180 Riverside Boulevard Apartments — Local services in New York

Avoid this building, there are other nice buildings in the same neighborhood with a better management. The management company that manages this building is awful. Hers is what I think:

Pros: location and neighborhood. Note that living beside the hudson is only fun during the warmer months, in winter the wind makes it extra freezing when you walk out of the building. The neighborhood is quiet but 10-15 min walk to subway and there is nothing around. The service staff are very nice but are always under a lot of pressure since management decided to lower costs by cutting the service staff almost in half last year.

The list of nice things end here.

Cons: management increases the rent by 30-50% (for me and other tenants) and doesn’t negotiate. Then after you decide to move out, they list the apartment for lower rent in the market (sometimes even lower than what the tenant is paying!!). The management in the building has no say in anything, you have to call their office in Chicago and they don’t care much. The person who was assigned to my case was never in office 🤷‍♂️They don’t care about the tenants. the common areas are usually filthy, gym, laundry room, and stairs are usually full of dust and if you are lucky you might find a dead roach. They charge ridiculous fees when you move out, they charged me over $100 for a small soap mark on the bathroom cabinet, and over $100 because dishwasher and stove were not deep cleaned!!? When confronted the management office, they admitted they make the contract vague so they can charge any amount they want legally for anybreason🤦‍♂️So be ready for being charged a large sum for any ridiculous reason they can come up with. There is roach problem in the building, I had a few roaches but recently neighbors are constantly complaining about roaches even in higher floors. So much for a luxury building. There are very slow in fixing issues in the apartment. I had an emergency where water was backing out of the kitchen sink, toilet, and dishwasher and called their emergency contact number and called the office. They said they will send someone to fix it asap, but no one showed up for two weeks and the issue was fixed on its own after a few days. There is constant construction in the building, first it was elevators, we had to wait for a single elevator for more than 10 minutes each day. Then hallways and lobby. They try to make their money back by increasing the rent to a ridiculous amount! There are questionable water and sewer charges every month. Aside from high administration fees they charge every month, the amount they charge is not transparent. One time they charged us 3X the usual amount (it happened before as well but this time we noticed) and a few neighbors noticed and emailed them. They quickly replied that it was a mistake and changed it to a lower number. But this kept happening and I think if someone follow this up legally there are questionable practices there. There is 0 amenities and you have to pay extra for the gym which is always filthy not ventilated properly and does not have enough equipments for the amount they charge. The building is not energy efficient (check the label by the door) so overall with random water and sewer and gas charges and electricity, be ready to pay around $300/month for a one bedroom and higher for larger apartments. The heating and cooling units are not temperature controlled and exacerbate the electricity charges during very hot or very cold months. Also, it is usually not easy to get the temperature to the level that is comfortable, it’s either too cold or too hot in the apartment. The apartments are not ventilated and have gas stoves. You either have to open the windows to get fresh air or breath stale air.

This is not a luxury building by any measures and avoid it if you are looking for a peaceful place to call home. Look at the most recent reviews and you’ll...

DO NOT MOVE HERE. Before you read the decent reviews on their own website and some of the other suspiciously shallow reviews here, please see below and sort their Google reviews by most recent to get a better idea of this building.

I lived here and despite their marketing, 180 Riverside Boulevard is far from a luxury building. Elevators are broken on a daily basis (unrelated to the elevator “modernization” that they’ve been working on for over a year) and the building’s gym is FILTHY and always missing equipment (also is an additional cost). Additionally, there have been a number of complaints with building security as of late where non-residents have been entering the building and either harassing residents or trying to forcefully enter residents’ units. There is no use dealing with management because all they’ll provide is a lazy reply of “sorry you are experiencing this” without taking any action.

I should also mention their new and horrible system for lease renewals. They recently removed all ability from the leasing office and management in the building to deal with lease renewals, so in order to “negotiate” your renewal you need to communicate via email with some offshore team from Equity Residential. This offshore team doesn’t actually negotiate and the best/worst they can do is generate a different renewal price every day (could be a higher price than the day before) that expires after 24 hours. Not to mention their renewal offers are way above market value (our offer was a 60% increase, for example) and these renewal offers fail to consider the multitude of issues within the building or your unit. Also, they advertised my unit online for LESS than the lowest they offered me, not sure what that’s about? I assume management will reply to this review with something along the lines of “blah blah renewal rates are often influenced by factors that include availability and market trends blah blah”. Note that this is all BS as their renewal prices often exceed comparable units in real luxury buildings (not owned by Equity Residential). Why do they prefer new tenants over existing ones?

If you do find yourself desperate enough to sign a lease here, say goodbye to a nice chunk of your security deposit on day 1 for the most insignificant “dirty” state that you leave your apartment in on move-out. We had a pre-move out inspection of our empty apartment where the inspector mentioned we’d only get charged for mounting our TV (completely understandable) but they had the nerve to charge us for a 5.5 hour cleaning of the apartment, which we left in a better state than it was given to us in. Oh yeah, on our move in they were still painting and cleaning our place…weren’t able to contact anyone from management until we heard back from them several days later.

The area is nice, so if you’re looking to live on Riverside Boulevard, I implore you to look for ANY building other than one managed by Equity Residential. Do not fall for their predatory sales tactics, shallow reviews and empty promises they make when trying to get you to...

EDIT: As I cannot directly respond to the business's response. Your inspection of my residence came 2 months after my report of the issue. It took me cc'ing a regional manager for you to respond. As mentioned in all my documentation, the smell of smoke is at 9pm, not in the morning when you came to 'inspect.' Further, I don't know how many times I can reiterate that no one is downstairs when the smells of smoke are in my apartment. I have gone as far as going downstairs to check and have reported that to you.

I sincerely hope people read these reviews as they consider their rental choices, and please know that after 2 prospective renters tried to enter my home last night without warning, I have escalated to the BBB and also to Tatiana (Head of NYC for Equity Residential).

I am putting it plainly. If people come to view my apartment again without prior ADEQUATE written notice from the building, I will continue to escalate. The potential liability created by someone trying to enter my apartment without notice is immense. Knocked down to 1 star from 3 due to the miscategorization of events by management.

Original Review: This is as balanced as I can be, but the tldr is I agree with the others. The building itself is fine, and the building staff is wonderful. The management (lack thereof) is abysmal. Pricing is set by a computer and they refuse to negotiate unless you submit your notice to vacate. Even when you do, the reduction they can give you is extremely small.

As mentioned by another reviewer, the equity residential staff do not answer emails without many followups and are seemingly never here. The last time I escalated an issue, I cc'ed a regional corporate manager and magically got a response overnight. (Btw, anyone taking over apt 413, fair warning, it smells like weed every night and the building will not help you. This has been the case for over 1 year).

Great location, aging amenities, wonderful on-site staff, but a penny-pinching, publicly traded management company that will absolutely ignore you until you threaten to sue or just give up and move out.

If even a dollar is deducted from my security deposit for things normally considered "ordinary wear and tear" - as many have dealt with, I will be prepared to explore all legal options necessary to recover every penny. And yes, it smells strongly of weed in my apartment as I write this and it's from a neighbor, not someone downstairs as the building will insist (and I have...