One LIC — Local services in New York

Facilities are lovely. Building staff are great. Management is making improvements.

Gym, lounge, and BBQ deck have lovely views and are well appointed. You can rent some spaces for private events, but the price is unfortunately extremely cost-prohibitive, so people don’t do it often. If the price were lower I am sure more would schedule events.

The units are nice, though the rooms are quite small. The big windows have great light, though only higher floors have a view. The rest of us look into other big glass towers. The heated bathroom floors are amazing in winter, and the kitchen appliances are great. Maintenance is very nice and speedy about fixing small problems. They have an online system that makes putting in a maintenance request easy.

We had a big problem with very high electricity bills when we moved in - $600 and more when I had never gotten a ConEd bill higher than $150 in my life. A number of people had this issue, seemingly at random. Management arranged for ConEd and an electrician to look at it, which unfortunately yielded no useful information. I appealed directly to the building owner, who was responsive to my concern. He had the manufacturer of the condenser come and look, but that also yielded nothing. In the end, a year later, my balcony door, which was not a great design and sealed poorly, finally fully broke and required immediate replacement (requests for replacements with a better door design are typically very slow). After one freezing night with an icy breeze blowing across my face, the door was replaced. Suddenly the room was quieter and the floor was no longer cold. My heat bill went down by $350 that month, from January to February, so the problem was rectified, and the owner was helpful, though some people are still waiting for new doors.

It took two years to finish the bike and storage unit room, so that was very disappointing, and management was not particularly sympathetic to how inconvenient this was, suggesting storage down the street is just as good. They blamed COVID on the delay, but it’s hard to know. Now the facilities are built and are fine to use.

There is a long list for parking at the building and it is quite expensive for Queens. You cannot park your own car but rather have to leave your keys with the garage. Sometimes it can be 20 minutes to get your car out, so plan ahead, but they are generally helpful. once I had an emergency, and they pulled my car out in less than five minutes for me.

Short people beware, the units were designed for a man 6’5”. Bring a few step ladders if you move in.

My biggest complaint is there is literally nowhere to put a moving truck. Apart from having to double park and have cars honk while you block traffic, I was required to avoid the lobby, which meant we had to haul all your stuff up a ramp to the second floor garage entrance - very time consuming. When I called management before moving in, to ask about moving trucks, they flat-out lied, and said it was easy to pull a truck into the garage, when it is actually physically impossible. I have heard many residents repeat the same experience with this lie about moving truck parking, so I think they are still telling it. I was lucky the guys who run the garage across the street took pity on me they say I moved in. I have a deep dread about what will happen why I need to get a truck to move out.

The noise from the train is inescapable in many units, makes opening doors and windows unappealing, and will haunt your dreams. On the upside, since it is close to N W 7 R M E G F trains, you can get to pretty much anywhere in the city within a half hour. The ferry is a 25-30 minute walk.

People with dogs or kids who need green spaces: There are no real parks nearby; it’s a healthy 20-30 minute walk to anywhere with grass or trees, so it is a better building for people with no dogs or kids. That said, the lobby attendants are SO NICE to all the dogs and kids. Shout out to Robert, who is adored by all the building’s dogs.

The lobby attendant guys are the highlight of...

Building staff are amazing, and the views are great. I had no issues living here until I had to move out and deal with management. Honestly, I don’t know how these people managed to hire such amazing building staff. Like others said in the reviews, management is shady and incompetent. I have many examples but here are 3:

Apparently management told an agent that my apt was empty- management didn’t give me a heads up at all. I was sitting at my desk working when someone UNLOCKED MY FRONT DOOR WITH A KEY and walked in with a tour group!!! And this was during COVID. They didn’t think to even knock. I really hope that this group saw this as a red flag and decided not to rent from these people.

My security deposit got returned to sender and apparently they had it for a full week and never thought to contact me, until I called them, wondering what had happened to it. I have no doubt they would have kept the money.

Since they know who your employer is, and if you need to move out early for work reasons and if your employer is a major company, they have no issues charging higher (a completely unreasonable amount even in the context of NYC) because they assume your employer will pay the fee (the amount is not set in the lease, so it’s hand-wavy). They let this slip on a phone call I had....

We only have good things to say about this building. We lived here for 5 years and were amongst the earliest tenants living in the building. Over the course of 5 years, whenever we had issues, they were resolved within an acceptable time frame.

Working with the management was very easy. Yes, it is not a rent stabilized buildings, so expect rent increases in line with market. We also got a decent deal during Covid, so we enjoyed those two years at a relatively lower rent but also paid higher prices during inflation!

The best thing about One LIC/Lions Group though is that they are pretty pleasant to work with as compared to Rockrose, Heatherwood or the corporate rentals around LIC area. Lions group management is much more approachable and reasonable in my experience. The worst of the bunch for us was Heatherwood and Rockrose and we'll always stay away from their rentals.

Staff is good and apartments are small-ish but with good appliances. Decent amenities at no extra cost too! Move-in and Move-out was pretty straight forward too.

The most unpleasant experience we had was with the Modern Spaces broker who we had to deal with at the beginning of our lease. So if you are going through a broker - good...