The Lounge At 523 Franklin Ave,

Brooklyn, NY 11216

- If you are facing south you get great light throughout the day. Balconies on this side are very nice to have during the warm months. - Trash chutes are convenient and remained clean during my time in the building. - Overall clean throughout the building. - Package management was decent - Lincoln Market in the building is as convenient as it gets

- Sometimes people off the street can find their way into the building. There were issues a couple times. - Rent increases were very steep and that's what forced us to move out in the end - All electric appliances guarantee a scary electric bill every month

I felt relatively safe and was close to the C/S Franklin stop.

The management company changed while I was living there and because of that, getting my security deposit was literal hell on Earth.

Have an overnight doorman

- Units are modern and isolated from noise well. - AC/Heat works fast and are localized per room/area in each unit. - Elevators are fast and doormen/package room provide good piece of mind for package deliveries/security. - Dog wash room is really useful. - Great proximity to two subway lines.

- The street is very busy, always littered with garbage and loiterers, as well as bikers/drivers who don't follow traffic rules. - The common spaces don't offer much more than space for gatherings. Wifi never works in the basement lounge, and the theater room is always booked, or you're unable to get your devices hooked up and working. - Laundry units have all been recently replaced with more expensive units that only work half the time. - Electricity consumption of the heat for the units/water is incredibly inefficient. Expect $300+ electricity bills per month. Hot water for shower only stays warm enough for one person/shower in the winter before it runs out. - Amenity fees/parking garage has gone way up in price for no extra benefit.

If you're going to keep raising rent and amenity fees with no added benefits, please replace the inefficient hot water heaters at the very least.

- clean and well maintained - friendly doorman who recognizes residents - beautiful roof access - service orders get fulfilled timely - study lounge and laundry room - right next to a subway station and grocery market

- walls are thin within the unit - not the safest area at night

Full amenities, doorman, good building staff

management is slow to respond and difficult to deal with issues

Nice new building . Great area to be in.

New washers are trash & rent going upppp !

Overall clean. Good super.

Really bad management. Every neighbour on the discord chanel is complaining about something always.

Better management company

New management has bought in a lot of good changes. We now have doormen, a super on site, and a team of porters who help keep everything clean. Good access to transport too.

The issue seems to be mostly with the residents of the building, a lot of people smoke in the building. Management is trying to enforce the no-smoking policy of the building, but it doesn't seem to be working. It isn't the current management's fault, but the building has poor build quality. Cheap materials have been used and corners have been cut. Kinda disappointing for a "luxury building".

Keep up the good work of improving the building.

Convenient location (next to C/S), new building, in building laundry, good community of residents. Nice roof

Not the safest area, management not very proactive about communicating issues with the building, laundry rooms get dirty (basement one usually clean because it’s not used as much), no gym (stopped offering free Blink perk), no ventilation in kitchen, couldn’t figure out how to get the heat to work in a year of living there. Power bill was INSANE. Didn’t complete the walkthrough until weeks after we had moved out, and current tenants reported damage to the door that occurred AFTER we moved out. Got money taken out of our security deposit for damage we didn’t do. Brought this up to the management company and it was ignored.

It is a nice building

The management is not good

The people are wonderful. Many of us are connected in a Discord group, we all discuss issues often, and some of us occasionally get together for games and (currently small) events. The amenities that work are also nice.

Management consistently does the bare minimum, and lacks any degree of transparency. It's been over a year since the building opened and many amenities are unfinished or not what was promised. When issues occur, we are often blamed and punished. Somebody partied in the basement lounge and made a mess? Food/drinks are no longer allowed there, and the doors lock at 9pm. Someone gave out the courtyard keypad code? No code any more. A homeless person made a mess of the lobby bathroom? Said bathroom is now permanently locked, and we have been told it will never be open to us again. The vestibule in the front is getting messy? The lock was moved to the outside door so guests have to wait in the elements and are more likely to be bothered by strangers out front. People are smoking in their apartments and it is traveling between units through the vents? Too bad, the only time they took action on this was when someone started to have medical issues, and smoking is banned in the courtyard and on the roof, so it's unlikely to stop any time soon. When bad things do happen, we only find out from each other. An elevator breaks down, an entrance gets stuck closed or open, a random person gets in and sleeps in the lobby... We find out these frequently-scary issues from each other, and every email sent to management gets a response of "this is the first we're hearing of this", even when we *know* that they have received a half-dozen earlier in the day. Management has also shown consistent bias and hypocrisy. Female and POC tenants have reported being ignored and condescended to by certain members of management. They do things like put up signs telling us not to smoke in the outside areas, then go onto unoccupied balconies and smoke cigarettes. There are signs up telling us to wear masks and distance, and our most common member of management is always seen in tight groups with his mask below his nose. We're told to collect our packages quickly, but then they have packages for themselves sitting in our mail room. They have told us we're not allowed to put up signs to avoid ruining the aesthetics of the building, but all of their signs are redundant and covered in gaudy spelling and grammar mistakes. They think themselves above us. Finally, there's a homeless man that has slept out front for basically the entire time the building has been open. When management is contacted they just call the police and he disappears for a night. They put plants where he sleeps and now he just sleeps behind them. He struck a worker here with a shovel and he had to go to the hospital. The guy still lives out front to this day.

