1611 W Division

Management is great! Very helpful, and they will go out of the way to be accommodating, particularly Elizabeth. Apartments are spacious with clean modern lines. Within walking distance to many great restaurants and bars. Great place to live!

#1) Newer Building — Ahhh, the feeling of fresh, barely lived in space. #2) Clean Hallways & Staircases — They have cleaning people. These cleaning people clean this place EVERY DAY. Hallways smell nice, they’re air conditioned, staircases aren’t creepy & dimly lit. It’s so nice. #3) Always Open Rooftop Deck — Do you even KNOW what “always open means”?! 530am, I can watch the sunrise overlooking the city of Chicago. C’mon! That’s awesome. Plus they have grills for cooking out up there. Pffft! In! I’m sold. #4) No Quiet Hours — When a building is built right, you don’t need to worry about hearing other people. #5) Trash Chutes — You want me to walk my trash downstairs and throw it in a dumpster?! Nooope, not here. Conveniently located trash chutes on every floor. #6) In Unit Washer & Dryer — Hey, sorry, maybe you didn’t read that right. IN UNIT WASHER & DRYER. Better? #7) Pets Allowed — I get to pet animals in the elevator all the time. It’s like having your own pet except not worrying about feeding it, cleaning it, taking it out, or…well, really doing anything for it. #8) Secured Entry — Keep the riff-raff out! Unless they have a key fab and live in the building. In that case, wave politely. #9) Life. Everywhere. — There’s a coffee shop in what, would be, a lobby. Bars, restaurants, gyms, and a friggin CVS immediately across the street. #10) Amenities — A gym on the second floor, laundry drop off, package room, bicycle storage, on-site maintenance….just. Yes. You’re welcome.

I actually moved into the building when construction on the upper floors was still wrapping up. Previous to putting up the eleven-story tower, it was an abandoned Pizza Hut that someone had carefully graffitied "Pizza Hut" onto. The building itself is immaculate, with a touchscreen entry, modern gym, bike room, and a stunning rooftop deck (it's basically the tallest thing within a square mike) with massive grills and big patio furniture. There is also an Intelligentsia coffee on the main floor. My unit (the -07 floorplan) is the smallest of the one bedrooms, but is exactly the amount of space that I need and want. The unit has floor-to-ceiling windows facing south toward the Chicago skyline and the medical district which open it up massively. In all the units, the kitchen is all stainless and stark white. The building has central air and heat, with individual controls in the units. All apartments have in-unit W/D. The ceilings are somewhere between 11 and seemingly 300 feet tall, and are unfinished concrete. The building is commuter-focused, as in it has essentially no parking. Something to consider if you have a car. If you don't it's in the perfect location, at the corner of Division and Ashland. You're only a few steps from the Division, Ashland, and Milwaukee busses, and if you get a running start, you can basically jump into the Division Blue Line CTA stop from your apartment. The building's lobby actually has one of the digital displays that are in the CTA stations, showing estimated times of arrival for the train and bus lines. Building management is helpful and prompt, and all common areas are kept clean.

This building has the perfect location. The problem is that the owners know it and rest on that as pretty much its major selling point. But to be fair, it is 10 minutes from almost everything and rests on 2 major, bike-friendly arteries. It is also steps away from the Blue Line and has a plethora of bars and restaurants right outside. Again...location, location, location. And now if you're still with me, I'll go into the pros and cons. Pros: -Sound-proof walls. Go ahead and play Swedish Death Metal, the neighbors won't hear you. -Beautiful rooftop with a great view of the city and grills for anyone to use. -Easy to clean linoleum flooring that looks like wood. -Bike room for everybody. Cons: -Cheaply made building. Walls are thick, crumbly dry wall. Anything more than a nail is going to require anchors for screws or more. Also linoleum flooring. And it has a gym, but in the loosest sense of the word. -Ceilings are bare concrete with construction indentations still in them. -Elevators have stopped working 3 times in the past year, and took days to fix. For someone who lives on a higher level apartment, it was not a fun climb. -Management isn't the friendliest. Not very willing to go out of their way to help. -Small lobby, no doorman, mailboxes take up most of the space. -And lastly, EXPENSIVE. For the same price, you can get a much nice place in River North. Basically, if you are looking for location, you've come to the right place. If you are looking for anything else, keep looking.