Central and Oak

When I first moved into Central & Oak, I was excited as I was picked through the affordable housing lottery. Before they switched management, I never had ANY problems. Until the new owners/management took over in 2021. They are rude, never answer your calls and not only that they IGNORE your emails. My apartment has cracks everywhere, the ceiling is literally falling and my cabinet in the kitchen is coming off the walls. They won’t return my calls when it comes to them fixing my ledger and I’ve had enough. Please do not move here unless you want an apartment that’s falling apart.

I do not say this lightly, I strongly advise anyone thinking of signing a lease here to read the below review of a current tenant in this "luxury" apartment complex. All though there are a laundry list of problems that cause serious concern on a daily basis I will highlight the three major issues, in importance. 1) Prior to moving here, I lived on First Avenue in Manhattan for three years. The decibel level of noise from the train line less than 100 feet outside of the cheap "double paned" windows is multiple times louder. There are over three dozen trains that pass the complex each day and each and every time they blow their horn 8 times. That is almost 300 horn noises every single day and night (the train runs all night). Put this in perspective, after living in Manhattan for three years the noise issue here is much more of a concern than it ever was there. 2) The management company is completely and utterly out of their league when it comes to this complex. Every single email that I have sent has been ignored initially and only responded to upon multiple follow ups. Examples of emails that go ignored. THE ENTIRE COMPLEX SMELLS LIKE MARIJUANA. Due to the cheap materials and construction of this complex the walls are extremely thin allowing any smell to seep out of your unit and into the unit next to yours. Furthermore, trash is being thrown all over the complex and not being picked up for days on end. Next, packages are being stolen from the lobby! This place is an absolute disaster and whoever owns the complex NEEDS to clean house because i assure you that not a single tenant will resign a lease here. 3) Extremely expensive. I am paying more money to live in this overpriced, pseudo luxury apartment than I was in Manhattan ! I understand that this is bergen county (barely) and that costs are high but this place is exorbitantly priced. There are "luxury" apartment complexes popping up all over north jersey and believe me when i say there is absolutely nothing that positively distinguishes this one from any of the rest.

Where to begin? While the apartments themselves are beautiful, the construction is cheaply done. Our brand new apartment has cracks in the bathroom tiles, dents in the refrigerator and paint chipped off the wall. All of this would be forgivable if the management was minorly competent. To begin, we signed our lease in July for a December 31st move in. This has been delayed and moved around multiple times and we are still not in our apartment. Central and Oak did provide us with a temporary apartment to live in in a different building, however it was using our free month promotion that everyone else got for signing a lease. We weren't compensated at all for having to sign two leases, moving all of our belongings twice, all the days off from work to move, having internet set up twice, moving our pets twice and frankly the lack of compassion and professionalism from the entire team. To top everything off, when we signed our original lease in the summer we were told our apartment would have a garage and storage unit. We find out the week before our move in date that there is no storage unit for our apartment, meaning we signed this lease under multiple false pretenses. When we met with Ivy in the office to sign paperwork, she was scatterbrained and unsympathetic. When I explained our situation to her she pretended like she was unaware. She did not so much as offer an I'm sorry you're going through this. She put the blame off and was confrontational and did not offer to help at all. Suggesting we put our complaints in an email to her and she'll send it off. Being as she has proved her incompetency at her job, we will be contacting Sterling ourselves. The whole experience was very unsettling as she obviously can not handle the demands of the job. Finally move in day: the keys to the apartment do not work, the elevator does not work and our assigned storage unit does not exist. When we spoke to Ivy about this all she again offered no assistance, only excuses. After all that we have been through with Central and Oak, we have been offered no free utilities, no moving compensation, no free rent and no upgrade in apartment and quite frankly not so much as an I'm sorry. We have been met at every turn with miscommunication and incompetence. Again, while the apartments are beautiful, I spent my time writing this to warn everyone as I wish I have been warned. Stay away until management changes.

