Soho Lofts — Local services in Jersey City

When reading reviews please be cautious of the "Local Guides" tor reviews with no text - hey are not real reviews or people who live in the building.They are fake accounts or real-estate agents. Moving on... Overall I had a good experience living at Soho but it is what YOU make of it. What I mean by that is there are very good parts but the bad are really bad.

Pros: The apartments themselves are beautiful once you finally get upstairs from the elevators lol. But jokes aside, I loved this apartment. It was so well done, the finishes are great and I really felt that I paid a fair price for the apartment. They are new, well taken care of - I do wish they washed the outside of the windows at least once in the year and a half I lived there but thats not the end of the world.

Concierge, Xiera and Corey are incredible. I am so happy I had the opportunity to meet them! They were wonderful and it was nice that I didn't have to try and not make eye contact every day walking past the front desk LOL. Jose was always a pleasure as well and was very thoughtful. The building is beautiful, there is no denying that. Again, the staff, this time the cleaning staff, truly works hard and it was always clean and I felt safe during the pandemic.

The culture of Soho Lofts is great - many young professionals, young bright eyed NYC commuters who haven't been destroyed by the reality of working in NYC and almost everyone is very friendly , outgoing and its a nice sense of community. Now that was a good thing for me because I love a good time but for people who are trying to raise a family I would stay far away from the outdoor area past 5:00 PM or if people are day drinking lol. I will say it was nice to have the outdoor grass area and the grills during the height of pandemic, and we were one of the first buildings to reopen the gym and pool but that also came with only being able to use the pool for a few hours on the weekend in your time slot and the gym situation which we received $0 back for the lack or restriction of amenities.

Cons: Elevators: Elevators, elevators, elevators. This is something I read in other reviews before I moved in and chalked it up to "wow these people just like to complain, its a new building there is going to be issues" and glazed over it. The elevators are just as bad as all of the other reviews. They are CONSTANTLY broken. I mean literally one was broken the entire time I lived there. If we needed to be anywhere at a specific time we literally put in at least 10-15 minutes into our schedule to wait for elevators. No, I am 100% not kidding.

Security? There is none. During the pandemic to cut corners they laid of the entire security staff over the summer. They implemented a new "Flamingo" app that opens the door but that app was so laggy and glitchy I deleted it immediately. The security staff is one of the reasons we liked the building, made us feel safe especially over the summer when there were so many randos coming in and out.

Got a noise complaint because your neighbors are blasting music, their girlfriends are screaming at the top of their lungs and partying till 3 or 4 am, or once in a blue moon 6 am?? Sure, call downstairs but it will happen again and again and again. Might as well keep your phone open to the front desk on speed dial on the weekends because youll need it. Don't get me wrong - I was that guy once or twice. I would never say I wasn't but I also never did it again after being reprimanded but that is also because I have a conscience and am aware of my surroundings and know that I was in the wrong. But since there are no repercussions why would you stop? That also adds to the Culture point I mentioned above. This community is great but please know what you are getting yourself into when you sign the lease.

The dog park is great but there are many untrained dogs and inexperienced dog owners, my dog is absolutely not trained by Cesar Millan but he also is a big doof and would never bite or attack any other dog. The park is a breeding ground for Giardia so make sure your dog has...

I have lived in Soho Lofts since it opened. Overall things here have been fine, up to COVID. Company's business model built around bringing in new tenants and banking that they say for a set number of years, then bringing in new ones - it's not about retaining tenants. During the pandemic they sent out my lease renewal, raising my rent the maximum allowed by Jersey law. After not responding to numerous outreaches to discuss alternative renewal terms, they came back saying there was nothing they could do or offer. During the time they did not respond, two larger 1 BR apartments came available for less, as well as the same exact floor plan - is being advertised for $299 to $129 a month less. When I brought these up, the answer was still no. I would have to go through the hassle of moving an entire apartment one floor and changing all the utilities - not worth the effort.

They are charging full amenities up-front for the year, no break if the pool does not open - disregarding that fact and arguing that they are now providing virtual amenities like meditation and virtual cooking classes - all things people can find for free with apps or on YouTube. The business center printer has been broken for months - a worst case scenario with everyone working from home. This management company needs to work with tenants, looking at this year as an exception... in addition to providing good customer service and answering emails in a timely manner. I will say, management has done a great job with the cleaning and disinfecting of the building during this time.

Several friends in the building have already been affected by decreases in their salary and filled out and submitted the hardship form, none have received any breaks. Normally there are a handful of availabilities at any given time, currently there are 50(!) units available on their own website and 76(!!) units available on apartments.com. If you're a numbers person - 20% of the population is unemployed and now 20% of the building will have vacancies.

I feel bad for the leasing office that rather than working to keep current customers, they are being forced to try to fill apartments that would never be empty if Mack-Cali/Roseland just worked with tenants in the first place. With no job openings for graduates (much of the building fills up in the summer and fall with recent college grads), those 2 and 3 bedroom units often aren't taken by the nice/quiet families you assume will rent them, but bros with lots of roommates, and no influx of people looking to move to the NYC area, tough sales environment to put your team in. It's a whole lot less expensive to cut rents and retain people, but this is what greed looks like. My recommendation to anyone looking for a place in this area would be to explore The Enclave, new building and they work with their tenants, proactively waiving amenities fees...

Let me begin by saying that if you are perceptive you may have noticed that a vast majority of the five-star reviews are coming from "local guides" and real estate agents. If you do not count those reviews and focus on people who actually have lived in the building the average is probably closer to two stars.

The people who work in the office are all nice, but fail to perform their jobs as building managers by keeping the building up to the high standards the residents are paying for. They also will not make any attempt to keep current residents happy. The office has a terrible response time to calls and emails and often times they go completely unanswered. I recently bought myself a bike and kept it locked to the bike rack outside the building. When the bike was stolen from the rack (in less than two weeks (nice neighborhood)) the building management did not lift a finger to help me resolve the issue. They did not even seem willing to review security footage and said I needed a court order to see the footage of the thief with my bike. They did not care for my loss of property and made me feel like I was inconveniencing them.

There are constant problems within the building that negatively effect one's day to day. As seen in other reviews, the elevators are consistently breaking. Instead of rolling up their sleeves and fixing the problem for good they are more than happy to slap a temporary fix together until the next break. To their credit, when I was stuck in one of the elevators here they did "rescue" me within ten minutes.

Like the elevators, many of the other amenities look nice but are riddled with issues. The indoor movie projector seems to be broken with a dim image, the outdoor theater is rarely used, and I have often found myself waiting 20-30 minutes waiting for the shuttle bus from the path (effectively doubling the commute time).

It seems like the residency turn over is about 1 year on average. That's probably an accurate amount of time before all the problems become too much to deal with. And it seems like the management office is completely fine with that. If you're looking for a place to move to straight out of college because you're not ready for party life to end than this is the place for you. It's often referred to as a frat house or Vegas from residents and guests alike. If you're over the party scene, looking to settle down to focus on your career, or have a small family I'd advise you...