Latitude Apartments — Hotel in Champaign

Honest, current resident review

Meh, is all I can say about this apartment complex. Moving from LA, I was excited to see that luxury apartments were offered here. My fiancé and I signed a lease because it’s close for his work, and mine. We signed right when we arrived from LA. First mistake.

I thought it was great at first. Most of the staff that work here (NOW) are awesome, but other than that it’s: meh. Not that great.

Our first issue at the beginning was us signing the lease, the person working at the time told us we were good to go after telling us what to sign, and where to sign. A couple weeks after that, we had a thread of frantic emails and calls, saying that he needed us to sign another lease because he “accidentally” gave us a 6 month lease to sign, instead of a 12 month. After a week of annoyance, we signed all the papers again, and we didn’t know it was another lease agreement for 12 months, not another 6 months... so in total he had us sign two lease agreements adding up to 18 months. We agreed just for a 12 month lease (IN TOTAL), which he said it would be— it’s partially our fault for not reading what he sent over, and just signing it, but we just did because he said he would be able to fix it. But this issue bugged me so much, that it caused me to hate Latitude for the first 6 months of living here. I still have a grudge. (Tried to let it go, still can’t... ugh!).

The fire alarm was constantly going off, so annoying— like we get, stop forgetting your steak on the stove people! (LOL really, one of the fire alarms was because of that). The walls of Latitude are so thin that you can hear someone’s full conversation from the parking lot, on the 6th floor (and constant beeping from the trash), and don’t get me started on people that live below you or next to you! On Sunday’s the church rings their bells SO many times, and even with the window closed the rings are deafening. There was little to no hot water up until recently early in the mornings (I work until 7am). It was an issue when we lived on the 4th floor, we moved to the 6th, and I notified them of this issue (again) and it took over a week for our building to get notified that there was a water heater issue. (Yeah I was NOT happy showering in 54° water at the time— yes, we asked maintenance what the temperature of the water was when this issue first arose on the 4th floor). The internet is so spotty that I randomly disconnect at night, and is open for anyone and everyone to connect to (even though at first it was password protected). They got rid of the cable because they “upgraded” the internet. Just bleh, lame!

Oh! And the dog park, we went twice and never again. There was poop everywhere when we did: GROSS!

And did I mention when we lived on the 4th floor, we had a broken AC for the entire time we were there? When it was hot outside, our apt was at a constant 85° even after “fixing”. We got some credit (thanks) but... yikes.

(This complaint below was resolved. Thanks Latitude— but still read incase this is an issue for you!)

I’m one for my privacy and like being left alone. I love it, thrive in it, and since I work literally half of almost everyday: I live for it. But Latitude never can ever let us thrive in our own privacy. And so many emails. There’s always some sort of inspection, bug spray, stomping on the roof, always SOMETHING. I literally sleep all day once I get home from work (really bad habit, don’t attack me lol). Hospitals are overworked right now, and we are (almost) all working overtime— please just leave me alone. LOL. (And we pay so much rent for this, c’mon!).

Yeah, rent is also SO expensive here for what you get and deal with, comparable to LA! I did more research and found an apartment a little bit further (furnished, etc), with 2 bedrooms for $1000. Please do your research!

Super disappointing. I love most of the staff, which makes it a little better. But everything we had and have to deal with... uh.

2 stars given for the staff (shout out to Anthony & Elvin for always helping us), other...

Had a terrible experience here for a few reasons:

Units are not cleaned before move in. I had a dirty floor and clogged kitchen and bathroom sinks when I moved to my unit. The dishwasher also was filled with water in the bottom after the first time I used it, and some sockets were damaged and the toilet lid was loose. This was despite the excessive cleaning (or repair) fees they often charge. I was charged 95 dollars after move out despite them coming into my apartment before moving out and telling me that it looked like I would owe 0 dollars. In general, maintenance is quite slow, at least after initial move in. It took a full month to get issues from move in resolved, and I know for some it took even longer.

There were also other disturbing issues outside my unit. There were multiple leaks (at least one from an electrical room) that soaked the carpet in the hallways between units, their electronic lock system would fail for some doors, while others would be permanently open, not requiring a key. A stairwell door was missing a doorknob once. The garage gate is permanently open (despite the fact that they issue parking fobs), and it took them more than 2 months to assign parking spots. The pool was never open despite the desk staff saying that they were confident it would be.

