Harrison Yards — Local services in Harrison

Dec 2022 - ended my 24 mo lease early and moved out Update - Oct 2022. Workers for the property developer HARASS residents! It’s a sunny and warm day, almost 70 degrees out. I sit on the steps outside the gym for about 20 mins just reading email on my phone. Then I decide to walk around past the new building next door - on the public sidewalk. I return through the adjoining parking lot behind the buildings, then the road between them, and back to the front entrance area of my building. This is not unusual AT ALL. People walk dogs and pedestrians walk by all the time! I’m standing at the entrance area of my building reading through a news alert on my phone…when a man who I have NEVER seen before comes up behind me and aggressively says, “Can I help you?” I reply “no”. He says “do you live here?”, to which I reply “yes”. He repeated “you live here?”. “Ahhhh, yes, I do…and who are you?”, I ask. He then tells me that he’s management here! Big red flag! I’ve lived here over a year and know you aren’t management here..not even an employee of any type here! I question him again and he still insists he’s management here. So now we have this confrontational man wandering around, asking me unusual questions, lying to me about who he is, and he goes to enter the building! If you read other reviews, you’ll know we’ve had crazy people issues recently…so I go in after him to see where he goes. I’m about to call 911. Fortunately, the property manager is sitting in the lobby, so I explain to her that this man, who is now trying to leave thru the back restricted area doors, claims to be management here and is questioning who I am and what I’m doing walking outside on the sidewalk! Anyways, she obviously knows I live here and she doesn’t really know him, but she knows he’s just a construction worker from the building next door. I end up leaving him to explain to her why he’s HARASSING residents. Seems it makes them really nervous when someone simply walks by that building next door that he’s working on! Interesting. Very interesting! Makes me wonder if they are doing illegal stuff there! What are you trying to hide over there? Unbelievable. There are a lot of new reviews because tenants are fed up. There are significant safety and security concerns here.

This month (Aug 2022) makes one year since I moved into Harrison Yards. Very little has been done in the last year by property ownership - EastOne Equities - to even make this place anything close to what I was promised, what the website showed, and what was expected based on the photo renderings.

When I toured the property in May 2021, I was told that leases were already signed for a seafood restaurant and coffee shop to occupy the retail space. They are still empty today. I was told all about building security, from door locks, key fobs, to cameras that would be installed. Turns out that the lobby/exterior cameras dont work or are non-existent, the lobby door lock system has been disabled, and outdoor lighting is severely lacking throughout. I was also told that the road out front should have been open by the time I moved in. A year later, it’s still closed!

Recently, the fire alarms sounded and residents from one floor reported that no alarms sounded for them! Unbelievable.

Still missing package lockers, still missing EV charging, still missing the outdoor space with bbq grills, still missing a completed gym, still missing very basic landscaping, the list goes on…

We’ve experienced multiple security issues, and apartments, while spacious and nice looking on the surface, have many examples of cheap quality and poor workmanship.

There are many apartments in Harrison touting the “luxury lifestyle”. Even though Harrison Yards also claims this is luxury living, I’d advise to check all of the other buildings nearby and see the difference. Harrison Yards ain’t it, and EastOne Equities should be ashamed, especially since those with lease renewals are seeing an 18% rent increase for this mess!...

My wife and I lived here for 2 years (August 2021-August 2023), and we were the one of the very first tenants when they opened in 2021. If you're a prospective tenant in 2023, at the time of writing this review, I caution you to look anywhere else in the area.

It's not worth getting salty about what the owners of the building failed to deliver on in the first two years, but I will say that anything that is promised will likely not come to fruition.

It took over a year for the gym to be up and running with used equipment. The community room never got a working TV. The "Sky Lounge" (terrace) is sparsely furnished / depressingly bare. In fact, a lock system was never installed to allow tenants back in the building when using the terrace, so if you'd like to enjoy it please expect to walk downstairs, through the parking lot, and back in via the front entrance. Either that or prop the door open and expect a building wide email about how the door must remain closed at all times, due to homeless people in the area trying to get in (and sometimes successfully doing so).

The biggest issue was towards the end of our stay when the owners contracted Greystar to manage the property. If you've lived in the NYC area for a while, you're probably familiar with Greystar. They manage a lot of properties, most of the time very, very poorly. Before Harrison Yards they lost another major complex further down Frank E. Rodgers, so you'd think they would come in prepared to do their best. In fact, they came in and diligently did their worst.

