Riverwalk Philly - South — Local services in Philadelphia

I gave Riverwalk South 2 stars. Here's why:

Unit: The only reason I did not give 1 star is because the units are brand new (as they should be considering I was the first person to live in my unit).

Management: Great management UNTIL you sign the dotted line on the lease. Consider yourself forgotten about from that point on. All they care about is signing people up, locking them in to long term leases and filling the building. One day I was back home and received a text from my neighbor that random people were on my balcony. No notice, nothing. PMC Management employees just let themselves into my apartment to do whatever. After I brought this to the leasing office's attention, I received a simple, "Sorry, our mistake." You can't just barge into someone's unit without adequate notice or good reason, but PMC Management seems to think differently.

Receptionist: I have never met front desk individuals who hate their job more than the individuals hired at Riverwalk. And it shows in the complete lack of consistency week after week. From being extremely rude or making me feel bad for asking to retrieve a package (which is their main job responsibility). Nothing about communicating or dealing with the front desk individuals was pleasant for the duration of my lease. They make YOU feel bad for asking them a question. For example, one time I had a priority package with medication that I needed to open. I relayed this message to the front desk lady after she told me to come back later and she replied, "I'm eating my lunch, come back later when I'm done." For reference, the mail room is a mere 15 yards from her desk and she was still on the clock.

Don't believe the "secure package area" or however they want to advertise it. It's not. Sometimes they would just give the code to residents and allow them to go back and grab whatever they want. I had 2 packages stolen.

Amenities: What amenities? I moved in 11 months ago, understanding the building was still under construction. To protect themselves, they made us sign an addendum to our lease pretty much saying we cannot claim a reduction in rent due to the fact amenities were not completed. However, like most leasing offices do, Chris made it very clear that finalizing the amenities would be complete in the near future and definitely before my lease was up. Don't let the "tennis, volleyball court, move theater, basketball court, outdoor gym, racquetball court" and whatever else they advertise on their website fool you. None of it is done and I haven't seen progress in 7-8 months. They simply are NOT concerned about it, but it's one of the things that drives the price so people should be aware.

New Construction: DO NOT MOVE INTO THE RIVERWALK SOUTH BUILDING ON THE SIDE OF JOHN F. KENNEDY BLVD unless you fully understand that new construction will be going on right outside, likely until 2025. No, this is not Riverwalk doing construction on the promised amenities. This is PMC Management completely building a new apartment complex. Even worse, I complained on multiple occasions to PMC that the construction company was starting construction at 6:00am each morning (which is illegal). Instead of PMC Management asking THEIR construction company to follow the rules and start at 7:00am, it was not until I got the Philly police and 311 involved before things changed. Another example of the lack of professionalism on behalf of PMC Management and specifically the leasing office. They don't care about current residents, only more $$ in their pocket. The worst part is the leasing office blatantly lied to my face. They knew this construction was coming. It's their construction and they received the permit in 2021. They clearly withheld this information before they could fill as many units as possible in the South building before starting construction. Smart business move on their part, sure, but future residents need to be aware of these sketchy business tactics before paying this premium price.

Tread lightly with this place. Not worth the...

I don’t know how many people are still getting scammed, but I really hope that they get the chance to read all this before even considering signing their lease with this company.

The day that we were supposed to move in to their 23rd & Cherry Street apartment, was on August 15th, and it’s actually our first day in Philly as well. We drove over mid night to get there from Manhattan, and by the time we got there, no one was at the concierge, and no one picking up phone calls from the office. So we literally had to wait for a good 2 hours until a Construction worker got the door open for us. And as we are moving in our stuff into the unit, we found out that the unit was not even done with the renovation yet. There’s no AC, no hot water, and the fridge was not even properly installed. Walls are damaged by condensation and dirty, all the cabinetries were violently rushed through with tons of cracks. And the most hilarious thing was the peephole… Like how can you not even be finishing with that simple little installment and tell your residents to move in on your leasing contract??? Only in Philadelphia I guess.

And not even mentioning, I had to walk to the Riverwalk building(3 blocks away) to find the manager so that we can get our keys and paper works. Yes, the doors on all the units were not even locked when we get there. And right after the manager walked with us to the Unit that we supposed moved into, he almost immediately said that he can offer us a $250 move-in credit for all the small blemishes from his words… Wow, so help worthy to mention! Obviously we did not accept that perfunctory attitude and reparation, so we asked to switch unit, or move to another PMC building around that area. But we were being told that all of the units are leased out, and there is nothing else he can do besides we move in to that “Jerry Building” with the $250 credit that he offered, and they will not be covering for hotels or other expenses while they were still fixing things in the unit. And later he asked a lady from the higher level department to come and negotiate, and I still couldn’t believe what that lady said to us. From her exact words(No exaggeration): “This is not unlivable, why not just move in, I can call someone to come and fix everything in the next 30 minutes, and this is just some small blemishes. Your contract supposed to have a construction site that is still working while you’re moving in, and we didn’t even have to offer that $250 credit to you guys!” What a nonsense BS great speech Karen! But she end up left us with the best offer that she can ever possibly gave to us was to have One hour to move everything out from the building. Although it was kind of frustrating for someone who did not sleep for a single minute in 24 hours, but thank you so much for that offer so I can brake lease and got my money back from this junkyard!

Yeah PMC property, your residents will definitely appreciate all the “Small Blemishes that can be fixed within hours” and the $250 move-in credit. I’m just so glad that you guys are only located on the east coast! So people on the other part of the country wouldn’t be suffering...

This building is fine. Not good, certainly not great.

Yes it's new, but the amenities and employee service are nowhere close to a "luxury" building standard, which is how this building is marketed (and priced), which is why I'm giving it 2 stars. Why you might ask? Well, here are my top 10 thoughts below:

1. Probably don't live on the south side unless you're into clanging and construction noise for 2+ years
2. There are no sports courts and probably won't be until that same new building is done since they're using the area as a construction staging area
3. There is no Sweetgreen outpost
4. The secure package room has become "the door is open just go back and look for your package" per the front desk. Suuuper secure.
5. My locked bike, among several other bikes, was stolen from a room that requires key access and has cameras inside the room. Yet to my knowledge no one ever figured out what happened.
6. Our meal box was taken by we think a resident, probably an honest mistake. But after 5+ emails to the front office, no one ever seemed to crack the apparently quantum computing skills needed around here to look at a security camera recording for people walking to the reception area and figure out where our box went so we could go get it back.
7. There is no bike share program to my knowledge
8. Multiple issues with shoddy construction when we moved in. Yes, some issues were fixed like the dishwasher leaking and the bedroom door not closing, though I'd strongly argue those should have been checked before moved in. But multiple other work order issues involving paint, carpentry, and electrical sockets, were ignored or more gallingly closed without notice.
9. The elevators just stopped working for several hours one weekend. All four of them. In a brand new building. Cool cool, who doesn't love hoofing it up 20+ flights of stairs with groceries.
10. Are you into fire alarms going off at random times and they just keep going off for 10, 20 minutes for no reason? Well then this is the building for you.

One or two of these things happening, I can totally understand. The multitude of issues month after month suggests a lack of management competence or indifference.

Check out Zac Phillip's review, which is also spot on...