Scio at the Medical District — Attraction in West Chicago Township

By the time I will have moved out I will have been a resident at SCIO for 5 years. Pros: Location: this sells the place, excellent access to medical district. -The interiors of the apartments are more recently renovated. Common areas kept clean Decent amenities Gated garage, covered if you get a spot on the bottom floor Responsive maintenance: this along with the good location are the ONLY reason I am giving SCIO 2 stars (huge amount of credit and thanks to David) There are move-in deals which can make your first year here more affordable, discounts medical students/faculty fiber optic internet if you have AT&T There are are package lockers available which you can access 24/7 Cons: -Over the past 5 years here I have watched SCIO become a generally worse quality and less affordable place at a rate greater than the average apartment building, despite the increased cost of living and everything else, and I see this continuing to occur indefinitely. They take advantage of the location as an opportunity to ask for prices which would be unacceptable blocks away. I've watched everything deteriorate and go up in price, for healthcare professionals and students it is becoming unaffordable. Cockroaches: management responds to any reports, but they occasionally continue to appear No amount of renovation hides the fact that this building was built decades ago and needs to be patched together, and it shows. I saw water start pouring in large amounts from the ceiling in the lobby 2 times in the past, and dripping from the multiple points in the ceiling many times more. My 2nd unit on the 12th floor leaked from the roof 4 times after rain until they fixed it. -Week long outage of one of the elevators recently, resident got stuck in it AC and heating: probably the most frequent complaints about the building. Since they will not replace the building's original HVAC system from decades ago tenants suffer every spring in sweltering temperatures for days or sometimes weeks. Due to an issue in the system I recently went through a multiple month period of no heat during last winter, temperatures regularly falling below 68 unless I had a space heater on (the electricity for which management reluctantly paid for because they had to). Maintenance had to regularly come into my unit and flush the system (I'm grateful they came especially at late hours) until they finally installed a device which resolved this issue. Even when the heating and air conditioning does work the units have the insulation of a piece of swiss cheese, the system has to constantly run and we pay. Issues with appliances: over the past years I had the dishwasher stop working for one reason or another about a dozen times between both my units, sometimes overflowing onto the kitchen and living room floor and ruining rugs and carpets. Some of these incidents were due to clogs but some were due to much more serious clogs or issues with the dishwasher itself (which needed to be replaced in one unit after many incidents) Utilities: SCIO utilizes a communal system of paying for utilities in which each tenant pays a portion of the total utility bill based on the number of tenants and the square footage of the room (this excludes electricity through ComEd). The prices of some are constant (but rising) while some (mainly gas and electricity for the air conditioning) rise to insanely high amounts during the summer and winter (likely because of poor insulation), you pay the price. The utlity company claims that management pays 10%, a "fair share", but I have reason to believe tenants help pay for some of the common areas as well considering how large of an area they make up. Tenants must also pay a monthly "Utility Service Fee" so management can utilize this service. In summary after 5 years, the location is all that makes it worth it. Renovated units and amenities will not make up for the predatory high and rising prices as well as the constantly dilapidating condition of the building and maintenance issues that...

Wow, looking over the reviews I can believe we live in the same place. I really like it here. Here are my PROs and CONs (and some neutral observations). I have a one bedroom apartment (a little over 700 sq ft) and have lived here about a year.

PROs Safe (tons of cops in the area, they all eat at Pompeii which is right across the street from the complex) Great location (right on Taylor street) with tons of bars and restaurants Close to public transportation (the 9, 157 and UIC bus stops are right next to the building. Only a few blocks to the pink and blue line, the 7, 8 and 12 bus stops) Close to the Loop (only a couple of stop away by L) Private parking Decent (but small) gym on premise Concierge (7 am - 7 pm, 7 days a week, hours vary on weekends) they will deal with packages, building issues, and other issues) Marta is an absolute doll! Maintenance on site (whenever I've needed them to fix something it's done in within hours of me reporting it) Close to the hospitals Laundry on premise Close to UIC Close to a bunch of grocery stores Friendly staff (they've always been polite and knowledgeable to me) Outdoor pool (with free to use barbecues/grills) Big bedroom (mine's about 11 ft by 16 ft) Tons of closet space (in my one bedroom, I have a small bathroom closet, 2 average closets (4 ft by 2 ft) and a large bedroom closet 8 ft by 2 ft) Additional storage on site ($10 a month for a 4 ft by 4 ft locker) Free secure, indoor bike storage Pet-friendly (you do have to pay pet rent) Private park (great for kids and pets) Walls between the apartment are thick concrete so I very rarely hear my neighbors (which is great because they have a baby) Business office with free wi-fi open to residents (right across the hall from the gym) Great pest control. I've never seen a bug in my apartment. Pest control stops by every couple of months to do checks Free coffee in the lobby weekday mornings (it's pretty average coffee so I usually skip it). The building also does community events: Pizza days, Wine tasting on Valentine's Day, Scavenger hunt on St. Patrick Day, a building meetup at one of the local bars, etc

