made 0 improvements in 4 years!
4. Accounting/collection people – SUCK! Rent was due by 5th every month. One month I was out of the country and paid on the 6th instead of the 5th. late fee – you would assume that after 4 years of living there, paying rent on time, they would waive the charges – NOPE. This TAMMY lady had the audacity to call me at work and try to collect the , when I asked to please waive the charges considering my record, she said no and threatened to send the account to collection (for ). Results: lease was up in 2 months and I moved out, they offered me a free month rent etc to renew – NO THANKS, I was treated like trash over , when in 4 years living there I have spend over k in rent. Great job Tammy, keep your , I'm sure they are better than keeping a tenant, getting another, ,000 for the year in your empty building!
I stayed 4 years because of the location, didn't want to move and because I'm not a high maintenance type. I did have other friends in the neighborhood who lived in worst buildings. In retrospect I would have probably paid an extra – 0/mo for a better building.
Review Date: 12/26/2008
Review: I would give them ZERO stars if I could!!!!!!
Review Date: 7/27/2008
Review: Resposive friendly management. Great location!
Review Date: 11/16/2007
Review: As a place to live, the building isn’t compleatly horrible, especially if you’re a student. It can get loud at times, from both tenants and from the fun going on outside. That’s not really a problem if you know you’re living in a building with bars downstairs, and around the corner, that go till 4am.
There are two problems that should warn a renter away from this apartment building:
1) Electricity, elevators and water. The building is old and there is a weird dust made of small red and blue strands that you’ll find all over your clothes and bed, but the problems it experiences with water and electricity go beyond that. During the time I lived there, the power throughout the entire building went out on multiple occations. And stayed out for hours at a time. It is so bad that on one occasion, a fire was reported in the building, and people were forced to evacuate. The emergency lights in the stairwells did not work, and I was forced to use what light I could from my cell phone to get down to the exit. When the power goes out, the elevators go down too, so if you want to live on an upper floor, be prepaired to return from class and walk up a dark and steep stairway.
Speaking of the elevators; even when the power is working, the elevators stop working on a regular basis, and can take days to repair. Additionally, be aware that there are only 2 elevators in the building, as one doubles as a frieght. Expect multiple nights returning from work or class only to find someone moving in/out, and half the building waiting for the one availible elevator. That’s especially fun in the summer.
One last item about the elevators to be aware of is that they are very small. Moving larger furniture is much harder than it should be. Don’t be fooled if the management suggests it wont be a problem because they will simply put the item on top of the elevator and move it for a small fee. The small fee when I lived there was 0, and only certain items can be put on the top of the elevator.
Moving on to the water, I’ll be brief. Hot water comes and goes (sometimes for days at a time), sometimes its brownish-orange, and leaving any of it in your glassware leaves an unsettling and tough to remove hard white substance. After my first week at 14 W. Elm, I never drank the tap water again.
For the amount of money you’ll be paying, you deserve a place that’s not a disguised superfund site.
2) The management company. I do not mean Sam or Mike, the night security guy. I do not mean the pleasant and quick maintenance crew. I mean the company that actually runs the building. Make no mistake: They are there to profit off you, and they do not care about your problems. The quick maintenance crew is there only to keep tenants from becoming dissillusioned and looking at the building’s problems a little too closely. This company has been sued in the past for violations relating to renter’s money. Keep that in mind.
Social Bookmarks