Skyline Tower — Local services in New York

This review is from the POV of a renter in a building of condominiums.

There's 3 different groups you will have to work with as a renter - the owners of the unit (in my case, YouYork represents the owners), Polaris (also represents the owners, but you contact them for things in contract that need to be fixed, like AC), and Akam (general building maintenance).

Pros: New, modern building with nice amenities. Interior of the unit has good build. Gym is open 24/7 and has squat racks and free weights. Front desk/concierge is also available 24/7, so you can always get your packages or have someone receive items for you. Doormen are polite and helpful. YouYork (especially Mr. Tony Xu) is quick to respond and help with any issues. YouYork was by far the best point of contact to work with for quick, clear communication. Good noise insulation. No extra fees for amenities, they are included in rent. Steps away from the entrance to the Court Square station, Manhattan-bound platform side.

Cons: Working with three different groups of people for one unit is incredibly cumbersome. They don't coordinate with each other, it's all on the renter. This is far more tedious than working with a management company that manages a whole building for renters. For move in, you have to provide collateral in the form of a move in deposit of $2500. This is on top of a security deposit. The management is absolutely unwilling to work around any delays or early appearances in your movers, even if you show up with the check 10 minutes later. This causes stress on a moving day. Polaris originally scheduled my move-in inspection for 1/25 11am a week prior, and waited until 1/24 to call me at work multiple times to tell me they actually don't work Saturdays and they needed to reschedule. This was unprofessional, as I was bothered at my own work due to what seemed like an emergency but wasn't from their own poor planning. In general, Polaris doesn't notify you in advance; I was not given any heads up that someone from Polaris would be showing up to replace my Latch door battery until they rang my doorbell in the middle of the work day. Again, lack of consideration. Akam took over a week to provide me with key fobs to access the amenities in the building after I moved in; this should've been prepared ahead of time, and prevented me from using my amenities. The elevators can be slow if you live higher up. They are separated into two groups of elevators, but if you live in the 60's, you can expect to wait around 5 minutes at times to go to the lobby. There isn't really any dog area in front or around this building, so when the weather gets warmer, the whole area smells like dog pee due to owners relieving their dogs outside the building. Smaller closet space compared to other buildings in LIC.

Overall, the building and unit itself is nice, but the lack of coordination amongst the different management companies could be improved for renters.

Again, Tony Xu from YouYork is by far the highlight of the process of applying and...

UPDATE: Things are good to go. I barely use the amenities but its nice to have. Cant complain, my friends that visit appreciate it and use it more than I do. But will change rating to 4.5/5 stars b/c of how expensive things have gotten. You'd think with the price we're paying, we can at least get a rooftop/outdoor space area haha.

Building is quiet convenient with beautiful views into Manhattan. It's directly above the Court Square station, so extremely accessible and convenient (direct access to 7, E, G, F and M line). The N and Q line are also a few blocks away. Love how welcoming the front desk are, especially the doormen. Can't say I have any complaints about that. It does give me "hotel" vibes -- maybe because the developer used to specialize in developing hotels, so definitely a different feel than other buildings IMO.

With that said, management was an issue. I won't deny that and the other reviewers experiences below. But I say "was" past tense because we were notified of a change in the onsite manager this week. This one is supposed to have experience with new developments so hopefully things will change.

Also it's really hard to review amenities when they aren't finished yet... While I understand everyone's frustration below, I think given the circumstances of the situation (pandemic/quarantine really stunting most of these developments), there is an expected delay. Which sucks... but food for thought below

After talking/comparing with friends that moved in to neighboring buildings (5Pointz LIC, The Davis, Star Tower), I realized that we're not alone -- Most of the new buildings in LIC have unfinished amenities which is expected given COVID/new construction... it sucks to say this but it seems like that's the norm RIGHT NOW where all these investors that pumped money in, don't seem to have enough to finish it due to the pandemic. So... in comparison, I think we're all riding the same boat atm, whether you decide to live in this building in LIC, or another one a few blocks away. I'm just going to sit tight and wait to have our amenities be built properly, than have it rushed like some others... (My friend in 5Pointz mentioned how after Hurricane Ida hit, they had to rebuild certain areas because development was rushed... so infrastructure wasn't up to par). That really put some things into perspective where I'd rather it be slow and steady and properly built, than have another issue like our gym being flooded again because it was rushed.

I hope by next month, everything will be good to go and than I can accurately review everything. I'll come back to re-edit this review if necessary but I hope it stays the 5 Stars. The 5 stars is honestly more so for its potential as the tallest condominium point in LIC - lets see if it...

The WORST management team YouYork Management LLC and WORST experience of a luxury apartment, especially their leasing agent FIONA CHEN, the most IRRESPONSIBLE agent I have even seen. She was not willing to help and lie to me that she was only responsible to do the lease and could not provide any information about the apartment, while their management team was supposed to manage the apartment that I was trying to lease. I did not know that until I talked to her manager, and she was acting like I needed to beg her in order to get on the lease. She also lied to me about the security deposit that I was supposed to receive after move out. She helped the original lessee to deceive me and led me to lose THOUSANDS of dollars during the leasing process.

The other team member in this management team was also irresponsible and slow to reply to emails. They refused to give me back my security deposit and would only give it to my roommates. And they call me CRAZY because I sent several emails regarding not to give my money to someone else other than me. They did not respond to me so I have to keep sending them. They were NOT supposed to take our security deposit according to the NYC law but they still did.

During my stay, I found the hot water was often taking at least ten minutes to get. The smoke detector was extremely sensitive. The dryer was malfunctioning. There was once the water went black for a while and we had no idea what happened, but there must be something wrong with their water system. The community hot tub was always broken. The pool was very small and always crowded. The mails take long time to be processed. There was loud construction noise for several months. The elevator was taking very long time to arrive (I don’t understand why the number of elevators for higher floors is the same as the number of elevators for lower floors. It’s obviously that it’s gonna take much longer to get to the higher floors. So we could always see people line up in front of the high floor elevators for a long time while the low floor...