University Center — Attraction in Chicago

FIND ANOTHER PLACE TO LIVE. The University Center markets itself as a “student friendly” building that offers “top of the line” amenities for students who attend school in Downtown Chicago... this is a perfect example of FALSE ADVERTISING.

Prior to moving In this year, none, and I repeat NONE, of the students were informed of renovations that would be happening. We received notices from the University Center about a week or two before they began. RENOVATIONS “happened” TO FALL ON FINALS WEEK. This made it extremely difficult to find a place to work without being bothered. Not only was my ability to study taken away from me, but so were things in my room. I took before and after pictures of all my belongings before construction, and upon my arrival OVER $100 OF MY STUFF WAS GONE. (2 HDMI Chords, A Customized metal desk statue that was gifted to me, and my Chicago flag.) During the renovation process I requested a temp-room. When I arrived, the room was FILLED with trash, dirty wet towels, and smelled awful. It also took 4 hours before they even came in to clean it.

Here’s my breakdown of my three (3) years I’ve living here.

Food: The food here is TERRIBLE. Not only is it super dry and inedible, but the presentation makes it feel like you’re literally being served something straight out of a horror film. The chicken is piled up and you basically choke on the bones. The vegetables are either over cooked to the point where they taste like char, or undercooked and are cold. Everything is either soaked in butter or covered in grease. If you think the food is bad, check out the silverware. The cups are stained and all the drinks have a dish soap after taste due to lack of washing. You can’t even have a refreshing beverage to help the terrible food go down. The silver wear is also stained, if you’re lucky to find any. They never seem to have any forks when you need them.

WiFi: Ugh. There is nothing more frustrating then trying to do your homework and not being able to access anything.... am I right? Well, the UC clearly doesn’t understand that. Even with the “upgraded high-speed WiFi” that they are currently installing, the internet is so slow that you can’t even load a YouTube video. It’s actually so bad that I’ve had to miss assignments because of how slow it is. Technology should be their main focus, yet they continue to put it on the bottom of their list.

The Rooms: After renovations they aren’t so bad, but they used the cheapest and most “easy to damage” material possible. That being said, expect them to charge you for damages that you didn’t make after you’ve lived here. (Trust me, they will find a way to make money off you). The bed need improving, the springs in the mattresses poke directly into your back and you pretty much wake up aching every day.

Rules & Policies: DONT. EVEN. GET. ME. STARTED. Like I mentioned before, the UC loves to milk you for all that you have. If you lock yourself out of your room 3 times, expect to be charged $50 to have someone walk you up and open your door. Yep. Just the act of getting someone to open your door costs you $50. Obviously underaged drinking and smoking is a big deal, but when it comes to even the slightest bit of noise during their ridiculously early quiet hours, they will come into your room and give you a notice. Not only do they give you a notice, you literally have to meet with someone in management and discuss what you did wrong. It’s honestly humiliating as a young adult to be lectured about making noise, even if someone didn’t complain.

My advice to any parents or students reading this review, take what I say seriously. None of this is an exaggeration. Save yourself the ridiculous amount of money it takes to live here and find your own place/another student dorm. This building only cares about profits and not the students. They market their amenities as things that benefit you as a student, but actually end up...

I go to Depaul and have lived here for a year now and did not have the most pleasant experience living here, as the security can have bad mood swings and don’t vibe with you. It can be very stressful moving in or out, as they can get hasty with going back and forth from bringing your things with you, so beware if you want to live in a place where you get judged for moving in or out of the apartment, when all you are trying to do is just get the move in/out process over with!!

Also the people behind the “check in” desk or sometimes when it’s summer now they have people for the bike room there, some of the girls need to get their attitude checked out because all i wanted was to pick up my bike and move OUTT this hell, and this one girl was like “Do you even live here?” and i found that extremely rude and disrespectful the tone of her voice and attitude when all i wanted was just to pick my bike up from the bike room. Next time somebody comes up and asks just a simple questions, I hope to god they check their attitudes and fix what they say to the people living room because it doesn’t feel good to be talked at or down like that.

Otherwise from this experience of moving out I would like to warn those even who live on the higher floors (like on the 11th floor), that you can still hear the sirens and the train passing by, honking so if you don’t want this experience i advise you to not sign a lease or live in this apartment building around where this is located. The location is fine if your classes are closeby like for Roosevelt, depaul or UIC. However you will have to get used to all the noise that comes with your view (if you have a nice view of the streets).

