Evo at Cira Centre South — Local services in Philadelphia

[Warning] DO NOT SIGN THE LEASE!!!

Cons loud traffic noise: Right beside is the highway, and so many cars are speeding crazily with extreme noise. thin wall: chopping/dropping sound. People cook unwillingness of management to help: manager declined to file a complain for a construction going on right infront of the apartment. The construction was going from 9pm-5am, and the manager said it’s not their responsibility. tiny window opening: ~1 inch. Minimal airflow. fire alarm: you can barely cook. Fire alarm will go on even when you are cooking just onions. Note that there is minimal airflow from tiny window opening. unfinished ceiling/wall: Literally see the concrete. White/gray dusts fall off from the ceiling. don’t show the actual unit: Think about this. Why would you not confirm which unit you are signing into until you are about to check in. Why would you not show the actual unit you are signing into? The unit you see in the tour is for showing-purpose only. Actual units are a mess! broken furnitures: management will tell you they don’t have spare one anymore. low water pressure in the toilet very strained concierge: concierge is usually very busy. They are nice people but if you were in their position, you would be tired just from the mail package delivery requests, and not wanting to take care of all those people with extra job. They tend to not wanting to work and say your request is not possible. No wonder if you consider this is 33 story building with ~20 units per floor. extremely slow fixing: there is only 1 person taking care of unit fixing. Again 33 story building with ~20 units per floor. Most of the times, your request to fix something in your unit will be marked “done” without anything actually fixed. Hallway smells like trash: trash room’s are not frequently cleaned. Again 33 story building with ~20 units per floor.

Pros: gym: probably be closed tho park on the 9th floor

It’s possible that there’ll be another outbreak of the virus in the coming fall, and you definitely don’t want this place to be your home when there is ample chance that you’ll be locked up in your place again.

This place is good if you come home only for sleep and do 99% of your study at school/library. Make sure you come home extremely tired because it’s very noisy due to traffic/construction and possibly loud neighbors.

Look at the review by Ashley Mcgrail who gave 5 star with nice photos. She works for this apartment. And the unit you see on the photo is the model unit. Your actual unit will be much more degraded version of what you see.

I felt really bad for people doing virtual tour on this apartment. Please don’t get yourself into this apartment. Don’t sign the lease. Yeah, the person doing the virtual tour is nice, but you won’t deal with her when you have a problem with management/fixing.

FOLLOW UP: Management says the following in the reply:

This is a COMPLETE LIE. I specifically asked if the management is not going to do anything about the construction and file a complain to the government. They specifically said "they are not responsible, and they are not going to do anything". I asked again that complaint from the building will be more effective, but again got a reply saying "They understand, but its not their responsibility". Not just once! I have asked before and after the outbreak.

How do I know she is completely lying? Because if you were to make a call, you had to call PennDOT, not the City of Philadelphia. If you call the city (air&pollution department), they will direct you to PennDOT specifically for this construction. This just proves that she NEVER tried to make a complaint and merely trying to look "responsible" for the future tenants.

Also furniture replacement? Trust me. I've tried so many times for...

extremely unprofessional, management can not get you any answers and they just want to extort, the amenities might be nice but that’s not worth it if you’re living standard will be this low, email me and i’ll tell you how they extorted me

they put a baseless lease violation on me and my roommate for a noise complaint on a friday night, the biggest speaker we have is a jblcharge and it’s two people in a four bedroom duplex-it’s not my fault you have really thin walls and that my neighbours didn’t even check whether it was us, they just made a complaint , it could’ve been anyone but not us, threatened for eviction, never tried to work with us, kept putting late charges inspite of knowing that i’m waiting for responses, it took me 2 months to finally get a manager appointment and then the manager doesn’t know anything, he responds on behalf of the GM and the GM will neither ever talk to you and work with you nor will the Manager actually forward the case to them, they don’t have any morality or flexibility or hospitality. Commercial housing is at its worst here.

they rooms are unfinished, the doors are broken, toilet and sink pipes are always full of vacuum and shoot gunk out every few days, don’t get me started about the roaches, how can they say we leave unclean if the first day i stepped in there was a colony of roaches, pest control hardly gets them, so many in the kitchen pipeline, summer here will be terrible i already know

my neighbour is a terrible one too, keeps punching my wall that i share with them, can’t blame them much, the walls are paper thin. but regardless neighbours have been really nosy and it should be expected in a college housing but i don’t think evo management understands that and forget them working with you. at the end of the day i am not automatically liable if someone disturbed, if im not doing anything they shouldn’t be disturbed. also apparently you can call cops on anyone in the building for even something as small as noise-(they don’t even need to be disturbing or even have noise, hell there can be no one at their apartment) and evo will charge them, it can be a good game guys, call cops on all your neighbours and make them pay!

it’s all a bunch of liars, tours are lies

it’s also not much safe either, there was a robbery conducted by a security member on my floor in the next room, not that this happens a lot but how did it happen is concerning.

regardless of all of it, i think management is the worst, they think extorting residents is correct and residents who succumb to it are responsible residents or they are rogue tenants and should be dragged in court for 100 dollars of baseless non - instalment charges but paying 3000 every month on rent on time for a terrible service and a decent setup with avg amenities is not responsible enough.

choose wisely mate, you’ll be stuck for a year and regret it. they can’t fix it till their management changes.

UNPROFESSIONAL, IRRESPONSIBLE, IRRELIABLE, IRRESPONSIBLE, IRRELEVANT...

I’m giving a one-star review because of my negative experience with this apartment. Although the rooms and services they showed you may seem appealing, my experience with this apartment was negative.

The main problem is apartment management and maintenance services. The maintenance service (or repair) usually takes many days to come after a request is sent. For me, it was the bathroom light. After they “fixed” it, the new light break the second day. This happened not only once, but multiple times. I once asked the repair man why don’t just install a LED light instead. He said it because the management wants to save money by installing the halogen (or fluorescent) light instead. I ended up buying a wall-plug light bulb in my bathroom.

The apartment management was particularly problematic. It seems that they want to take no responsibility for the damaged property they provided and redirect the charges to their tenants.

This happened in our room. We had an old washing machine that was broken for a very long time. It was causing hazards to all of us because of the leaking water mixed with detergents flowing next to the room door. Especially for one of us whose room is right next to the washing machine. We all could’ve slipped and been injured because of it. A request was sent weeks or months ago after the leak and nothing was done about it. After multiple office visits, finally someone came and replaced our washing machine. However, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, the new washing machine broke not long after.

At this time, since I go back home weekly, I brought my dirty clothes with me to wash them at home. So I barely or never (I don’t remember exactly) used the new washing machine. The management decided to charge all of us for the damaged washing machine they provided. I told the apartment manager about my case and she said that I need to ask my roommates to write them an email so that the office can charge them the money that I was “suppose” to pay.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any cameras that can prove I never used the washing machine. To be honest, I don’t think we can win this dispute against them, but I hope that sharing my experience here can help others to know a glimpse of what to expect when living here. By sharing my experience, I hope to raise awareness of the issues and encourage the management to make improvements.

Update (Around 4:33PM March 8, 2023): I called the number that the management provided in the reply and no one picked up the phone. Will call the next day.

Update (As of 4:16PM March 9, 2023): This time they picked up the phone. However, we have not reached a resolution. The only thing that we settled is that they're going to send us the evidence of the damage. When giving further comments to about their management on phone, they hung up abruptly. The entire calling experience gave me an impression that they are insincere and they still remained with a...