Presidential Towers — Attraction in West Chicago Township

Received an automated text from PT today, soliciting reviews from current residents. Well… ask and you shall receive.

Background: I am a young, woman commuter. Interested in square-footage and attached parking. No interest in re-signing. A lot of the additional fees for amenities create the same cost in a luxury building (please crunch numbers exhaustively if you are interested in amenities). Parking is in a public lot, not private, therefore not as safe. Price tag is as if it is a private lot- but no. (parking company separate from PT). For reference I lived in a luxury building in West Loop (moved because they had no one bedrooms) that charged $280 for their private garage. It is $270 through LAZ.

Important Random Tidbits: I have no interest in re-signing. The parking garage is not safe. A woman, 24, was mugged a Friday morning on her way to work (6:30 am). I drive to work. They never answer the phones so try to go in person, seriously. Unless you have some back end extension, good luck. I once left work early and hustled over to the building to ask questions (since they never answer the phones) & arrived at 5:45. 2 folks were getting up and leaving as I entered and they said to come back the following day. I was extremely frustrated. When I was able to get out of work early again to chat about my questions I headed into the office. The timing here is negligible, as the unkind experience is one I would like to, instead, highlight. I inquired about the person I was interested in seeing and explained, quickly, my questions. Two women sitting across from each other looked at me with the most untasteful expressions. They said “he left” and rolled their eyes, no interest in further helping a resident with logistical move in questions. They sat in silence and stared at each other as if I was an elephant in the room or something. Too catty for a presidential tower residential office in my opinion. I have never felt stupider and un-helped in my life from a residental office. I left in tears. Gym is $100 Much more family oriented. Kids will be riding scooters or bikes and playing tag in common areas. Building is just not really it for the price point. Other places offer a lot more for same price.

Moving In: A few things to preplan for if you decide to take the plunge with PT. If I am paying that price tag, I really do expect these things to go smoother. There is a 2 hour move in period, a delivery truck blocked the entrance for 20+ minutes and that ate into my 2 hour block. Instead of pre-emptively not having delivery trucks park there (they couldn’t extend my move in window because they booked back to back for another individual moving in after me), I was told to eat the time even though I was there on time to move myself in. While they do have different transportation vessels, there are none dedicated to folks moving in. I would suggest to management having a vessel dedicated to those moving in. It is a small overhead cost for making the move much smoother for residents. (any wheeled vessel is what I am referring to) I submitted my proof of insurance 3 times via their portal and directions given after lease signing and never ever received a confirmation. I was charged for rental insurance for my first months rent. A simple phone call took care of that charge retroactively, but super silly especially since you have a 1% chance of getting anyone on the phone in PT.

Package Room: Please ask to see the package room. When they said they had a “LUXER Package Room” I thought they meant the lockers but no, it’s just a large room with good luck finding your packages lol.

AC/Heat: This is an older building so you are at the mercy of the building to turn on the AC near the summer time and the heat near the winter time.

I truly think this building could benefit from a re-org and a re-write of priorities and values moving forward. That should come from Waterton, truly that high up... this place needs to be re-org'd.

Only true positive experiences are with the matinence...

LONG POST ALERT!

Short review:

Pros: The Stay in PT is good for the budget, location, not all but most of the security staff are really good. Cons: Be aware only 2 out of 4 elevators in tower 4 works most of the time. There are chances for roaches, so be careful. Be extremely cautious while dealing with lease management. do ask all your questions & check about timelines before you apply and pay your move in fee because as soon as your lease is approved, they don’t care. Also if you question anything that they are not aware by any chance be prepared for delayed process and responses.

Detailed review:

I’m currently staying here on a 10 month lease in a studio which is about to end next month. I decided to renew as I dint have much time to search other apts. I decided to move to a different studio within the same tower as I’m already paying high for my studio and the proposed renewal rate is even higher.

weirdest thing is heard is I had to pay one entire month rent extra even if I’m moving after my current lease ends as they consider it as transfer. since i decide to stay, I went ahead with that option as I was given some discount on the extra 1 month rent pay. Later during income verification, I was asked to log into my workday through safeRent for last 2 years verification. I did, I was shocked to see all my 5 years of paystubs were downloaded from my workday which I was not informed. I questioned the same, looks like they aren’t even aware. I was told this system is new to them as well and none of others tenants ever questioned.

