Axis Apartments & Lofts — Local services in Chicago

0 stars if I could. I posted a review but it seems Axis found a way to suppress it. The review below is based on living on PH (penthouse) level of complex, not the loft building.

1. we lost a $1000+ item from the mailroom (very obviously a laptop from the box). We have been spoken to very rudely that we were wrong, and they told us we already picked it up (the signature they had on file did not look like ours, so someone signed for it with a tiny check mark signature). Then, upon looking at video feeds, the security manager then told us they have a return policy and returned it because it was in the mailroom for 30+ days. So did someone pick it up or was it returned? We still don’t know, and instead of calling cops, we just decided to give the public the truth about this place. Have you noticed there’s very little information about this place online, including photos?
2. When we flew in from AZ in may/june 2022, Wendy showed us the loft tower and told us we’d have granite countertops, etc., with a luxury impression. Upon me emailing extensively in june/july 2022 about details of our upcoming apartment, Wendy got annoyed and told me very clearly “Maybe this isn’t a good fit” on the phone, after she cancelled our application. Now too late to find another place, I called Fox management, and I was able to get Wendy’s attempt of blocking us from signing the lease reversed, I finished the process and moved in (drove from AZ). Upon moving in, we saw the following: all 3 sinks were backed up, 2 with leaks (the kitchen sink was really bad, they called the building engineer to help fix later), the fridge was leaking, the dishwasher hadn’t been replaced in many years (there was rust), the stove/oven was broken, numerous heater/ac units were broken, window shades were missing on some windows, and the popcorn ceiling is loaded with caked dust throughout the whole place, so there is falling dust particles from the ceiling even in the dining room. So how could we have avoided this? Wendy bullied us to sign the lease so quickly (at risk of losing our application, see above), and then didn’t show us ANY photos of our apartment before arriving, and when we drove up in july 2022, the place was disgusting, but too late to find another place for our needs. So we decided to wait it out a year and use our time in Chicago finding better places. We considered this a pretty predatory experience of moving in.
3. my electric bills in the winter are $450+/month to stay warm. Sure, you can decrease the monthly bill, but you will be cold in winter. The electric bill is so high because the heater/ac units are very old and inefficient. Stay away from these, there are a few old buildings in Chicago that have these. We learned.
4. the heater/ac units are not installed properly, so that the entire floor is loaded with electrostatic discharge when they are on, as they essentially seem to be van de graff generators. If you have electrical equipment (like I do) this can be a serious issue. I have many computers (i work from home) and every time I went to work, the hardware would get affected (keyboards stopped working, tv screens flickering, etc,), leaving my machines and equipment at risk.
5. we had to send many legal notices (threats) and aggressive stances to get our fridge/stove/oven/dishwasher/microwave replaced. What helped us is that our initial brochure guaranteed stainless steel appliances (ours did not have those), and the brochure mentioned “luxury” items. Upon us bringing the management up to our place to show them how bad it was, they then removed the “luxury” language on the brochure online. We were responsible for that change, we imagine.
6. luckily, we have in-unit washer/dryer. They are gross, but heard the common ones are worse
7. pool: i went swimming once, and got a cold the very next day. Pool is just loaded with chlorine in hopes to keep it clean. it’s sloppy and disgusting at best. The amenities are useless if they close access to them
8. just the other day, 9 people got stuck in elevator

someone made...

I've lived in a studio unit at Axis Apartments for a full year, and I want to share some issues that are rarely mentioned in other reviews but significantly affect daily life — especially for students or long-term renters.

Extremely Loud Window AC The in-room window AC unit is unbearably loud — easily over 70 decibels when cooling. In a studio, conversations at the dinner table are almost impossible with the AC on. It affects both sleep and quality of life. Cooling is weak, so I had to use a personal fan to help circulate the cold air. In winter, it blasts excessively hot air. Electricity bills exceeded 100USD/month in summer and often hit 200USD+ in winter — and that's just for one person in a studio.

Overcrowded High-Rise with Poor Elevator System The building has 60 floors and over a dozen units per floor between levels 14–59. There are only 4 elevators, and often one is out of service. Wait times during rush hours are frustrating. The density here is far higher than nearby buildings like 420 E Ohio and feels beyond reasonable residential standards — even compared to other major cities globally.

