Collegetown Terrace Apartments — Attraction in City of Ithaca

Living at CTT (Collegetown Terrace) has been a positive experience. I lived with Novarr more than 10 years ago when I was a student, and returned to live with them as a young professional.

The facilities are new and modern, with 2 well-equipped gyms (there are bathrooms next to each), yoga classes (new!), and staff who maintain the buildings. Requests are met promptly and courteously (even after hours there is someone on call). The leasing office staff are especially wonderful - and in fact remembered me from when I was a student (there's also an on-call tech person). They still provide shuttles to campus, which they have always done - they've added on shuttles to Wegmans on the weekends too. It helps especially since I don't have a car, but they offer tenant parking (covered garage, not included in rent) which is plentiful.

It's a good location - a quick walk to Collegetown and less than 10 min walk to downtown. 2 bus stops right near the complex (in addition to the shuttles they provide). It's on State, but it's actually very quiet inside the complex with a nice walking trail in the back. In the winter, the snow removal is prompt and sidewalks are always salted. Maintenance will work through weekends if the weather is really bad to keep the complex clear of snow. The bridges between buildings are heated/salted in the winter to keep them from freezing.

The apartments are furnished. When I first moved in, there was a problem with my washer which they promptly replaced with a new one. Trash and recycling is conveniently available in multiple places - inside garages so you're covered and don't have to go out into the snow in the winter. There’s also a large mail room (depending on your building), outgoing mail slot, and pickup for some outgoing packages (makes Amazon returns really easy). The building requires a key to enter, and a separate key for your apartment/bedroom. There are security cameras and staff that you see around most of the time – it feels like a very safe place. Even in the summer time when students are mostly away, it’s quiet and safe.

They provide a newsletter, updating tenants on new happenings / services, reminders, etc. They will around holiday times (or exam times) provide tenants with free food, snacks, etc. catering from some really great local restaurants. They also communicate with tenants via email often – providing reminders to update shuttle tags or key batteries, reminders of changes in shuttle schedules around breaks, business hour changes due to holidays, etc. There are conference / study rooms sprinkled throughout all the buildings – making it a very student friendly living space. One of the buildings has some vending machines with drinks and snacks. There’s also an AV room where you can hook up your computer to practice presentations or just relax and watch a movie. All these spaces are very clean and well maintained.

Given how expensive rent is in Ithaca anywhere, you get great value for what you pay here. They’re up-front about all aspects of the lease – in some cases I’ve gone to look at apartments that seem reasonably priced until they start adding on a “tech” fee, a “living” fee, etc. and suddenly you’re looking at hundreds of dollars more than you had anticipated – Novarr is transparent. If you're a reasonable and responsible tenant, then you'll have no issues living...

The apartments themselves are good, but the management is really horrible. Starting from the top, here's the run down of everyone me, my roomie and our friends have interacted with so far:

John Novarr - Owner: We haven't met him, and don't quite know how he works and if he even cares about tenants' concerns, especially with his property's management.

Patty - Manager: Her non-smiling, unaccommodating attitude dictates the culture at the office. She disregards any promises made by her subordinates, regardless of if they are fair or not, and does what she feels like. For e.g.: Parking for a year is $500. We only wanted winter parking, and her subordinate who signed the lease with us said it will be pro-rated. A week later when we were ready to buy parking, Patty overruled it and we had to pay $500 even if its for a few months.

She talks to intelligent MBA candidates as if she's an MD in an investment bank and they are her analysts. Yuck. While Patty is there, don't expect you'll get anything that's reasonable. It's really just her whim that she goes by.

Jennifer: Haven't met her, but in the few interactions it seems her actions are driven by Patty's attitude as well.

Jackie: She's great and the only person in the office with high spirits and a helpful attitude. She'll try and accommodate you, but if it's something that needs Patty to sign-off, you already know what the answer is.

Clara: She doesn't really have any power to make decisions. But she sits at the front desk, and never smiles. It's a good introduction to this cold, uncaring office.

It's an apartment complex that has the potential to be great, if you replace this management with some good, cheerful people and accommodate reasonable requests like: Turn the heat on proactively when it gets cold Have the shuttle run till Sage Hall/Johnson. Most of the tenants are MBA students and still the shuttle runs only till the law school. Be courteous and ask permission to enter the apartment with a 24 hour notice instead of sending an email an hour before and just barging in.

Till they improve the management, I would recommend Fairview or...

Amenities are terrible. For example, virtually every light in my apartment (living room + 3 bedrooms + 3 bathrooms) was not working at some point during the lease. Sometimes the light is not working again only 1-2 months after replacement. The shuttle bus to campus are on time in most of the cases, but apparently they get overcrowded in rush hours (even after a wait in the 0-degree Ithaca winter for 15-20 minutes). Noisy. Zero sound insulation, and the walls are paper thin. My roommates and I were able to hear EVERYTHING upstairs (stepping on the floor, talking, their laundry machines operating, etc.), and I can hear everything going on in my roommates' bedrooms, which means that nobody has any privacy. Some staff are super rude. When I was having COVID last year, something in my roommates' bedroom was broken, but the maintenance staff entered my room (instead of my roommate's) and then realized I have COVID. They told about this to the leasing office, and someone in the office called my phone, and SCOLDED ME FOR HAVING COVID. But how's that matter even related to me? Maintenance staff are not helpful either. Sometimes maintenance requests get overlooked, and in some units the elevators were broken for months without anybody repairing those. The place is severely overpriced. You can find something WAY CHEAPER AND BETTER in Maplewood. If you are undergrad and cannot live in maplewood, then on-campus housing or anything in collegetown/downtown can have a much better value-to-money compared to CTT. These other places might not have the best amenities/services either, but at least they are not overpriced and have better value-to-money. Also, the lease statement says the bonus money would be returned to us "within a reasonable timeframe upon move-out", but I have not received the money after 6 months of moving out. Every time I call the leasing/finance office, they just say the person responsible for this is not available. And I can see from other reviews that many other people are having the...