Arc at Old Colony — Local services in Chicago

DO NOT SIGN A LEASE WITH ARC

I do not waste my words when saying this living arrangement is absolutely dreadful. I moved in September 1st, 2015 and the building was under construction. It was promised to be finished in 2 months. The construction extended past that date for almost another two months. The website will sell you and promptly stop there. The team at ARC works against you acting as money hungry entrepreneurs, not a force of hospitality of any kind. (They might call to threaten you with fines on a sunday morning) The staff at ARC seems not to have any direction or leadership. It's evident NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING! This place was made my home for a ridiculously high price. (rumors say they might be raising prices) The management at ARC has no problem going against a contract. This is obvious when they turned my home into a hotel... This is no longer student housing, It is in fact a hotel with a cluttered lobby, luggage, and weekend stayers who don’t care whether or not the place is respected. The lobby is currently being shared with a ginormous sign-in desk apart from the already doormen’s desk. The notion of having a doorman is necessary and quite pleasant when you are a 100 yards from a jail. This being said, a doorman at ARC just might have a short explosive temper that may become violent. I am speaking from personal experience, being in situations where, I’ve been screamed at, threatened, and even pushed. This was reported to the manager and nothing was enforced because, NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY’RE DOING. I’ve recieved several calls to come to the office at ARC to renew my lease. They said on the phone during the first call that they were closing the office in 5 days and that I had 2 days before they were going to sell my room… This call was in April… My lease ends in August. I expressed my rights to my room and politely asked that they would stop pestering me to sign another lease. I am still receiving calls about it. If you are a parent of a child that is interested in this building, they might try to have your kid sign anything at any time. Just yesterday, I come home from a trip and I see a notice that they did some cleaning. That’s always a great thing. BUT, I walked into strange splatters on my cupboards and countertops, a pile of lint balls from the filter they replaced, THE STOVE WAS LEFT ON! WHAT? WHY WAS IT ON? And for some reason my bookshelf was moved to a completely new spot. Workers will let themself in at any time so you never know who’s walking into your space. Maintenance workers are treated poorly and they tell me.

ARC calls me, emails me, and even texts me to bill me for pity rules I break though, they don’t acknowledge any rules or even laws they constantly break. If you are a lawyer, I’ll sign you in! Guaranteed to have a ball suing these people. I will continue the review upon their reaction to this one...

PS: I have, what I think, is the coolest unit in the building on the 10th floor....

Pros:

Management staff and maintenance staff are very friendly and helpful Public areas are kept tidy and are great for getting out of your room Loft style apartments have a very nice aesthetic and depending on where your room is even potentially a view of the lake In-unit washer and dryer, dishwasher, and garbage disposals are nice 👍🏻

Cons:

-The AC doesn't come on until sometime late April (it is April 14th and it's not on) so if you are on a higher floor you'll be living in 80° while it's 60° out for probably a couple weeks if not a month The free coffee machine in the library was a blessing but it broke a few months into fall and has not been repaired There are occasionally silverfish and roaches You can't get your packages on the weekend There are a LOT of people in the park nearby and they occasionally crowd the sidewalks. In my experience they do a lot of catcalling and it makes me feel unsafe Your paying outrageous prices for a shared or tiny personal room when it's cheaper to live on campus but not in the dorm There's never enough cabinet space for the amount of people in the allotted apartment and no table or chairs. The cabinets are also pretty high so bring a step stool, I'm 5'8'' and I needed a step stool or to climb to reach things If you are on a lower level in the winter (I was on 4) the heat can't keep up and you will be provided with an area heater by maintenance but this can't heat up the whole apartment The activities provided by the RA's and building are not worth paying the price that we do to live here they are spotty, poorly promoted, and if you have evening classes chances are you won't be able to attend many (if any) of them In some cases the furniture in the living room could not even seat all of the people in the apartment. For example I was in a 5 person apartment we had a sofa with 3 cushions and one independent chair so we had to squeeze in to watch TV all together The "state of the art gym" is a few dumbels a very old cable machine, a few treadmills and a stair master. Its alright for an impromptu workout but definitely not as advertised

I hope this is helpful for prospective students and tenants. I didn't hate living here, it was a great way to meet other students and make some friends but only at the very beginning of fall. If the community value isn't not important to you I would highly recommend finding another place...

Air conditioning doesn't come on until the building workers decide to do so. Currently 61 degrees outside and the apartment is at 82 degrees. There are no curtains so the sun naturally heats up the apartment.

Morning/afternoon front desk staff are shockingly impatient and rude.

Pretty much everything is somewhat broken or jerry rigged. During the first week this yeah I went to unlock the door to my apartment and the lock straight up just came out as I pulled my key out. Maintenance fixed the door after 3 days but get this, they PUT THE LOCK ON BACKWARDS. They flipped the lock around a few days later after another maintenance call but when they did that they didn't seat the lock correctly, so now we have a lock that faces the right direction except we are back to it not working since It doesn't engage when shut. 2 more maintenance calls later and it is still not fixed (The lock first broke in SEPTEMBER and it is now the end of APRIL). The last maintenance call we made the guy fixing the lock said he needed to grab something from another floor and just never came back. We really want this lock fixed because for all we know the building is going to charge us money for it when we move out.

When first moving in this year a few other things that were broken off rip was, the towel rack as it wasn't and still isn't secured to the wall, neither is the toilet paper rack, the microwave light was burnt out, washer was and still is broken too. One of the refrigerator door shelves will collapse if anything heavier than a bottle of ketchup is on it. The single bedroom in our apartment has a broken bedframe and a hanging wall socket with exposed wires.

Also the apartment just wasn't clean when we got here, the last tenants fridge magnets were still on the fridge even. You would think there would be some cleaning team that would ensure a standard of cleanliness and quality for a building that touts itself as "luxury apartments"

So in my experience living here is totally worth it IF you don't mind a severe lack in AC, broken things and appliances, rude staff, and cleaning up after the...