Inconvenient & Error-Prone Package Handling Unlike other buildings where residents can freely access their own packages, Axis requires all deliveries to be manually sorted by front desk staff. Often, there's a sign saying, "Please come after 7:30 PM to pick up packages," which means you can't just grab your delivery on your way home. Even worse, the manual sorting is highly error-prone. Over the course of a year, I received other people's packages over 20 times — usually because our names were similar. One time, I was mistakenly handed someone else's brand-new iPad Pro. I reported the issue multiple times, and even the rightful recipient complained, but the staff never seemed to fix the process. Shockingly, even after I moved out, the building app still showed someone else's package under my name. Totally unacceptable.

Old Popcorn Ceiling Reduces Room Brightness The room has a dated popcorn-style ceiling with bumpy texture. This causes lighting (especially from floor lamps) to scatter poorly, making the room feel dim even with multiple high-wattage bulbs.

Poor Window Insulation The windows don't seal properly. Chicago's lakefront winds often cause whistling noises inside the unit, and cold air leaks in easily. Heat retention is poor, which further drives up winter energy costs.

Low-Quality Flooring The floors appear like wood but are covered with a plastic laminate sheet that traps dirt and makes cleaning difficult. It feels cheap and far less practical than flooring in nearby buildings.

No Cell Signal in Lobby The lobby is a complete dead zone for all major cell carriers. Friends often lose signal before even entering the front door. This makes coordinating meetups or secondhand furniture sales extremely inconvenient.

No Real Ventilation — Cooking = Fog There's no functional range hood in the studio. Cooking simple meals like steak immediately fills the entire unit with smoke and odor. The building's ventilation system seems weak — you can often smell neighbors' cooking in the hallway for hours.

Strange Sweet Chemical Smell There's a noticeable sweet, chemical-like odor in the room — even when completely empty and cleaned. It seems to be coming from construction materials or interior finishes.

Tap Water Smells Off The water often smells strongly of chlorine or metal. Last winter, white semi-transparent water came from the hot tap several times — unclear what the cause was.

Frequent Utility Issues The hot water system broke down at least 4 times in less than a year. Xfinity is the only ISP available, and their service also had several outages with slow...

TL;DR Do not live here. Management is unprofessional, does less than the bare minimum to maintain the building, violates building codes to save costs, and will raise your rent 10% after your first year of living there.

Here’s what you can expect if you make the unfortunate decision to live at Axis Apartments (or any Groupfox building):

The constant smell of SEWAGE

In an obvious effort to save costs, management began turning off ventilation fans to bathrooms, despite it being a Chicago building code requirement to provide mechanical ventilation to windowless rooms. Due to building wide plumbing issues, this caused a sewage smell to emanate from the vents into the bathroom and the rest of the apartment. We reached out to maintenance about the smell and they advised us to reach out to management. Management played dumb, claiming “construction”.. Construction in the middle of the night? Total liars. This issue was never resolved before we moved out

Due to these building-wide plumbing issues, the lobby REEKED!!! Friends and family would come over and immediately comment on how gross it smelled. We thought it was dog poop. This went on for 3+ months. No accountability, nothing done about it except forcing the maintenance staff to mop the lobby more frequently when this was clearly caused by a systemic plumbing issue.

The least professional staff and management in the world

Our in-unit washing machine flooded our apartment. It took maintenance FOUR DAYS to respond. I finally was able to get a hold of them of my own volition, and a particular worker claimed it was “not his ticket” so he wouldn’t help (i am stepping in an inch of water at this point). Spoiler alert: it was his ticket, he just didn’t want to deal with it.

Management will send random threatening emails to nobody in particular. My favorite: threatening to close the sun deck (the only redeeming part of the building) due to some poor behavior… maybe punish those people and not hang it over people who are minding their own business.

Frequent, disruptive outages

Elevators: tempted by a nice view on a high floor? You’re going to be in great shape. Be prepared to hike up there a few times, as 1+ elevator will be broken at a time, sometimes all.

More than 3 times there were power outages (not weather related). On one occasion, water and electricity were out for 12 hours. Management’s response was to provide enough bagels and coffee for around 50 people. How generous!

The most unpleasant, unaccommodating move-in/move-out experience

They will give you 1-2 hours with the freight elevator, and put bookings on top of each other. So if you need a little extra time, forget about it!

When you move out, they will ghost you when it’s time to book the elevator. Show up at the leasing office, they’ll “book the elevator for you”, but actually do jack. Your movers will show up, and they’ll have their own construction crew using the freight elevator because they are desperate for money and trying to turn part of the building into AirBnBs.

If you think it seems like a good deal compared to other options in the area, there’s a reason for that. Any positive reviews are surely from...