CONs On the expensive side especially since the apartments are a bit basic Utilities not included Pay for laundry (about $1.50 per load both washer and dryer. At least the laundry room is nice looking) AC is a bit weak (never had an issue with the heat though) The only internet provider available in the building is Comcast Parking is expensive (I pay $160 a month to park in the resident parking area) Only one parking lot is open so finding a covered spot in the winter time is competitive Ongoing elevator issues (one of them is constantly breaking down). I believe the old company was fired and a new one brought on. They're currently renovating the elevators with an estimated re-opening of May 2015 Cell phone coverage is spotty in some apartments, so you'll often find people on their cell phones in the halls/lobbies You can not paint the walls (they offer a painting service but you have to pick from approved paint colors and they charge you something like $100 a wall)

On to some observations. While this is an apartment building, a large percentage of the people living here are college students, especially medical students given the buildings close proximity to the medical district. So seeing people hanging out in the lobbies to make phone calls, work on stuff, doing errands in their PJs or just hanging out in the common areas to get away from their roommates is not uncommon. Think of it as an hybrid apartment/ dorm.

A large percentage of the populace in the building is from Asia. Traditional Asian food is very aromatic so you will smell it in the halls (and man does it smell delicious!).

Location is great. Next to a ton of restaurant, bars, shopping areas, and hospitals. So it will be noisy at times. The building is also smack dab in the middle of a bunch of college and university campuses, expect...

I have lived here for 6 months now, and I can honestly say I can't wait until my lease is up.

At first, I thought the negative reviews were dramatic. I thought the place was really nice actually - however, things just started to go down hill.

Yes, the place is renovated, but it is definitely not worth $1600+. There is no in-unit laundry, and the closets are puny. You can definitely tell they took shortcuts in the renovation (uneven floors, outlets always shorting, door hinges too short for the door). Friends that live in the city have much nicer places than I do, and they pay LESS than I do. The only redeeming quality is that it is close to Illinois Medical District, but even then, the extra $$$ does not make up for it. They advertise as "West Loop," but this is certainly NOT West Loop - it's about a mile south of West Loop. SCIO is more "Little Italy."

Because of the renovation, we have major dust issues -- to the point where I always have asthma attacks. I have not had an asthma attack since I was 6/7 years old, and I have had to always have my inhaler since I have an asthma attack at least 3-4x a week here. To help alleviate this issue, I tried to vacuum 3x/week, bought a Dyson air filter, and even with all of this, I still have asthma attacks almost every night! So if you have asthma, do not live here.

You better hope you have NO issues with this place that involves management because they could not care less about you. If you bring up an issue, all they say is "while we are not responsible for x, y, z, we are helping you as a courtesy." Also, when you POINT OUT a lie they made, they will avoid it and deflect it to someone else's fault.

There have been multiple times where we have needed management, and they are nowhere to be found with NO way to contact them. On a Sunday, we needed to talk with management about a timely matter, and both managers were off with absolutely no way to get in contact. When we tried to talk with the leasing consultants, they were not only unable to assist us in any way, but they were rude as well. While we understand that everyone deserves a day off, it is difficult to handle some issues when BOTH managers are out. What if there is an emergency? There have been more than a few times this has happened.

There are always issues going on - boilers going out, power going out because "ComEd needs to do work", and they do not do anything to accommodate you. When they turned off the power for 4 hours, they didn't address it much - what were we supposed to do with the food in our fridge? Just hope it doesn't go bad? They even said they would have more people on staff late night, sadly we saw no management around.

You pay $185 for parking; however, it does not guarantee covered parking. I would much rather pay a slightly higher rate with a promise for covered parking because there have been numerous times that I have roamed around the entire parking lot with nowhere to park in the covered spaces.

The only thing I like about this place is the repair team lol - Casey is super cool and pretty prompt.

Unfortunately, for the amount of issues we have had with this place, I can no longer justify the price tag of it.

UPDATE: I have now received my renewal offer and it went up by more than 20%. They reasoned that because renovations were over that they were trying to normalize rents towards "market rent," but the rent shock was unprofessional and honestly too much for what it is. I would have resigned if they did 10% now and 10% a year later. When I tried to negotiate, the only offer would be to extend the lease (with the higher rent) for 16 months. Yes, it would help that I would not have an increase for an extra 4 months, but that doesn't alleviate...