70 Greene Apartments — Local services in Jersey City

As a resident of 70 Greene for three years who just moved out three weeks ago, I strongly advise that you avoid this building. While my living experience there was mostly positive - with some very notable exceptions detailed below - as soon as I gave notice that I would not be renewing my lease, the experience soured (badly). More than two months in advance of the end of my lease, I advised them that I had decided to move out of Jersey City. As the closing on my new apartment was not until a month after my lease expiration, I asked them if I could stay for one month at the rate they had just offered me for renewal. They declined and said I must pay the "month to month' rate, which was over $700 higher than the rent I had been paying (and the rate they had offered me to renew). I had been an excellent tenant, never late on rent payments, and had given them the full two months notice on my decision to leave, yet they still refused to work with me on staying for an extra month and I ended up having to pay $4400 for my one bedroom apt for the month of June. When I moved out, I left the apartment in excellent condition, yet Equity went ahead and took almost $500 from my security deposit for cleaning and painting. The corporate policies of this company are beyond greedy. As for my three years living in 70 Greene.......

PROS:

The apartments have beautiful floor to ceiling windows. Most apartment layouts are small, but the windows make all the difference.

The building staff is great, from Belinda, the head concierge, to the repair guys, everyone is friendly and helpful.

The location is great. A block from the river, so incredibly easy to catch ferry or PATH to Manhattan. The Paulus Hook neighborhood is peaceful and charming.

THE CONS:

Most of 2017 was plagued with terrible elevator issues. The building only has four elevators for 49 floors of apartments, and one of those elevators is the service elevator, nearly always in use for a move. But during 2017, often one or two of the elevators was constantly out of service. There were many times around 5 to 7 when there would literally be a line of 20-30 people waiting for an elevator. And forget it if you had a bike to get up or down, as I did.

Many of the apartments in the building are leased by companies who rent them as hotel rooms via sites like Expedia, so the building is constantly filled with foreign tourists, who clog up the lobby waiting for their Ubers, clog up the elevators with their luggage and give the building the feeling of a Times Square hotel. WORSE, try using the pool area on the 7th floor deck any afternoon in the summer - it is PACKED with families and loud children, hardly any of whom actually live in the building. Again, what should be a cool perk of being a resident feels like being at an Orlando hotel pool.

The hallways. Even though the building refurbished all of the hallways in early 2018 (which were worn down and filthy), they inexplicably replaced the dark stain-hiding carpet with a light color patterned carpet. Consequently, most floors have ugly stains scattered through the length of the hallway carpets. It truly makes a terrible first impression to anyone coming to visit.

The stench of garbage in the lobby on weekends is disgusting. The trash room is behind the lobby so by Saturday afternoons sometimes, but always by Sundays, you are greeted by the smell of rotting garbage wafting through the air. I complained about this numerous times over the years, yet the problem persisted.

The appliances are low-grade quality and now about ten years old. The closet washer and dryer are a joke. It literally takes about three hours to wash and dry one small...

The Good: Harry, Adele, and Amir are really great employees. Always make you feel welcome and always willing to accommodate any requests. Really appreciate their hospitality.

The bad: For over $4000 a month for a one bedroom, here’s what you’ll get in unit 506. You’ll get to live directly next to a construction site; dirt and grime will always be in the air and work will start around 8 am on most days. Don’t ever plan on sleeping past 8am - you will be woken with loud banging that is impossible to sleep through. Furthermore, if you don’t find this information beforehand, you’re screwed. Sales won’t tell you anything.

Secondly, there will be floods. They chose to go the cheaper route when it comes to piping. We've had 3 floods and multiple water outages in less than 9 months. When there are floods, more construction will follow. Your water will be shut down consecutively and oftentimes, you won’t be able to shower or use the toilet.

The gym is always dirty and nobody ever cleans the equipment. They barely ever even have cheap wipes so you can clean it yourself. I looked forward to the hot tub, but it closed for repairs for half the summer.

