Presidential Apartments

The maintenance person and the laundry room are fine. It’s convenient to the NU shuttle, other transportation and shopping. The building is close to Lake Michigan. However, looks are deceiving, even after they did a remodel.
We moved out but our best friends still live here. We feel really bad for them. We saw them this past week-​end, which reminded us of our experience. The whole year we lived there we did house/​pet sitting as much as possible for a few professors we both knew just so we could experience a normal amount of sleep at night.
If you do visit the building, do not take the east elevator. It breaks down on a regular basis. The elevators are really old. They were not replaced during the remodel work.
The rent does NOT include allocated utilities, another $ 25−30/month. Our electric bill went up at least $ 100/​month in the winter due to the need for heat.
There is no soundproofing. We heard all sorts of noise from the adjoining bedroom: couple with stomach flu or food poisoning, one side of detailed phone conversations, expressions of anger, crying. Above us there was someone who wore heavy shoes or boots around the apartment even at night and seemed to pace around the apartment quite a bit. From another apartment we heard a child and the parent having meltdowns. If a neighbor smoked, the smell would come right through the walls. Sickening. We lived in an older building before grad school and it was much quieter but further from NU. Now we’re in a house, happily!
The heat is ridiculously ineffective in the winter. It’s just those air conditioners built into the wall. They are very loud. They go off and on all night and do not project heat into all areas of the living room. You need to get a space heater, like a baseboard type heater.
We did not pay for a garage space, just used the Church Street garage near NU, which is way less expensive and has security. Then we took the NU shuttle down to the building, walked, or used the purple line. We kept the one bike we had in our apartment.
We never used the roof deck or the area in front with the gas fireplace. We went up to the roof once or twice to take photos of the sunset. It was just people drinking and smoking at night. Not pleasant.

Pros: 1. great location 2. new clean appliances 3. building engineer is super friendly and gets things done quickly
Cons: 1. super thin walls, you can hear your neighbor fart, talk, sneeze (i don’t exaggerate) 2. elevator is broken about 50% of the time 3. utility bill gets expensive in the winter because it’s difficult to heat a room with one wall made entirely of windows
Major complaint is the overall shoddy architecture. I think this is a newly renovated old apartment building. While things may look very nice, things break easily and are made of cheap materials (ie. thin walls with no insulation). The apt manager will expect things returned in newly mint condition but not consider the fact that it was initially made of cheap materials that don’t maintain quality for long durations.

Went to visit a friend who lived here-​was thinking about renting as this place would have been very convenient for me to catch the El and get to Northwestern. Was greatly disappointed by the loud noise and partying of the residents! one group sits out front nearly every night screaming and laughing. they drink beer (which makes the place look cheap) and scream curse words at each other, even with kids in the building and on the street. My friend told me that she used to love the place but that it had really gotten worse over the year. disappointed for me and annoyed for her.

It’s in a friendly neighborhood, walking distance to grocery stores, coffee shops and bars. But that’s where it ends. There are a lot of ‘nice people’ and ‘ok finishes’ thrown in to mask every other problem. The appliances? super cheap, not even standard size. If the oven goes above 375 it has a panic attack. There is absolutely no soundproofing in surrounding walls, so you can hear every single thing your neighbors are doing. It costs 150+ a month for off-​street parking (which has been broken into) so parking on the street is chaotic with street cleaning and snow removal. All in all, I can’t tell you how excited I am to say I am moving from this apartment. In my 6 years of renting this is by far the worst experience I’ve ever had, at the highest price I’ve ever paid.