Hub — Local services in New York

We've lived in this building for 2 years. The front desk staff is kind, friendly, and generally amazing. The leasing office is easy to work with.

However, over the last year especially, the building management has noticeably degraded. Examples:

It regularly takes multiple followups to maintainence issues addressed. The most common problem is the AC. The AC units in regularly break and or stop working efficiently. There are months where our electricity bill is over $400. Typically, it takes multiple followups to have someone come look at it. When they do, the response is usually "yeah, these PTAC units aren't great. We use refurbished units and it takes a long time for replacements". This is unacceptable in a luxury building. I have had many PTAC units that work better than the ones in this building. We were told recently that our unit could not be replaced even though it is extremely loud and doesn't always kick on when it should. The reason given is that there are "other people ahead of us in line who have entirely broken ACs". I have seriously considered just seeing if I can buy a replacement PTAC unit, they can't be that expensive, and I'm just tired of having to hound the building for them to fix them.

Iowa Sports, the company employed to manage the amenity space, recently changed their policy where they had previous allowed outside swim instructors into the pool, going back years. Parents were given ZERO warning about this, no grace period provided, and with no clear plan for providing alternative swim instruction. At times they have not been able to hire lifeguards, given they provided no alternative plan and no proactive communication about this change, it smells like a clumsy cash grab by Iowa Sports.

This policy restricting swim instruction disproportionately impacts families, other outside vendors such as fitness instructors are regularly allowed to operate in the building. This may be a violation of fair housing laws. Again, outside instructors have been allowed by the building management for ~years. Zero warning given prior to this change.

Finally: There are many examples of poor and inconsistent communication from both the building management (regarding various maintenance issues), as well as bigger things.

For example, about 6 months ago, we received an email from building management that the water would need to get shut off for a repair. We received an email later that day, stating that the "repair was successful" but that the water would need to be shut off again, because an "unrelated" issue needed to be dealt with.

Well, the whole building knew what happened. A large fire suppression pipe had burst flooding multiple floors and units. The fire department had to come and shut the water off. I still don't think the building ever properly communicated or emailed to explain what happened. There is way to handle these types of situations that build trust with residents. Just talk to people like they are adults, don't fall back to CYA tactics. Stuff happens. Just be honest about it.

Instead, there was a lack of communication that is just generally consistent with how the building management seems to operate.

I hope that I will be able to update this review in the future, especially given there are lots of things to like about this building. But at this point, as a resident, I need to see Iowa Sports and management from The Hub step up to the plate. Otherwise, there are many other options in Downtown Blooklyn, at similar or more competive price points. Before moving to The Hub, we lived across the street at 300 Ashland. While their amenity spaces are smaller and the units are a little different, they treated residents like they were first class citizens, with proactive communication, immediate fixing of issues (often same day), and at a lower pricepoint...

Horrible leasing management. Horrible building construction. Be careful of the FAKE 5 star reviews, especially the ones that constantly name the same staff members who work in the leasing office. And call me naive but I've lived in multiple units in this building.

Management would never respond to emails and would never follow up to phone calls and would tell obvious lies all the time. They would be flaky when it comes to any discounts they offered. It was like this throughout the entire touring and leasing process.

When I first toured this building ​not only did they move my appointment without notifying me, they never got back to me afterwards. They also moved my appointment the second time I toured. They also moved my move-in appointment time without notifying me! Luckily I didn't have movers that day, it would've been a nightmare! I should've known better from the tour itself, especially when the elevator broke down and was told that it rarely happens (which was an obvious lie because I had already read the yelp reviews).

The only time they actually care to speak to you is to get you to pay them rent. And not only do they not send you any bills, YOU have to ASK THEM to give you access to the account to pay rent.

The building itself suffers from poor construction. While floors are concrete and you won't hear your upstairs neighbors, you might constantly hear things like dropped objects, bed bangs and moans from sex, clacky dog nails, footsteps, washing machines, cabinet and certain door slams from your NEXT DOOR neighbors. Dropped objects will sound almost as if it was dropped inside your apartment, with the sounds travelling through MULTIPLE WALLS because the floors and walls are super hollow and clacky.

You'll smell cooking odors all the time, especially if your kitchen walls are shared (their microwave fan will literally push cooking odors over to your side) and you'll hear your neighbor sing and cough in the bathroom if the bathroom walls are shared.

They chose the worst heating/AC unit on the market. The AC is very loud and the heater is steam rather than hot water, so it's super loud. And I suspect they use it to vent the apartments as well so they are always open to the outside and constantly leak in street noise and cold air during the winter. Also the windows themselves constantly leak cold air.

Your overall experience will be much too overly dependent on your neighbors and many tenants are both entitled and resentful, but who can blame them when they pay $4000+/month on rent? I had to deal with neighbors who would blast whatever they were doing causing noise battles between neighbors.

I've lived in multiple cheaper luxury buildings and have NEVER lived in such a poorly constructed and managed "luxury" building. Buildings with less leasing staff run much better. The only pluses are the concierge/maintenance staff, the views, and the relative lack of bug infestations, but that might just be a matter of time rather than due to great construction (there was recently a roach infestation that affected multiple units on a floor).

STOP ENABLING this crappy building by providing an endless stream of revolving door renters. There are SO MANY new choices now with multiple high quality CONDOs in the area, choose...

UPDATE: There have been a lot of assaults in the neighborhood and people run into this building to get away from their pursuers. Influencers also sneak in to make content on the roof. The building entrances and building surroundings are way too dark, and there’s only ever one person at the front desk.

I’ve lived in this building for over 3 years and things seems much worse lately. Maybe it is the age of the building?

On a single day in December 2022, all of these things were broken:

• 1 high rise elevator • the only automatic front door (accessible access) • the hot tub temperature (under 100 F) • the hot tub bubbles (there weren’t any) • most of the poolside lounge chairs (the backs no longer adjust and maybe don’t even prop up) • the fingerprint scanner to enter Club 333 • a light burned out in front of the elevators in my floor

Several of these things have been broken for a long time (hot tub & finger scanner; elevators break often but are usually fixed promptly).

Since last week, the intercom system has also been broken, which means that the front desk calls my cell phone, and I have to go through the 718-330-3330 system tree to reach the front desk or maintenance.

Additionally, each prior winter (since 2019) once the cold water coming from upstate gets very cold, the hot water that comes out of my tub/shower is barely hot enough, even on the hottest setting.

This year is especially egregious - my tub/shower has not been over 99 degrees at random times that I have wanted to shower, and I have even tried to schedule showering at “off hours” to avoid the boilers running out of water. While I still don’t have hot water at 9p on a Tuesday (?), I’ve now also heard that there are only two boilers supplying my section of the building while other areas of the building have more than 2 boilers. Several times I have reached out to neighbors who have completely hot water when my shower is 98-99 degrees. They’ve even offered to let me shower at their places. I’m very disappointed to hear that the building has cut corners in this way, when I am still paying rent as though I would be able to take a shower at anytime of the day or night.

I should not have to go to a neighbor’s apartment on another line just to be able to take a hot shower.

I am pretty fed up with how spotty things are here, I’ve really enjoyed living here until this year. As of now, I cannot recommend this building. I hope things get better before my lease is up.

2 stars because I still have a great view and the pool has been operational when it is...