We are now almost three months out from vacating the apartment and we have yet to receive our security deposit back (the terms of our lease dictate we will receive it no later than 30 days after the lease ends). We tried repeatedly to contact the building manager, but he does not return calls or read messages or emails. He seemingly instructs his staff to inform everyone he is busy at all hours - we've tried for weeks at all hours of the day to get in touch with him and were always met with either "he's not here," or "he's in a meeting." There's an option to phone him directly if you call the building, but that doesn't seem to lead to the manager. One time someone picked up and did not speak English.

The assistant manager also will not respond to emails and is not able to be reached by phone. We've had a total of one response to her in the many months we've been attempting to communicate and get information about this.

After roughly 1.5 months of attempting to get our deposit back we were sent a statement saying we owe over $5000 for unpaid rent and parking. This was funny to us, since our lease clearly states when we have free months, and the building had cashed rent and parking checks for the months they claim were unpaid. Of course, attempting to get them to rectify this will be a month's long process, I'm sure.

This building offers nothing the other buildings in the area do not. The other buildings have nicer amenities, better management, and better living. Harrison Yards used to be the affordable option, but that is no longer the case. The only positive is they are the closest to the PATH train, though the other options aren't much farther. The ones that are further out offer shuttle services.

In addition to everything laid out above, there were numerous leaks in our bathroom (an issue the super informed us was widespread), our shower leaked out onto the bathroom floor during every use (another widespread issue), the street was closed for the entire 2 years living there, there was always construction next door, and the walls and floors are paper thin - you can hear your neighbors snoring, on zoom calls, alarm clocks, casual conversations, and so on.

EDIT 12/15/23: The manager contacted us in Oct to confirm we don't owe anything, and we'll received our deposit back. Sadly, he then went radio silent and I've been ignored by all the staff at Harrison Yards and Greystar again. Over 4 months after moving and still no...

Extremely disappointed with this property. The list of issues that remain unsolved are unbelievable: • Security is a major issue here. No one checks who is coming in and out of the building and there are no key fobs required to move around the building at all. • The driveway has been closed since we moved in, which makes access to the building for things like deliveries very difficult. • The exterior of the building is not lit. They recently added a light tower with a loud generator after many complaints from tenants • The quality of the craftsmanship of the building is terrible. • The gym was opened recently, but many of the machines do not work. • TVs were installed in common areas, but there is no cable, so they are unable to be used. • The shower in our main bedroom has been leaking since we moved in in December. They have SLOWLY attempted to fix it about 4 or 5 times. This last time actually made it worse and we are unable to shower in our main bathroom • There were no screens in our living room windows. We requested them in December and JUST got them in August. They are the wrong size, gaps are left, so we still can't actually open those windows. • There was a major leak in our living room and second bedroom coming from the roof a few months a go. It was bad enough to pull the paint off the walls. Took a full week THIS month to get it repaired. • We are now seeing bugs all over our apartment. We've found gaps in the floor boards where they must be coming through. We reported this to management over a week ago and still don't have an update on a resolution. • Response time to requests (as you can see from some bullets above) is unacceptably slow. When you ask to speak to someone from ownership that request is ignored. Ownership and management are currently feuding and passing the blame back and forth. • 3rd floor fire alarm was not working, but it wasn;t noticed util there was a fire on the 2nd floor and 3rd floor residents realized they weren't hearing an alarm. • PSEG was not granted access to the meters for several months and tenants were hit with charges close to $1,000.00 per apartment in late meter readings. • There have been reports of an intoxicated man trying to gain access to the building and hanging around the parking lot, which is poorly lit as well. Police were called when he locked himself in the gym of the building. • Residents from a nearby property were secretly using this gym when their gym was under construction. It is well-known in the neighborhood that Harrison Yards lacks security. • Rents are being increased 18% for anyone that renews, but no advancements have been made in the completion of the building • The renderings of restaurants should be taken down. The area where the restaurant is supposed to be is still abandoned and looks like a construction site.

Ownership does not care about this building or the residents! STAY FAR AWAY FROM THIS PROPERTY!!! Save yourself...