Desk/sales staff will give you inaccurate information about various policies such as what is included in a unit (there are NO ceiling lights/fans in the bedrooms in the units EXCEPT for the 1 bedroom STANDARD, NOT the more expensive 1 bedroom master) and whether parking can be cancelled/downgraded partway through a lease (as a warning, it cannot!). Make sure to get any promises in writing, as they will deny having ever made them if you follow up without explicit proof. Also, they arbitrarily change their availability of shorter than 12 month leases, while some of their staff denies the existence of their past availability. They will begin offering better deals for housing that begins in late August in early August, so wait to sign until then, at least if you do want a 12 month lease.

They mostly only offer tours of their model units, which are what I was impressed by and caused me to sign. As such, I highly recommend avoiding signing based off a model unit. There are definitely some nice things, such as the washer and dryer. The beds are queen, which is nice, but the mattresses are extremely firm and the bedrooms feel more cramped than they do on the tour. The shower felt smaller than in the tour, and would occasionally leak some water for no apparent reason which was a noise disturbance.

The noise level was better than at my old place, but it was still easily possible to hear loud noises such as generators and dog barking from the windows, loud rushing of water through pipes, and people talking in the hallways. I once heard loud noises from the unit above mine as well. In general, the apartment-to-apartment noise doesn't seem bad, although I suspect my wall neighbors were either unusually quiet or absent, and the noise from outside and water pipes easily makes up for it. Views are mostly good if you are on a higher floor, but you CANNOT be guaranteed to be off of the second floor under normal circumstances, where the views are either of a busy road, the interior walls of the building, a parking lot, or a run down house.

You can also clearly see the review manipulation done by management here on Google Reviews. Many of the five star reviews are uncannily similar, and often repeatedly mention a staff member, such as Jordan (Jai) Sneed, for no apparent reason. I can tell you from my experience that Jordan Sneed (the complex manager) threatened to refuse to approve a reletter (new tenant) for my unit if I was allowed to try a new unit (one of their vacant ones) in the complex first. I found this disturbing and unethical, and I'm disappointed that someone who is willing to threaten that is an apartment manager. My experience with the rest of the staff was somewhat better.

Overall, I cannot recommend against...

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 I can't give it any more stars but I can give it 5 red flags, 1 for each floor of this very problematic complex. If you are looking for an apt with heat and AC, this one isn't it. If news articles are accurate they've been waiting on a part to fix the HVAC since 2020. Latitude is advertised as "luxe" but the only thing luxe is the rent. The terrace has a very nice appearance but has been inaccessible for a large portion of my stay. If you have any allergy or aversion to mold you will stay sick here. After leaving Latitude about 2 months ago, I still have a sore in my nose that is probably MRSA. Maintenance requests do not solve issues and questions are ignored. I've had multiple items stolen from right underneath the complex's cameras only to be told they didn't pick up anything. That leads me to believe the cameras weren't working. They will add on bogus fees and on multiple occasions was charged twice for parking. Pay very careful attention to what you're being charged for, check rent details. You will be given the run around when trying to make an appt with a manager. This experience has had a very scammy feel for the entire 6 months. I wish I had done my research beforehand but I signed my lease before I moved to the area for a temporary work assignment, I'm sure many of the students do that as well. I picked this complex due to its location being very close to work even though it was more expensive than others. Other residents who have been here longer than me confirm these ongoing issues. Many have banded together to get help from the Student Housing Authority and City of Champaign inspectors. PROS: • Cute floorplan • Nice countertops • Comfortable bed if you like a very firm mattress. • Very nice pool area that actually opened this year but not at times that working ppl can utilize. • Various taco/donut/trinket giveaways in the leasing office to incentivize good reviews. • Onsite retail Lao Sze Chuan chefs kiss CLOSING ADVICE: Do you research! Check Google reviews, Yelp, Better Business Bureau. Pay attention to the # of ppl who checked "helpful" next to bad reviews. Google previous news articles about issues other tenants have had. Look into a different complex. Other traveling workers have recommended GATHER and THE RETREAT.

UPDATE I'm sure this review will get the obligatory "we at Latitude regret that your experience wasn't enjoyable...our team takes pride in providing exceptional service...we strive for great customer servive...be ware know that this is just one more lie. I left a message to have the building Mgr call me almost a week ago and I still haven't...