I had a really terrible experience with this place. The staff are friendly, but they never get anything done. I had to move out last winter because the heating system wasn't working for half of the building. I made constant inquiries to the management and my landlord, who insisted they were fixing it or it's already fixed, but my apartment was never warmer than about 55 degrees between for ALL of December and January with the heat on 24/7. And i wasn't the only one, the entire half of the building facing Madison Towers seemed to be in the same situation. It was so cold at night that I stayed with friends -- I only spent 5 nights in my apartment between 12/1 and 1/31! And even when the heating was "working" the previous two winters, it was still very cold. When it's 35 deg outside, don't expect your apartment to be warmer than 60. There are no thermostats, just really ancient radiators connected to a central heat pump. There's just a rusty old metal knob that allows you to turn the heat off or on.

The parking garage is located behind walgreens. It's in very poor condition and it's not secure at all. If you're even lucky enough to get a parking space (the waiting list was over 15 months when I moved in), it's not a safe place to park your car. They give you a keycard to access the garage, but one day as I was driving in I accidentally pulled the wrong card out of my wallet and it still accepted it. Then I realized any card shaped object or a folded up piece of paper will easily open the garage. This has apparently been the case for years and management simply doesn't care.

The maintenance fees are ridiculously high in this co-op, meaning that you'll be paying a substantial (500-1000 /per month I've heard) even if you own the apartment. The rent prices are mostly on par with the nearby high rise buildings. Studios and 1-BRs are ridiculously tiny and they go for $850 for studios, not including any utilities except water. The apartments are maintained by their owners, but they tend to be well below the quality of similarly priced buildings in New Haven. There are some good ones though, but those are all owner-inhabited.

The walls must be paper-thin because you constantly here everything going on around and above you. Several times I was watching TV at a very reasonable volume after 10pm and had a neighbor from TWO floors below come and complain to me about the noise. You can hear everything inside the apartments from the hallway and everything in adjacent units, so there's no chance for privacy.

The building is also a bit fascist. I felt like I had more freedom and privacy in my college dorm rooms. You cannot sublet your apartment, so if you're a grad student like me who leaves for the summer, that's 3 months of rent you lose. I don't know of any other building in New Haven with this rule.

There is 24-hour doorman/woman, and they're certainly very nice people, but they provide no additional security. When I moved there in 2005, on the very first day, I brought my $450 bike inside to carry up to my apartment, but I was stopped by the doorman who said we're not allowed to bring bikes inside the building. I've never lived in or even heard of a building with this rule. He directed me to the bike parking area outside, with signs warning of video surveillance. Reluctant I was, but since I had no choice, I bought a good quality bike lock and trusted that the doorman monitored the area as he assured me he always does. I left at 5pm for dinner and returned at 7:30pm to find the thick metal lock cut in half and lying on the ground my bike nowhere to be seen. First of all, the bike parking area is only about 25 feet from the entrance, so it should be easy to catch someone in the act of breaking such a difficult lock. Secondly, since they force residents to leave bikes outside, and it's an expensive building, they should provide some adequate security. But I thought at least the video cameras might help the police find my bike -- but no! There are signs warning of video surveillance, but no actual video surveillance! One lesson I learned was that bringing a $450 bike to New Haven is not a smart move, but since it was my college graduation present from my mom I had planned to enjoy it here but be extra cautious by leaving it indoors at home and at school. It was really sad to lose it on the first day while my mom was still here with me helping move. Advice: cheap used bike unless you're living in the 99% of buildings that treat residents like adults by allowing them to keep their bike inside. Oddly enough, UT residents are definitely older on average than the residents of any other downtown building.. I'd guess the average is 40-45, with only about 10-15% being grad students. Despite this, they treated us much more like children than my college dorms with many tedious rules like this..

The night doorwoman, Jamel, sleeps almost her entire shift so don't expect to be let in if you forget your key. During the day the 2nd floor is a large medical office complex so if they don't recognize someone they assume it's a patient and wave them through. Perhaps the worst rule of all--- to move in or out, you are forbidden from even carrying small boxes through the lobby, and they will scold you like a child and make you turn around if you dare. You have to carry all of your stuff down a steep and narrow ramp to a small basement door. My average size couch got stuck in the basement door for an hour when I moved in. If you survive the ramp, you have to navigate your furniture through two narrow doors at right angles with only about 2.5 feet of clearance behind the door. Wheeling anything heavy like a stove or refrigerator seems very dangerous when you're below it on the steep ramp. I've moved a lot in my life and I've never encountered any situation like this. It was incredibly stressful. One of the reasons I stayed here for two years was that I dreaded the prospect of moving out.

Oh, and you can only move in or out of the building on Monday through Friday between 9 and 5pm. If you're not done by 5 they WILL force you to stop. If weekends (or holidays!) are more convenient because you happen to hold a full-time job with regular hours, you're out of luck. Needless to say I hired movers when I was moving out. Unfortunately, the movers were scheduled for 2pm on Friday but they showed up 2 hours late and the UT staff refused to let them move anything because it was almost 5pm. I still had to pay them for the lost time, and had to wait till the next Tuesday to have them back and pay them again. Would it have been so difficult to make a small exception and let them move my stuff from 4 - 6 pm'

There are so many absurd rules.. and they come from the "elected" board of owners, 7 people chosen from 8 candidates who have nothing better to do than police the premises.

Oh, and the "renovation" the other posters talked about refers only to the lobby and some new carpet in the halls.. no renovations to the apartments or the incredibly unattractive facade of cracked yellowish glass. The building looks like it belongs in Pyongyang, or perhaps it just was designed as a testament to communist eastern European architecture c.1970

The management company, O,R,&L, who seem to be widely known as a criminally corrupt organization, makes a huge amount of money off the high maintenance fees and hardly provides any services to justify them. The previous manager forced tenants and owners to use his own shady contractor for repairs so he'd receive a cut (they forbade the use of anyone else even though it's completely illegal to do so). He left when he was promoted to district manager in 2007! The new manager Kate is a friendly person but service and maintenance have only continued to decline.

To be fair, there are some redeeming qualities. There's a nice pool that's open between June and August. The lack of air conditioning makes it even more attractive. The laundry room is in the basement but there are usually machines available and they work well. The lobby looks pretty nice since the renovation.

If you like gossip and drama between tenants, a criminally corrupt management company, landlords and staff who routinely enter apartments without proper notice or notice of any kind, and getting less for your money than many of the other fine buildings in New Haven, then Univ. Towers is the one for you.

Practical info.. You're allowed to park free after 5pm until 8am on weekdays, after 1pm on Saturday, and all day Sunday. There are only three visitor spaces so you have to make alternate arrangements for guest parking unless it happens to be Saturday night. Walgreen's is 1 block away and open 24/7, very convenient. There premises are very poorly lit at night but I've never had a safety problem, although I know some residents who have.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 08/27/2008
I feel exactly the same way. I had the same problems with the bike, the parking and the moving. I definitely do not recommend anyone to live there.

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