520 W Melrose St, Chicago, IL, 60657

Group Fox is a perfect embodiment of the stereotypically abusive Chicago property management company. I wanted to make sure I clearly communicate my experience to ensure others aren't blindsided. Pros: - Maintenance - the issues I communicated with the Maintenance team were always met with speedy results. Cons: - Management Turnover: I have had 4 property managers in my 1.5 yrs of lease agreement. - Flexibility: Zero lease flexibility throughout COVID crisis, renewal prices were actually raised during this time - Move In: Zero move in instructions, no temporary parking spot offered up as an option, no elevator reservation. Just a free for all. - Water Issues: Building would frequent shut the water off, sometimes with less than 5 minutes of notice to their tenants - Overheating: my apartment would frequently reach temperatures over 85 degrees during the winter months, tenants have no control over heat. - Air Conditioning: Wall mounted AC unit was made in 1992, and barely functioned - there was zero flexibility with management on a replacement - Location: This building is located within arm's reach of an outdoor pre-school daycare. Working from home here is not a feasible option due to noise. - Parking: Prepare to pay $200/month for an uncovered spot - Noise: Incredibly thin walls allowed me to clearly hear neighbor conversations at any time during the day.

Great except it is very clear that these apartments weee cheaply made. The walls are paper thin you can hear literally everything your upstairs and side neighbors are doing and saying and hear every little squeaky footstep. Super annoying. Would never live here again.

I moved in from another Group Fox property because I had a great experience with management. This continued in the new building (520) however previous reviews about maintenance being touch and go are correct. I happened to live in an updated unit (one-bedroom) right above the garage. The construction was great except for the flooring which bowed in some places. Living above the garage meant I heard and felt the gate every time it opened and closed but growing up by O'Hare and living in the city my entire adult life, this wasn't a big deal. It did have a noisy daycare next door so sleeping in wasn't the best. Also the one bedrooms have the wall mounted A/C units only in the living room so the bedroom can get quite toasty. Perfect location though.

This is a really nice apartment building. I live in the studio apartment, and it has hardwood floors throughout, & heat comes from underneath the flooring! Nice size kitchen. It's in a good area with lots of stuff to do and the express bus and train just around the corner. Also, it has a balcony. That is awesome. There is a nursery school outside, but lets face it...how many studios apartments come with an outdoor space? The management has been great, they always respond to my emails quickly. The hallways are cleaned every week or two, and the stairways are all freshly painted. I haven't had any bug problems. The elevator is a little funny though. It doesn't get stuck between floors, sometimes the outer door doesn't open. It's a bummer, but the building really isn't that big. Either way, it's about as close as you're going to get to the lakefront. Across the street.

I selected this apartment 100% for it's location, and I'm still satisfied with that aspect. I've not had a problem with the management, but it can take several calls or e-mails to get things fixed, or it could happen the next day. Real touch and go. However, the maintenance folks come around about once a week so the common area stays relatively tidied up. The other reviewer is right about that elevator. It always seems to be malfunctioning when I'm coming in with a big load of groceries or trying to do laundry. Mention this problem when negotiating rent. Who knows, maybe you can get some $$ knocked off. The noise level isn't bad in the building. The only trouble I've really had is when I have stayed home sick on occasion. Forget getting any extra sleep because once the daycare next door opens they bundle up the kiddies and toss 'em outdoors (right under your bedroom window) to SCREAM and run around for several hours, and the windows will not block out a lick of that. Also, I rented a one bedroom (without balcony) for a certain price and then later looked on their website and their ads on craigslist and saw similar units (with the balcony) in the building being advertised for considerably less per month! It's my own fault for not looking, so do you're homework folks and don't get ripped off.

Maintenance leaves a bit to be desired but for a budget range apartment building its not terrible. The elevator got stuck between floors frequently. As a person working in the design and construction industry, I'm pretty sure there's not much they can do about it, other than rip out the elevator and all of the associated machinery and replace the entire thing, which costs a small fortune and would be a huge inconvenience to tenants. It is an old hydraulic elevator whose fluid tank caused the elevator to stop in between the first and second floor. If you are in the elevator going down, it will stop and open about 2' above the floor and you just duck and step down. If you are in the lobby and it gets stuck when you call it, you have to take the stairs up one flight to the second floor, call it to 2, and then get on. Inconvenient but not impossible to deal with if you need an affordable apartment in a good location. The gate to the parking area frequently went out of service. Fortunately the gate doesn't engage into a latch so you can just push it open with a lot of force if you need to get out. The track for my closet doors was a mess when I moved in and never got any better. This would have been a cheap fix if management had bothered. My kitchen cupboards were awful--decades old with many layers of paint. Maintenance hadn't even bothered to clean them before painting so there were globs of grease below the paint. The cabinet interiors are covered in years of contact paper and grime. I was pretty grossed out by the state of my cupboards. Just before I moved in (6 years ago), they refinished the hardwood floors. Unfortunately maintenance isn't too bright and dragged brand new appliances across the not-yet-hardened finish and completely ruined the coating. The new appliances were nice but every time I mopped the floors the wood got damaged a little more. These above problems became apparent almost immediately after I moved in, and after a little haggling with management, they finally admitted they were having problems with the maintenance man, who was obviously reporting the completion of repairs but not even bothering to do anything. He was replaced about six months after I moved in--and obviously I continued to live there for another 5 1/2 yrs so obviously I considered these problems minimal compared to the value. The security phone in the lobby never worked for me. In six years of residency, management could never figure out how to solve the problem--and the problem was obvious: they assigned two residents the same code. Instead of reaching me, a visitor reached another tenant when they dialed my code. Imagine, in six years I could never order takeout. Plumbing--my kitchen sink had horrible hot water pressure. Hot water elsewhere was fine. Bugs--no problem here whatsoever. This one thing this building definitely has going for it. Management has a regular extermination schedule and uses a method that doesn't require tenants to empty out their cupboards all the time. In six years I only saw a spider once in my apartment. The back stairs to the trash do sometimes fill up with gross spiders and webs in the fall months, but that is par for the course in the upper midwest in the autumn. Noise is not a major problem. For a brief 6 months I had a neighbor who listened to loud music a lot but management dealt with him. Prospective tenants should consider that some apartments overlook a neighboring private daycare roof--and their large air handling unit. This can make otherwise enjoyable days less than pleasant. All in all, not a bad place for the money. Studio apartments are definitely spacious and sunny and priced will for the market. During the six years I lived there, my rent increased a total of $50--for the entire six years. During two years when the economy was bad they didn't raise my rent at all. Occasionally management offered incentives for re-signing early like lower rent for a few months.

I lived in 520 W. Melrose for a year and it is a run down building run by an inexperienced and unprofessional management company. The elevator rarely worked, the hallways and stairs were always filled with bugs and dirt, and lightbulbs constantly needed changed. My kitchen sink leaked, the bathroom faucet constantly dripped, the bathtub would not drain, my windows didnt shut properly; letting cold air in during the winter, you can hear right through the walls, and my closet doors fell off the track on a regular basis. Whenever I called to report maintenance concerns, someone would come fix them and the repair would last maybe a week. Twice, the door into the building was shattered and it took awhile for the repairs to be made. Someone crashed into the garage gate and it took a month for them to fix the open gate when I was supposed to be paying for secured garage parking. I was hassled about renewing my lease, they wanted to raise my rent $50 a month, they showed my apartment whenever they pleased, and charged me late fees for rent that was paid ontime. This building is in lakeview, one block from the lake and it is a nice, safe area that should have buildings and managers that reflect the community and its residents. If you can, please research and shop around, 520 W. Melrose is one headache after another.