All in all i would NOT want to live here again or ever, and having to tap my card and have the second doors of the building always have issues trying to come in and out is such a pain. Also if you want to bring over guests you can only check 3 people at most in one day and have to go through a whole process which can take around 10-15 minutes depending on how long the line is for the check in desk. So you do you if you want to deal with extra stress with people’s attitudes, and for it to completely be an annoyance everyday. For the price it’s definitely not worth it…you can find much more positive and pleasant nicer people who are security in other apartment buildings, if not an entirely completely different neighborhood.

I am trying to think of nice things to say to end my review off but I cannot think of too much because when it’s holidays downtown can get VERYYY very noisy and it can disrupt your sleep and when all you are trying to do is study. I will say it was conveniently located to my loop classes and i felt it was nice to just go back home and eat.

However I want to warn anybody who tries to pay for anything from the vending machine on the second floor, that you will get charged $5 no matter on what item of snack…and if the vending machine doesn’t work u will have to manually call the phone number on the machine just to get your $5 back which is outrageous. The staff who help out on the work orders that you submit for your apartment and come quick as hell, but they can’t simply fix the vending machine that’s PUBLIC in the building?? Thats honestly unbelievable and I can’t tell you how many times ive wasted money on those DAMN vending machines.

Hope your experience (if you decide to live here) will be very different, if not I hope they fix their management and staff attitudes someday.

Just wanted to update my review i will say that the secuirty is tight and i felt very safe with them being in 24 hour rotation each night. With my new apartment building the security is def not into this level and will never top the security i felt at UC especially how tight it is...

As a person who genuinely values customer service and relationships, I’ve had mixed feelings about the University Center. To begin I would like to say that the UC has the potential to be one of the best places to live in downtown Chicago for students... with some proper guidance.

On my first day here I was generally content with how clean the building was and how it’s location is basically at the heart of downtown Chicago. Within a couple blocks you have the well-known Millennium park, as well as soldier field a few blocks south. Not to mention that the building was right next to the Harrison Red Line stop which makes commuting extremely convenient. There are a variety of restaurants in the building's base including a hair salon and a pharmacy across the street.

Despite the advantages the UC brings to the table, it is almost immediately offset by the disadvantages the place has. The first thing I would like to focus on are the rooms. Although recently renovated, the mess the contractors left was left for the tenants to clean up not to mention the tremendous inconvenience the renovations had on the students' exam week. The apartment itself looked decent after the renovations, however, the bathroom sinks and tubs became clogged soon afterwards leaving tenants to feel dirty.

Next, I'd like to talk about the second floor. The second floor for those of you who are reading this is the common area for the building which includes amenities such as ping pong, billiards, music rooms, etc. The gym itself was a great amenity to have except for the equipment being relatively old. Most of the times the punching bag as well as the speed bag was broken or moved. The building actually houses a large quantity of student athletes so I was shocked that they didn't put a little more work into the gym.

Despite the gym being sup bar and the billiard tables being slightly slanted, one of the amenities I was excited about was "The Caf". Unfortunately, I was let down. The food was very greasy, unhealthy, and lacking in variety. The workers there (except for a few I'll mention later) were rude, and didn't take their job too seriously. I remember a handful of times where there were absolutely no forks available in the entire place during dinner time and instead of working to get them cleaned and ready for use, the workers there stood around talking to each other while playing on their phones.

I would like to personally thank the workers at The Caf who made my time there bearable:

-Diana -Lucy -Shemaine -Jordan -Manny

In conclusion, the UC, like I mentioned earlier, has the potential to be one of the best places for student housing in Chicago but one of the reasons its not is because the place is incredibly mismanaged. In one instance the UC gave the tenants the option to fill out a questionnaire/ survey in exchange for a chance to win a couple of neat prizes but the prizes winners were never announced and instead got free feedback which in my opinion was a little manipulative. In another occasion, a few friends and I were asked to quiet down since we were being a little too loud to which I apologized to the RA's as well as to one of the building managers. What surprised me the most out of this situation was that the manager did not want to hear my apology and as I went to shake his hand, he crudely refused in disgust. That was far and away one of the most unprofessional things I have ever seen coming from an adult and is one of the main reasons I think the UC is not doing well.

With all this being said, I would like to extend the UC an invitation to have a dialogue to see how it could improve. Although I will not be coming back, I wish this place the best of luck in the coming years and truly hope they can turn this...