Lofts 640 — Local services in Philadelphia

DON'T RENT HERE. Please go somewhere else. While the shared spaces (pool, hot-tub, gym) are okay & the parking fee is low, the rooms are a disappointment. The unit wasn't clean when I moved in. Carpet nails stuck up from the carpet, so if you walked barefoot, you’d hurt your foot. The carpet was torn up in several places & if they made a patch, they didn’t match the carpet with the existing carpet. The previous tenant had cats.; the cat hair can still be found in the carpet even after intense vacuuming. There are holes still in the walls from the previous tenant that were never patched. Several cabinets were off their hinges & would not shut. In some places, the particle board for the cabinets had cracks. The windows aren't airtight & are single panel glazing (does nothing for insulation). When I moved in, one of the windows would not close all the way. It took them over a month to fix it despite several email exchanges & explanations of why it needs to close. The noise from Broad is so bad even from the 9th Fl. that you can Shazam a song & it will pull up within 5 seconds. Sleeping at night is horrific. You can't sleep more than 2 hrs at a time with the amount of noise coming off Broad. You might as well be on the motorcycles/vehicles with the guys revving their engine/blasting their music. The trash trucks come consistently in the morning so you will also be woken up by this anytime b/tw 3am & 8am. Earplugs & fans don’t work to reduce the noise. You will never be able to get a full night’s rest unless it rains all night or snows, meaning barely anyone is driving, excluding the trash trucks. It will sound like they are in your living room. For your knowledge, normal conversation falls around 60 decibels (dB). Any noise exceeding 70 dB is considered harmful to your hearing &well-being. 60 dB is half as loud as 70 dB. Noise from ATVs & motorcycles is b/tw 80-96 dB. Trash trucks are b/tw 80-100 dB. Sound levels b/tw 70-80 are considered "high risk" & have a huge impact your well-being. If you express to mngmt the situation, they will do nothing to help. Single panel glazing does nothing for insulation, & the HVAC can’t remedy it. The HVAC does nothing for thermal comfort/insulation so heat & coolth escape easily during the winter & summer. The windows take up 50% of the wall surface; there’s nothing you can do to minimize it. You’ll be blasting the heat/AC to heat/cool your apt. during the winter/summer months. Depending on what room you have, the sun will make your room a heat box b/c of the higher energy transfer. You won't be able to cool your space. The HVAC is in the unit covered by a simple grill, so they are loud/noisy. If you have not lived with one of these, you’ll be easily annoyed by it. Just google the impacts of noise pollution. The roof has several leaks which you won’t notice until it rains b/c the maintenance will have to replace the tiles in the drop ceiling. If you look up in the hallway when one is out, you’ll see black mold in several spots. There’s evidence on all floors with no effort to fix the roof. Parking your car is a hazard w/ the thick columns in the garage. Almost every car has hit one trying to turn into the 1st level parking lot b/c the turning radius around a column is too tight. There are several cracks in the ceiling that have led to leaks/chunks of the ceiling coming off. For the shared amenities, the pool/hot tub have been broken for the past 9 of the 11 months. The communication about when this is being fixed is almost non-existent. While the gym has a nice view of the city, several of the equipment are broken & haven't been fixed or attempted to be fixed. They probably will stay “out of order” if you rent there. When asked to receive my amenities fee refunded multiple times, the management refused. For months, the front gate was open, so anyone could walk in. While the front desk was very nice/helpful, they did not check in visitors, so anyone off the streets could walk in if they acted normal. This puts people’s vehicles & personal property at risk. Please, go...

Update 01/18/2025: I updated this to five stars because my only two issues have been resolved! They fixed my hot water heater as well as the treadmills in the gym :)

Original 11/12/2024: I have lived in Lofts 640 for two months now, I will update this review as I go along!

So far, I absolutely love this apartment building. Management has been incredibly friendly and kind. The leasing office is right in the building, and the problem I have had (I had trouble with my building key not unlocking the gym) I was able to solve quickly by just talking to someone in the office.

There is always someone at the reception, they are all friendly and it's nice having someone to receive packages, doordash, etc.

The building has had community events that vary in degrees of socialization and always involve free food/drinks in some form! Other renters I have met are all very friendly.

My unit is by far the best apartment I have rented. The bathroom is very large, there is a washer/dryer in unit, my kitchen is very modern and comes with a garbage disposal. There are pre-installed lighting fixtures that are quite bright. So far, my experiences with the A/C and heating have been great, the place gets appropriately warm and cold as needed. The walls are thick, I can't hear my neighbors at all. The large windows provide a lot of natural lighting and not a lot of street noise, the street is fairly quiet for the city.

I feel very safe living here with the gate, 24/hr reception, and parking garage which enables me to go right from my car to the elevator and vice versa. A trash room being on each floor makes it very easy to take care of that each week.

I have yet to use the yoga studio but plan to! I have used the gym and rooftop area, and enjoy them.

My only complaints (i.e. the reason for 4 stars rather than 5) are that the gym does not have much cardio equipment aside from treadmills (no bikes, for example) and that 3/5 of the treadmills are broken. I put in a work order request for those to be fixed, and it has been pending for a few weeks now. Additionally, the shower water does not get hot but starts out mostly just warm (a couple degrees than would be preferred) and over ten minutes becomes lukewarm/cool, so you're forced to get out quickly and, if you're already starting off feeling cold and wanted to warm up with a hot shower, you will be disappointed.

Outside of these, I have had an entirely positive experience and hope...

I have so much to say about our experience in this building. We lived at the lofts for 4 years from the beginning of 2020 to end of January 2024.

We had many negative experiences unfortunately. We had rain coming fully in through windows. We had to live with plastic bag over windows for months as that was management’s solution. They kept sending us “experts” and all of them said that the windows needed to be changed as the newest one was 15 years old, so the building decided we needed thick black tapes to fix the issue. They knew better than their own experts.

Our roof leaked for months. We ended up losing tens of books and bookshelf and lived with a catch bucket and possible black mold for many months.

What else… The pool is maybe open for half of the year. Same with the gym. Maybe. If you are lucky.

They had to change the AC controller like 4 times as our AC had issues. Also, please know that their heating/ cooling unit is not central, but rather is located at a corner of a giant unit, so good luck with heating/cooling the unit and the electricity bill. We lived in a one bedroom lofted style unit and many many times our electricity bill was $400 or close to it.

The unit next to us was an Airbnb for a long time and was used as a party house. When I reported it to the management, I was told they knew it but their boss loved money. This is what I was told exactly.

Finally, it has been over 4 months and we still did not receive our deposit. It is shocking to me that we left that unit clean and gave all the forms and keys as we were supposed to and here is the management not responding to calls and emails and not giving our own money back after an awful 4 years.

I do not recommend this...