Moving into a new place is nice, but overall not the greatest experience for I. A few big concerns are the ongoing noise throughout the building. Construction seems to be on the cheaper side, where you can hear a lot from the folks above you. The bedrooms sits above the garages which is all open space , so It can get very chilly at times in there. The place needs better soundproofing & insulation. Shocking how many folks DONT respect where they live. Dropping of garbage at times on the floor and not picking it up, from the dog waste by some owners just being left for tenets to tippy toe around ( why not pick it up you live here and its your dog). Rental dept. sends out emails about these issues , but just seems to go on. Will stay for my one year lease and move on!!!

Poor insulation in apartments: You can hear everything your neighbors are doing. I’ve lived in apartments for over 10 years and it’s not just normal apartment living noise. It’s cheaply made and poorly insulated floors and walls. Smells: there seems to be a lot of tenants who smoke marijuana in their apartments which leads to not only the hallways reeling of pot but my apartment. It seriously smells like someone is in my apartment smoking. Not enough guest parking! 8 spots for 240 apartments is just ridiculous. And 4 of those are reserved for the leasing office from 10 AM - 6 PM every day! And then there is the TRAIN NOISE. I didn’t think it would be this loud or this bad but it comes by every 20-30 mins and is so loud that it interrupts sleep, work, etc. I DO NOT recommend this apartment complex!

Can’t sleep or think or relax. All I hear is the constant noise of the passing train. It legit comes by all hours of the night and approximately every 20 mins starting at 5 AM. Don’t move here!

STAY AWAY! The property managers act kind when applying, but once you’re locked in they’re a nightmare to deal with. They provide the wrong information, aren’t informed on the details of the property, aren’t prepared for questions, and they backlash if you have any feedback. They talk aggressively, don’t let you speak, scream at you, lie, and find a to put all the blame on you. They cancel leases without permission and push out move-in dates without the consent of the tenants. This could be a really great complex with better management. After speaking with other tenants, many people in the community are afraid to speak out due to back-lash from management. They are always trying to cover themselves and lie instead of fixing / addressing problems caused by their own staff.

Place is beautiful but train noise is a nightmare. It’s blaring loud and comes by multiple times a day interrupting the work day and conference calls. At rush hour it comes by every 15 minutes. And forget living here if your a light sleeper it comes by all hours of the night. We will be moving soon.

We moved here from a neighboring town and we are so happy with our new place. Yes, the train is loud due to horn blowing, which should be addressed with the town at certain hours of the day, but other than that everything else is great. No complaints with management. Ivy and Alicia are two great people to work with and are very responsive and professional. The super is also friendly and addresses service request at a timely manner. I’m so glad we decided to come to central & oak!

Pros: - Nearby a lot of great restaurants and attractions. - Brand new construction - Garage and Storage room for most. (Some Garage may not have a backdoor to enter the building). - Building management (Alicia, Ivy and Ramon) is on top of everything and has been very professional so far. - Next door to U-haul which is great. - No smoking of any sort on the premises. - Thermostat control. We'll see how well the heat works during the winter. Cons - No actual playground for kids, you will have to walk to a park 7 mins away. - Not a lot of visitor parking - Paying for Water, Gas and Amenities separate from the rent. We'll see how the water bill is. - They should add frosted film in the bedroom windows so that you cant see neighbors and they cant see you. - Windows are not sound proof so you can hear the train passing by. - The train noise can be cumbersome (they pass every 1 to 2 hours). There are gates and alarms at every road crossing so this is unnecessary. - Not enough closet space so I guess that's why the storage room is provided. If these few things (esp the train noise) don't change I can see people leaving soon.

sound of the train is so loud that we will soon be ready to move.

The train runs past 2:00am Very loud . I can't sleep in the morning.we will leave soon asap

So people started moving in late June into July. The apartments are all brand new so there are definitely no complaints in terms of appliances/cleanliness. The ladies in the leasing office do a nice job of communicating via email with any updates/news. I love having a private garage that I can, and must, pull my car into. Like many apartments, you can hear just about everything that goes on in the hallways. If someone closes their door at the other end of the hallway, you'll hear it shut (not really a big deal). I wish there was a trash compactor in each building but getting rid of the trash on the way out hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. Okay, so the biggest the issue so far has been the trains that run by pretty often (NJ Transit). i have finally gotten used to the noise but it does take a while because it is very loud. If this is something that won't bother you, then this is a great place to check out!