Arrive University City

Sep 20th, 2021

I’d recommend almost anywhere else. I moved out in June 2021 and only just now worked up the patience to write this. To begin, the bones of this building are good. The kitchen cabinets, counters, appliances are all decent. It’s a visually satisfying building, and the apartments themself look and appear modern. The dry cleaning lockers downstairs are very efficient and useful. Everything else is a mirage. Let’s start with the staff. When I moved into the building in 2018, the building was named 3601 Market St. The building staff were great and consistent. Dwight, the doorman and front desk concierge was an absolutely lovely man who knew the building like the back of his hand. Sid, who did cleaning, was a smiling face that would brighten your day and greet you by name in the hallway. Then, Trinity purchased the building and everything changed. Sid and Dwight both left immediately, they must have seen the writing on the wall. What came in their place was a revolving door of roughly 25-30 interchangeable staff members who didn’t know anything about the building, and were never really given the time to learn. As soon as a front desk staff would start to become competent, they would be swapped out (resignation, termination, reassignment, who knows). Most of these new people would make mail room and package errors, be unable to answer any building related questions, and just appeared generally confused or disinterested in their work. Most of them would be FaceTiming friends or family on their phones while interacting with residents. Trinity made a lot of other changes. They monetized what used to be a private resident garage and made it to open to the public as a pay lot. They installed a gate arm with a credit card reader that seemed to fail/glitch about once a month and either lock you in the garage, or lock you out. When COVID hit they understandably closed down all amenities that we paid for to live in a “luxury” building (pool, lounge, gym, coffee machine, etc.) but that didn’t stop them from raising our rent for the subsequent lease. The cleanliness of the building also took a major turn for the worse when Trinity took over. Stains and messes would sit on the floor for days. Dog urination was common in the elevators (admittedly residents should clean up messes their animals make in public spaces, but since they didn’t it ultimately falls on the responsibility of the building). They began to rent out unused apartments for short term guests who would often throw loud parties. I do think they stopped this hotel/AirBNB initiative, but it was quite common for a while. They also claim the pool heater is always broken so the water is typically ice cold. Not that the pool is usable anyway, I’ll explain that now: Let’s talk lanternflies. For some unexplainable reason Arrive University City appears to be the epicenter for Lanternflies in Philadelphia. Pictures are attached. The front double door entrance becomes swarmed with them during the months of July-October. They find their way into the lobby and as far as the mailroom. Carcasses of squashed lanternflies litter the floor of the lobby and outdoor walkway. They found their way up to our balcony on the 19th floor (pic below shows 10 of them in one corner of the balcony alone). The 6th floor pool deck becomes unusable for the prime summer months due to the sheer number out there (one of the pictures below is the door handle to the pool covered in lanternflies). When the building manager was contacted she admitted that they did not preemptively treat the building to prevent lanternflies, and so they were caught playing clean up. Too little, too late. I moved out in June 2021, I just went back today, August 27th, 2021 to see if they had done a better job at preventing them from flourishing this year. They haven’t. The front walkway is still littered with carcasses. A woman in scrubs was running out of the building frantically with her eyes closed to avoid seeing the flies that had accumulated in between the double doors. Moving out was a relief.
Aug 22nd, 2021

Aug 19th, 2021

STAY AWAY. Save yourself time and money and move anywhere but here. Property manager and trinity PM are complete trash. They will not work with you even during covid they do not care about you or your financial hardship. They do not follow basic landlord tenant laws. Look them up on BBB. They are a terrible corporate run company. You should only live here if your only other option is being homeless on the streets.
Aug 10th, 2021

Rented a 1 bedroom here for one year for my wife who was attending UPenn for her masters degree, and it was a great experience. It is just a five minute walk from campus, the neighborhood was safe, clean, and had everything necessary, and the building was superb. We had a great view of the City, and reaching downtown was a breeze on the main subway and bus lines. The building staff was very attentive to any request for service, leasing went out of their way to make the sign up process a snap, and management runs a tight ship. My wife felt very comfortable and safe in the building, and enjoyed all the amenities (especially the pool!) Even most recently in the time of COVID, the maintenance staff was ever-present to make sure the tenants felt protected. Special mention to Ryon Willis in Leasing, Angela Terrigno the building manager, and all the maintenance staff for a great experience. I recommend them all highly!
Aug 4th, 2021