Riverfront Towers is probably the best rental community in Detroit, but it's important for non-Detroiters who are considering moving to the city to understand the mentality of the city.

Just because Riverfront Towers is the best place in Detroit, it doesn't mean that everyone would be happy to live there.

You need to be prepared to see some rats, the occasional body floating by in the Detroit River, and worst of all, to be blunt, a pretty stupid management team. Perhaps they're just burned-out from all the complaints they get (and unfortunately, some tenants are pretty abusive), but they don't seem to comprehend that if they resolve some of these very basic problems, the level of complaints will drop quite a lot!

So be ready to deal with dumb management that doesn't know that maybe it's be a good idea to set the lawn sprinklers so that they go off at 3 or 4AM, instead of 4 or 5PM when people are out & about. And even worse, they donlt do anything about it after all the complaints over the years...

The 'security' people can be very friendly, but alas, my impression is that many don't even have high school education, and their uh... comprehension of the English language leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, this is one of those 'Detroit problems' that plagues the city, yet if you're going to be paying the relatively high rent at Riverfront Towers, the property owners/management need to do more. It'd be different if most of the tenants weren't intelligent, well-educated people, but since they are, the disparity is very noticeable, and frustrating.

If you opt to live in the 100 Tower, you'll be charged separately for heating and cooling, and the charges make ZERO sense. There is no rhyme or reason to it. One month my bill could be $50 without me using the heater or A/C at all, yet neighbors (inluding apartments directly above & below mine, with the identical floor plan & sunlight, etc.) could have a bill of $28, and they DID use their heating or AC!

The first time i seriously complained, a service technician showed up & said that two of the heater/AC blowers were burned out, and that must have somehow caused the exorbinate bills. I doubted it, because the billing amount should have therefore been about the same each month.

I hope that tenants will organize and form a class-action lawsuit, because SOMEONE there is making a ton of $$ from that crazy heating & cooling system, and Riverfront 'management' is incapable of providing a detailed, factual answer regarding the billing disparities for this system.

Also, the roof of Tower 100 has numerous Nextel radio transmitters atop it (RFT makes lots of $$ by allowing Nextel to have equipment there). Those high-power 800MHz Nextel transmitters *will* interfere with your 900MHz cordless phones & pagers, your 800MHz cellular phones, as well as potentially being a long-term health hazard.


So, if you absolutely *must* live in Detroit and can't go for a house in one of the few nice single-family home subdivisions in the city, by all means, live at Riverfront Towers, and get into the habit of practicing some guerilla warfare to deals with problems there -- send letters to the management's head office in Chicago, take your complaints to an appropriate city of Detroit agency (management here was NOT happy to have a couple Health Department vans show up, with exterminators filling in the rat nests, etc. I've also complained about management's response to fire alarms directs to the Detroit FD Fire Marshall).

I've lived in numerous other apartment buildings in various cities over the years, and I know things aren't going to be absolutely perfect anywhere, but I'm amazed at the number and severity of Detroit & Riverfront Towers issues.

If you have the ability to do so, avoid some Detroit-related and Riverfront Towers-related problems by living in one of the nicer suburbs outside of the city. My overall rating of the site & saying Yes to the question of "Would you recommend RFT to a friend'" is qualified with the comment that because of the view/location it's probably the best apartment complex in Detroit, but again, if you don't have a mzjor need to live in the city, save yourself some headaches (and auto insurance premiums), and live elsewhere.z

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