I only asked confirmation from PT management that whatever saferent they are using to access the paystubs and downloaded is safe enough and data will not be misused. this whole process took 2-3 weeks with back and forth emails, meeting with the manager. To my surprise none of the PT management is ready to confirm the tool they are using is safe, they were confirming verbally but not ready to confirm via email. I felt weird and finally told i can only proceed if I get a confirmation. Only then, I have seen a quick movement, they reached out to SafeRent and shared the response with email which mentioned about how secure Argyle is and I was good with the information shared my the agent. Why couldn’t they do this 2 weeks before itself? I was little pissed off but still ignored as they said it’s new to them as well. Shared my paystubs that they needed for final verification.

The person who dealt my application was extremely professional, nice, did everything he could to help me until this point. Initially I was told once the verification is done, the application will be approved immediately and it might take 2-3 days to generate the lease. Now, After giving all the information it’s been a week, I dint get any update. I emailed, no response, followed up again. Then I got an email it is approved and lease will be generated in couple of days within the same week.

When I went to lease office and asked about the timelines, the person said everything from his side is done and it’s now up to the management. I asked him if he can try to push as I need the new address for my visa and also reminded that I was initially told it will take only 2-3 days for lease to generate. Then he responded saying it usually takes 5 days for lease approval and 1 week for lease to generate. Why was I not told this before? I felt the response was reckless, not rude but i don’t care and I can’t do anything kind of response which is disappointing.

I cannot give new address for my visa without signing lease. At this point I was beyond pissed off to hear that answer, started to question my decision to renew here for next 15 months as I felt I was taken granted, I just asked him to make it soon if possible and left from lease office. Waiting for lease to be generated yet.. Honestly would have given 5 stars if I had left after my current lease but now 2 stars bcz of entire lease renewal process and management for taking me granted and wasting my time..not a good start to stay for next...

I usually refrain from providing feedback to places I visit as I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt in circumstances of negative reception. I was hoping to give zero stars but I was forced to give at least 1 star.

I will start off with the problem that is most prevalent at the moment, bed bugs. I started to have itchy red welts all over my body early October and was immediately told to check for bed bugs by my doctor. For those that don't know, Chicago passed a bed bug ordinance in 2013 which explicitly states that within 10 days of written contact, landlords must provide treatment for bed bugs and appropriate services, multiple times if needed until the pests are eradicated. On October 11th, I looked underneath my mattress and saw a bed bug, which was enough for me to contact my tower manager. The Presidential Towers management will straight up ignore your emails and attempts to contact them, and the phone number they provide should not even be listed anywhere for tenants to use because the management rarely attends the line. I contacted my tower manager and I got a response saying he was on PTO, and had to wait till the next day to contact someone else from management while still sleeping in an infested unit, which by ILLINOIS LAW is uninhabitable. It is currently October 20th, the tower manager has not given me a date for when pest control will be in my unit and ignored my requests and suggestions to contact a bed bug specialist who could be in my unit within 24 hours. They are contracted with a pest control company and refuse to reach out to anyone else, and from what I've heard and read, the company specialists are not too effective with their treatment (which makes sense considering they couldn’t even identify the nests in my bed frame). While the landlord still has 3 days currently to get my unit treated, I am incredibly frustrated and am frankly exasperated with how the situation has been handled. I have had to vacate my unit since initially prepping it for the treatment and find my own housing because my body physically could not handle any more bites, nor should anyone be forced to sleep in an uninhabitable bed bug infested apartment. With a whole week gone by, the bed bugs could have easily spread to more units and I am genuinely concerned for my safety and other residents' safety as a result of the ignorance and reckless decisions made by Presidential Towers Management. I have filed an official complaint with the 311 number, which is Chicago's emergency hotline, and after they had me disclose my location and the fact that I was in danger, the city let me know that I am not the first person from my address that has reported this issue recently. If this is not enough for you refrain from signing a lease and enabling the building's greedy financial tactics and unethical management practices, let it be the fact that your money elsewhere will actually get you a habitable apartment and competent management. Update: The building waited 9 days before treating my apartment, which was after the response by management below was posted. Incredibly unprofessional and disgusting for them to say they take responsibility in alleged situations when they failed at prioritizing safety. My tower manager refused to give me rent relief even though I had to find my own living for 9 days. Relieved to be...