HERE Champaign — Attraction in Champaign

I am changing this review to two stars because the manager did reach out to me to address my concerns, which I do appreciate. However, that does not make up for the lackluster experience I had while living at HERE.

It started before I moved in. They require renter's insurance, which is not a bad thing, and through my family's insurance, this was covered. My father and I had to supply them the document stating that I had renter's insurance at least 4 times, and again on the day that I moved in. I am not sure if they "lost" the document that many times, but they were hard pressed to sell me renter's insurance. This lack of accountability on their side led to a bad taste to begin.

On move in day, the person who checked me in was not friendly, and did not seem to care about their job very much. It did not make me excited to live there. In addition, they forgot to give me a check in document to list the status of my room and common area. I was notified a few days later by the manager that I signed saying I had received it, but the person checking me in was rushing us so fast through the process that that fine print eluded me. Fortunately there was no major damage in my apartment to begin, so this ended up not being a huge issue.

A few weeks after moving in, I decided to check out the "great" amenities, only to find, to my great disappointment, that most of them were either closed or in disrepair. The movie room would not connect to a computer and the golf simulator was completely broken. Definitely a great way to start off my stay. The hot tub was also broken for most of the year.

Now let me get to the rooms. When you first go on a tour, the idea of a loft suite sounds great. It looks cool, is spacious, and overall seems like a nice place to live. Although the rooms seem small on the tour, they feel even smaller in person. There is no closet, except for two very large external dressers that take up half of the room. In addition, they are in just slightly wrong proportions so nothing quite fits in the room in a way that makes sense. As for the common room, only the bottom set of windows has blinds. DO NOT get a room facing south (toward Green St.) as you will need to use your AC religiously. Since the top windows do not have blinds, the sun is constantly shining in and radiating heat, making the common room of the apartment a sweat box. So you turn on the AC. The AC only has two settings: off or 110% on. So if you are watching TV you are getting both boiled by sun and frozen by the AC, a pretty awful combo. In the personal room, there is essentially no way to orient your bed so that you are not constantly being hit in the face with AC, so for anyone who wears contacts to bed, good luck. Also, even when the weather outside is nice, the windows don't open enough to allow hardly any air in, so you are still reliant on the AC. Which brings me to my next point...

The utilities. Now they do give you $40/person towards utilities, which is a fair amount that, assuming you are conscientious of your use, should never go over. I ended up going over the past couple months because my roommates used the AC too much and had other uses that accounted for much of the use. If you go over the $160 limit, they charge a $5 per person service charge, a scam plain and simple. Now this speaks badly on Conservice, the third party utility provider for the apartment, but it also does not leave a good mark on HERE. Unfortunately, it was in the lease that you pay a $5 service fee, so I could not get in on the class action lawsuit filed against Conservice, but in case you are interested, they have multiple class action lawsuits against them and have 1 star on Yelp. Great company.

Speaking of the lease, this lease has the strictest guidelines on subleasing I have seen at school. There is a $300+ fee to release, with no option to (legally) sublease.

I ran out of characters for this review, but parking is also atrocious and they said they would be breaking parking leases and they didn't, the...

I am rating this place a one star in hopes of this place getting better for future residents and it is impossible for me to rate this place a zero because I have already lost hope for this place.

First, let me talk about the living conditions here. The house for demonstration shows what the opposite of living her would be like. I thought I would get a TV in my STANDARD aerial room, however, the room is so small and looking so cheap that they did not even care to put TVs in my living space. Also, the room is so small as I placed two large boxes there is zero space for me to walk. Honestly, my bedroom feels like a nest for sparrows and I am not exaggerating. The place is cramped and they can't even afford to have a REAL table as my table is pulled out of the closet, and there is no space for another table. Also, please do something about this "integrated" closet, it is not helpful for me to work or move around it. For example, the pulled out table blocks the first layer of the drawers beneath it, and I have to put the table back every single time to grab something in the drawers. Also, the closets' inside structure is filled with problem. The right hand side of it is separated into two horizontal spaces. At first glance this might seem like a good idea for sorting different types of clothes. However, I must say that the design makes it impossible to put even suits and baseball jerseys vertically in it, it is way better to remove the block in the middle or place it lower, far lower than it is now!

Second, the amenities. Some of the amenities are good, the study lounge is never full, the golf simulator seemed to be always occupied, and the play house is ok. But the elevators, AC, and the doors are always needing to be repaired, especially the elevators and the doors, to me they were never functioning constantly. Here's my solution for the elevators and doors, I am going to ask you a question: which way is cheaper, either fixing the doors and elevators once and for all (which is impossible in my opinion, and the cost of fixing them is constant since you always fix them) or change the doors or elevators for better use (which in my opinion saves you money because they are more durable and not needing to be fixed all the friggin time!) Seven months ago, you said that " a water pipe burst over the winter and scheduled to be replaced the week of July 17th," how's that going? Also, "The HERE building is unique as we offer two story units for each unit which means that there is actually 28 stories." that is not the way to handle things like a responsible apartment! How about making the elevator faster so that residents won't have to wait five to ten minutes for a two-story ride on every floor? As of yesterday, there was a "water pipe burst" in the building, and everyone was forced to evacuate from the building. The water is dripping all over the floors and stairs, which led me questioning whether there are some serious issues that requires the help of firefighters.

Third, I would like to ask for some gifts for the residents, not something like a month's rent because that is too much to ask from you guys obviously, but residents like us need something like some community rewards or coupons to a discount for next years rent and I am talking about a discount fo EVERY....

First, I'm happy to say that I enjoyed the following at HERE: 1) the gym, 2) the terrace 3) the overall room size. Please read the following to ascertain the reasoning behind my recommendation that you look elsewhere in your search for an apartment:

In terms of the staff members themselves, I truly do believe that they were trying their best, and that the issue stemmed from either their lack of functional capacity or the nonsensical policies they were made to enforce. From meaningless fines to inconsistency in communication with certain staff members, I was very underwhelmed by the way I was treated as a tenant of HERE. In terms of overall security, I regret to admit that I often found myself wishing I felt more safe when I saw just how easy it was to get access into the residence area as a non-resident.

Another example was a piece of property that was broken by a roommate of mine before he went abroad, which was subsequently missed in HERE's end-of-semester inspection. When the damage was finally discovered, the remaining tenants in the room were left bearing the burden (and damage fee) that rightfully belonged to the staff that overlooked the damage in the first place. Policies and resolutions like the aforementioned lead me to question the professionalism and financial health of this company, and definitely did not make me feel welcome as a tenant. After comparing my experience with that of others both on this Google review and from personal conversations, I am confident that I am far from alone in my assessment.

I reiterate, if you are looking to stay at a "higher-end" apartment complex with solid amenities, I recommend Distillery, Green Street Towers, Johnstowne, or anywhere else that isn't owned by Bankier or First Column. With so many daily stresses you'll have as a student, make it just a little easier for yourself and spend your money on a...