180 Montague Apartments — Local services in New York

Review of 180 Montague I lived at 180 Montague from the beginning of 2010 until recently with a brief hiatus when we lived on the Upper West side. The positives: The views from the upper floors of the building are extraordinary. Our apartments were always in the Northwest corner and we had a spectacular view of the East River, the Financial District and the skyline. The concierge staff has always been wonderful. There is limited turnover but no matter who, the staff has consistently been, friendly conscientious and helpful. The maintenance staff also does an excellent job. The building supers run a tight ship. The building is kept in great condition. Maintenance issues are addressed quickly and everyone is very nice. That was not my experience in Manhattan. The neighborhood is wonderful from the easy access to the Promenade to the many shops and restaurants to the Borough Hall subway station half a block away. If you don’t want to cook, you can take advantage of the after 7:30 PM half off at the hot and cold buffet in the high-end market next door. The negatives: There are only two elevators and one of them has to double as the service elevator. The building schedules moves for off peak times during the week but in high traffic times (kids leaving for school or people coming home from work) or when one of the elevators is misbehaving and is out of service, you can end up waiting for a while. The elevators were both recently replaced and the process created a lot of resident unhappiness as it created a lot of inconvenience and, while the staff did the best that they could during the period, Equity management was not very responsive. There are no washers and dryers in the apartments and there is only one laundry room which is barely adequate. There are times during the week when the nannies are doing household laundry or on the weekends, when you may wait for sometime to be able to get a washer. Many residents send their laundry out; if they didn’t it would be impossible. There is no storage outside of the apartments themselves. I cannot speak to the current staff but I thought that the quality of the community managers and assistants, positions that seem to turn over every couple of years, got notably worse over time. I found them to be friendly but reactive, bureaucratic and unhelpful. At one point I wanted to downsize to a smaller apartment and, at the end of the day, the staff was not helpful. Equity has a large presence in the area and it is possible that this building is a training assignment for future positions. I could never tell if it was the people themselves or that they had little authority and higher ups were making all of the decisions. It did not matter as the result was the same. By the time I moved out, I avoided speaking to the community manager. When I was offered a renewal for November, it was at the same price as I was currently paying even as comparable units were showing discounts of between $500 and $1000. While I was told this was a mistake, it was infuriating. Nothing is perfect. If I were to move back to New York, I would definitely move back to Brooklyn Heights and would consider 180 but it would probably not be my...

DO NOT RENT HERE

Worst rental building experience in approximately 20 years of living in New York City. Upon moving in, we walked into our new apartment and learned that it was a completely different line (different views, etc.) than the apartment we had been shown a few floors away. The compensation offered for this "mistake" was much less than what it would have cost to move again and with 2 young children we decided to try to make the best of it. This was clearly a mistake on our part as we hadn't yet gotten the full Equity Residential experience. The bait and switch continued as shortly after moving in, we discovered that the gym was going to be renovated for a number of months (this is after we specifically told the leasing we were interested in the building because of the gym). The unpleasant experience continued as we lived more than 20+ stories up and the elevators would periodically break down resulting in extremely long waits. Finally, the building decided to replace the elevators and a 34 floor building was reduced to a single elevator. This resulted in needing to budget an extra half hour per day to get in and out of the building for over 6 months. Was any compensation offered in the form of a rent concession (even when asked for)? Of course not. Additionally, the lobby was turned into a parking lot for all the strollers in the building, which was very pleasant to come home to.

When it comes to renewing your lease, they will always try to increase it even when you can see comparable apartments (in the same line on close floors) being offered for several hundred dollars cheaper. For example, our initial June 2020 renewal offer was for an INCREASE from what we were paying even though they were offering apartments for $700 less per month than our existing lease.

Update 11/1/2020: I just saw the response from Equity Residential and would like to note that I only wrote this review AFTER trying to resolve this with building and...

180 Montague is a 2004 Blackberry priced like a modern day iPhone. There's a massive disconnect between the property managers (Equity Residential) and the quality of this building.

Key takeaway - do not move here unless you're prepared to pay top dollar for a mediocre building, and then get hit with unreasonable rent increases that force most residents to move out after only 1-2 years.

From bad to good:

Pricing is 1/5. Even if you get a good deal as an incoming resident, every single tenant will tell you that your lease renewal process will involve rent increases as high as 20%! Equity does not value retention, and will hit you with unreasonable renewal rates. Even if you try to negotiate, expect corporate processes to prevent reason from prevailing. The process is run through a centralized office that has no compassion for residents, or grounding in reality. Renewal nonsense aside, the base rent here is also far above what you'll get for such high rents. This building is overvalued, and you can easily get a better apartment in a more modern building for the same (or even lower) price point nearby.

The building deserves a 3/5. Apartments are spacious, and floor plans are good. More square than "narrow rectangle" like many other buildings. Two elevators for 30+ floors, and one is routinely offline for either housekeeping or technical issues. At least once a week, prepare for a 10+ minute wait to get out of the building or up to your apartment, if you're unlucky enough to live above the fifth floor. No in-unit washer or dryer. Building amenities can't handle the high-traffic volume periods. The common laundry room is unusable on Sundays (single people) and Monday mornings (nannies of rich families), because the building just wasn't designed keep up with actual capacity.

Finally, the on site staff are lovely, and easily deserve 5/5. Friendly, welcoming, and professional. Likewise, the location...