Our ice machine broke 4 times, and our washing machine had visible mold & grime when we moved in.( Matter of fact, the apartment wasn’t properly cleaned before we moved in). Both of these issues took months to replace. A pipe practically has to burst for someone to come to your apartment to fix anything in under a week. The apartment has had peeling wallpaper and peeling grouting around the bathtubs since we moved in.

There is always at least one elevator out of service- usually 2. Be prepared to wait a long time to get back up to your apartment unless you like taking the stairs. Wasn’t too bad for me since I’m on the 5th floor, but imagine being on the 45th?

The HVAC ducts will be moldy- don’t move in if you have any breathing issues or issues with mold/ toxins. The apartment is humid and lots of mold grows. Tons of mold was found in our HVAC ducts. We had to hire experts to come in to confirm this after my fiance was experiencing horrible symptoms where she couldn't sleep. Given the mold levels made my wife extremely sick. We sent all documentation and receipts to management, but they didn’t compensate us anything - they said the mold was our fault.

Management is horrendous. They have zero empathy for tenants and all they care about is saving as much money as possibly. They will never acknowledge any injustices experienced by tenants. Done expect them to work with you for anything. Also- There have been homeless people sleeping in the gym and overnight concierge is never at the desk- so overnight safety is an issue.

More good- the gym is fully equipped and open 24 hours, there's a resident lounge and doorman, and nobody really bothers you. The pool is nice but good luck trying to bring a friend that doesn’t live in the building -They only give out like 10 extra passes a day for a building that houses 500-1000 people, and a pool pass costs $100. There is a game room, but none of the games really work. And you can pay extra for virtual golf if that’s your thing. It’s also close to the Path train so if you work in the city, you’re 5 minutes away from downtown. It also has plenty of places to eat and drink nearby. The terrace is also very nice with awesome views and building is...

EDIT X3: Moved out because rents here are now equivalent to battery park city.

EDIT X2: Building quality and maintenance still does not match the luxury marketing positioning and rent prices. Was just given a renewal offer for my lease with a near 30% increase. And for what? Non functioning elevators, constant water shut downs, extreme staff turn over, declining quality of residents that walk around with their trays of weed in the elevator? Will not be renewing.

EDIT: I see the owner replied and advised that I contact resident relations. I've left them two voicemails over the past three weeks and have yet to receive a return phone call.

I've lived here for almost three years, and while at times it has been a great place to live, there has been a notably sharp decline in building management. I want to preface and say that the on-site maintenance team is outstanding. However, it seems as though corporate does not want to fund actual improvements to the building when things break. Everything seems like a band-aid fix.

For example, the elevators are often broken, with one always being "in service." Just last weekend, there was only one elevator working -- in a building with 49 floors, which is flat out unacceptable. I walked down 20+ of stairs because it was impossible to get on the one working elevator. What if there is an emergency while the elevators are out? God forbid someone has a health emergency and needs to get out of the building quickly - what are they supposed to do?

On top of that, there was a pipe burst several months ago that resulted in hallways on lower floors flooding. At that time, we lived on a lower floor. Instead of replacing the carpets in the hallways, they just set up fans. The carpets are pretty gross, even on floors that did not experience flooding, but I can't fathom how those carpets will hold up after being completely soaked. I also can't remember the last time I heard the hallways being vacuumed or cleaned like they used to do weekly.

We just now experienced a brief hot water outage. Management did not send any notification to residents.

Additionally, the front desk staff turnover is very high, and packages can go missing or take days to log after they are delivered.

The air conditioner in the Fitness Center was out from June 7th through July 15th (5 weeks!). We received an email on June 7th saying someone would fix it the following week; however, we did not receive another update until July 13th.

I've tried calling Resident Relations to discuss - I left a voicemail last Saturday and then again today and am waiting to hear back. I am speechless that they continue to charge such high rents for this building despite the many ongoing issues.

Overall, it's just flat-out disappointing because we do enjoy living in this location. The aesthetic of the building is beautiful. The maintenance team is fantastic and super attentive to in-apartment issues. We've also had great experiences working with the leasing team, particularly when moving to a different unit within the building. However, Equity corporate does not seem willing to provide adequate resources to maintain the building, even at a basic level, let alone to meet their...