Get it together. When bad stuff happens, tell us, and tell us when it will be fixed. Don't punish all of us for individual bad actors. Figure out ways to make us feel safe. And for the love of god, figure out a way to get the guy that has literally assaulted someone to NOT live in front of our window before one of us gets hurt and we sue you for everything you've made from us.

Nice amenities, nice communal furniture, great views of the city

Unscheduled maintenance without warning, loud construction interruption, caught on fire, non-responsive management, cheap quality, cigarette smoke daily, no front desk person, unfinished amenities, non residents sneaking into building, stolen packages, apartment lights were broken upon moving in, no communication from management about these issues, floors were damaged prior to moving in, post moving in maintenance visits due to not being prepared for tenants.

Open communication about issues. Building wide emails informing tenants of construction issues.

Beautiful on the outside. New building. Supermarket. Did not see a rat

Name it. Homeless sleep outside. Fixtures don’t work. Limited hot water. Air conditioning problems. Windows barely open. Tenants smoke in apartments and smell goes to all other apartments. Loud parties. Mini ghetto. Emergency buzzer buzzes constantly. Package room a disaster. Recycle rooms always messy. Nothing luxurious. Gym membership promised to some not to all. Very Small ovens.

People are moving out

The apartments are nice, water pressure is good, roof is big and nice and tenants are cool. Super is cool too.

There is a huge lounge on the basement floor that no one ever uses, or would ever need to use. Why this instead of a gym? There is an empty car park taking up an entire floor of the building, again, could have been used for something cool or given to tenants at a discount rate (instead it’s $350 a month). The roof has never been finished but it is big and nice The property management company are awful at responding to serious issues in the building.

If you started treating tenants a little more nicely, you might garner some goodwill.

*UPDATE* The building has been purchased by another company and the initial feedback is positive. We’ve seen broken elevators fixed and other issues addressed. The main one being that we now have a doorman. It’s still early in the takeover, but things are looking a lot brighter. The building is new and clean. The apartments have large windows. The roof gives a good view of Manhattan and is spacious. Modern appliances in units. The community within the building is great. There is a discord channel where people arrange get togethers, share items up for grabs, and offer local recommendations. Location is great. Above a Lincoln Market and opposite the C and Prospect Park Shuttle. Also served well by buses and there’s a citi bike station opposite the building. The A is a short walk down the street too.

Despite the building being new, we’ve had issues relating to build quality. We had issues with flooring being scratched and lighting flickering. Management sometimes aren’t as helpful as expected, but that could be down to the sheer number of residents/other properties contacting them. I believe the building has just been sold, so there may be a new management company taking the helm soon. Although smoking in the building is prohibited, there are sometimes issues with the smell of week coming through the ventilation, but management have been good at finding the perpetrators and have even evicted some repeat offenders. There isn’t a doorman, even though we were told there would be soon. However that doesn’t seem to be the case. There have been a few issues with security which could be resolved by having a doorman. The movie room is great but the wifi is often broken which means you can’t connect any devices. Advice to people viewing apartments would be to ask lots of questions and make sure you’re being shown all the amenities. It looks great, but is definitely hiding some issues.

A doorman is a priority at this point. There have been a few security issues which could have been easily avoided with a doorman. The building has so much promise, but seeing more people moving out than moving isn’t great. People don’t stay for a reason and those reason don’t seem to be getting fixed anytime soon.