ANOVA uCity Square — Attraction in Philadelphia

UPDATE! After 3 years living there, I am super grateful I picked that place. I’m reading now my previous review and I couldn’t agree more. We lived good years there, starting residency and fellowship, going through pregnancy, and now with our little one.

The building consist mostly of grad/post grad students and health care workers from the area. Small families and couples, a few dogs, a few babies/toddlers, no kids.

The property is really well kept, and after 3 years I must say.. the hall still smells incredible as always. But what stands out by far is the staff, I mentioned Shannon and Mary 3 years ago, they are still working at the leasing office. The cleaning staff and the maintenance guys are always super efficient, always responded within 24-48h. But Taisha and Kieran at the front desk are the joy you need every morning when you get your coffee, they are just amazing humans that work hard to make your day better, small little gestures that made that place really feel like home.

On the downside, although the internet is super fast - part of the pricy innovation package - in the first year, it was really unstable. I believe I had a professional gamer living upstairs. Anyway, it got fixed, thanks to Mary calling the company out every week. But it took a few months. Some neighbors never experienced the internet instability and worked from home without any issues, I guess it was just bad luck.

I read some ppl mentioning pests, but thankfully, we never had any issue. The noise is just natural considering you live close to a huge trauma center, so expect helicopters and ambulances, but never really bothered us. And every semester a college kid puts foil in the microwave or something and the fire alarm goes off, so the whole building needs to evacuate. We also had a bike stollen from the bike storage before it got secured, they had glass windows and a gate that a 5yo could break in, but they fixed it now and they payed for my bike.

Rent was adjusted yearly with the inflation, but the innovation fee went up by around $50 $$$. I guess that’s because they also increased the activities gym/yoga classes, happy hour, celebrations, pool, EV rentals. We enjoyed them all and we met some great people while we lived there thanks to those events.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. You pay above the average in the area, but you get a lot of perks with the rent. I mentioned a few flaws but they all got fixed at this point, so I’m keeping my 5 star review mostly for the wonderful staff, that even if you face problems, they will do all the can to fix them. I’m glad we chose Anova 3 years ago. We moved to another state, and that’s why we left. But I definitely recommend the place and I am grateful for everything we lived there.

—————————- July 2022

I am super excited with our new home. To start, the leasing office was AMAZING Shannon and Mary are super nice and always fast to answer all the hundreds of questions we had (before and after signing the lease). As we are moving from another state, and the building is brand new, I was a little skeptical with only a few reviews and just sketches on the website. But we went to check the building out this weekend and it is exactly like it was portrayed. It is beautiful, it smells good, and we instantly knew it was our next place to call home. The only thing that held a little bit our excitement was the fees not included on the rent, like the innovation ($75) and the trash fee($17.5). That made the apts go a little over our initial budget, but I guess it is worth it for a brand new Gym, an amazing pool, nice grill and all the amenities in the building. The location was just perfect to us, since both of us are working at HUP and it will be a quick commute. It is also 1 block away from a little park full of dogs, so we can safely walk our dog and have nice playdates every day. I hope they don't increase the rent for next year. We are really excited to move in and so far, we had an amazing experience and I fully...

tldr; Anova UCity is probably one of the best places to live in University City.

My review is based on living at Anova for approximately a year.

Amenities: The amenities in the building are great and well kept. There are always groups of people hanging out in the common areas so it feels like there is a community in the building. The gym is among the best I have seen and compares better with a dedicated gym than your typical residential building gym.

Internet: This is perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of living at Anova. The internet service here is subpar especially considering the cost of rent and the general luxurious feel of the building. If you are a gamer or work from home you may find yourself continuously disconnected throughout the day. While working from home my Teams calls would drop multiple times a day on a daily basis so I mostly used cellular data for those. Anova offers only one ISP (SingleDigits) so barring them improving their service there is no way around this issue.

Maintenance: Since the building is still relatively new I have encountered a few issues with plumbing caused by the building's structure settling over time. However, the leasing office and the maintenance staff are on top of these issues and they make every effort to ensure that these problems are resolved quickly and painlessly. They also strive to keep the building clean and update the building's policies as needed to maintain a healthy community.

Units: I lived in a studio and I found the layout to be quite comfortable even though it is small. All of the appliances work perfectly and I really appreciated the high end, in-unit washer and dryer. The units facing the parking lot suffer from light pollution from the building itself so a blackout is a must. The units facing the outside may be noisy due to the trolley or the construction site nearby, but hey, you're living in a city. I also never heard any of the neighbors either above or next to me. A word of warning goes to the units facing Warren St, however. There are plans to put a new building in the empty lot next to Anova, which would be quite noisy during the day. Also, those same units face a Penn Medicine building where helicopters land throughout the day on most days. These can be heard from inside the unit but they come infrequently so you'll get used to it. The same applies to the emergency vehicles that arrive to that building.

Location: The building is perfectly situated for anyone working or studying at Drexel/UPenn. If you are commuting to center city, the MFL stop is not far either. Also, if you own a car, there are lots of free parking spaces to be found nearby especially if you get a parking permit. Finally, if you commute by bicycle you can get to center city almost exclusively on bike lanes from Anova.

Overall, I would highly recommend Anova to anyone looking to live in University City. The rent is a little steep but Anova certainly offers enough to justify it. University City is also among the fastest growing neighborhoods in Philadelphia and Anova is purposely well positioned to be near the center of all the...

True rating probably more of a 4 or 4.5 but rounding up for overall general experience.

KC Miller's review captured basically all my thoughts as well--both the pros and cons. I lived here for 2+ years and also recently moved into CC where I'm getting more space for less money, upgraded amenities, and better location. That being said, I really enjoyed ANOVA.

Pros: awesome gym, pool + hot tub, lobby, business area (especially the soundproof pods). Luxer One package system is also one of the best for shipping and receiving. ANOVA's convenient location is great for some of UC's best restaurants, cafes, and transportation - though other parts can require more vigilance especially at night.

The building also has some nice social activities for people and their pets, including happy hours and yoga. I only partook in a couple but it was nice to see the residential community altogether. Mix of families with young kids to students and working professionals.

Cons: as KC mentioned, pricing is quite high. I chose this place for the convenience to work, so I did pay the premium for that. But even compared to other ANOVA-like apartments in UCity (or even CC), this was still on the higher end and hard to make by.

Also agreed that there was a lot of noise: you're living next to a hospital so you'll often hear helicopters or sirens, but you learn to tune that out. There are also frequent construction projects so you may hear some drilling either early morning up until the late evening.

The building's walls are pretty thin too; I could hear my neighbors/their conversations, even though they were just doing regular daily activities. I was also near the pool so in the summer it could get pretty loud with parties and gatherings. I've also had an instance where I was walking barefoot during early evening hours and my downstairs neighbor filed a noise complaint (to give a sense of permeable sound). In comparison at my new place, I have to raise my voice to hear my roommate if they're in another part of the apartment.

I will say that the staff is really what made living here a delight. There was an older gentleman with glasses in Maintenance (John?) who was especially sweet whenever I'd see him. My work orders were also promptly responded to and fixed within 24-48 hours.

Most of all, Tashia and Kieran at the concierge were amazing: always so kind and professional, and the main reason I'll probably miss ANOVA. From helping me with bell carts and package mix-ups to always saying hi with a smile, they are truly the best.

Even with some of the cons, I had a great time in this...