Avalon Willoughby Square

Our first apartment moving to NYC, it has been an overall wonderful experience living in this community. It has made it even quite difficult to want to leave. All staff members are professional and courteous. From the concierge like Jean, Emil and Kol to the maintenance crew like Nick and Allen and our great leasing agent Melissa, they are always willing to help however they can. Sometimes the elevators can malfunction but service crews are always coming in to fix them fairly quick. Great amenities and our dog loves the wag spa. The apartments inside are really nice with top of the line appliances. I would recommend Avalon Willoughby Square without regards.

None I can think of.

None I can think of.

Sadly have to update this again. To ever have zero elevators working, including the freight, means that there is something seriously wrong here. I'm glad no one had a medical emergency that night, because that would have been a serious tragedy. Not sure I ever knew that there was such thing as a bad elevator vendor prior to my experience living here, but Avalon seems to have found and stuck with them.

Additional point here that has made me quite irked recently - the walls in this apartment are so thin, we can hear our neighbors talking next door as though they were in the next room in our own apartment. I wouldn't really recommend living here, and look forward to moving out.

None I can think of.

Please please stay away from this building. The building has 56 floors and *ALL* the evelators go out ofservice at least once in a week. 2 nights backs, all the elevators went out of service from 10:45 pm for several hours. Many residents had to take elevators of an adjoining building to the common 30th floor and walk up more than 20 floors to their apartment.

I really wish I had not renewed my lease. This building SUCKS. Avalon, You are a $2 billion revenue company, just get these elevators replaced.

I would love to give this place more stars for the nice people that work here. I have no issue with them personally and the lobby staff and maintenance do a good job. I do like the folks in the leasing office and they have been helpful overall. Having a great view with access to subways and services is fantastic.

HOWEVER, the building elevators do not work well at all. This is not a one off thing, in fact on NYE I was stuck for 1.5 hours while FDNY had to break a wall to get us out. This has happened multiple times, where at least someone was stuck. While management is responsive, there has not been an explained solution to date. I have an 80lb senior dog and I moved into this building for the dog park. However last night and a few other times I have had to carry him down 11 flights to a separate elevator bank to get him to a place where he can pee. Elevators are the subways of the building. They need to run.

I was excited to move in here but now I feel unless the elevator situation is drastically improved in the next 60 days I will want to move out as soon as I can just for personal sanity and dog safety. If you havekids or are a senior or have parents over, I would ask about the elevator situation. You would toss your phone or computer if they were down as much as these elevators.

I hope they fix it as I would like to stay, but its got to be fixed.

I hate complaining and hope this review can be modified in the future with a better report and more stars. But its been almost 8 months since move in date and this problem has been a weekly or daily issue.

None I can think of.

Worst residential tower I have ever lived in. The elevator situation is a public safety hazard to the point of criminal negligence by now. (I have been here for a year and there has never been one time all 4 banks have worked for more than a day, and multiple outages a month that require you to walk 30 flights of stairs).
On top of this when I first moved in my apartment still needed construction work done, the construction crew came in and literally trashed my fully furnished apartment (layer of sanding dust everywhere). They did not clean it, and management has the balls to pretty much tell me to go screw off and it's not their issue or something they should compensate for.

Not surprised at all they don't give a crap about their residents or safety. The housing situation in NYC needs to be fixed, and it starts with companies like these that think they can rip residents off and get away with it. These guys should be in court.

None I can think of.

It is obvious (insulting, even?) that Avalon corporate prioritizes cultivation of its Yelp ratings over the safety and satisfaction of its residents when the front desk is always stocked full of these review cards even though something as critical to high-rise living as elevators cannot be properly maintained.

My partner and I moved in here 7 months ago because we indeed wanted to live in a place that would make "life more effortless", given that we both have demanding careers. As such, you can imagine how frustrated we were when we arrived back last night (a Saturday) with a bellhop cart full of goods procured from Costco to find that none of the elevators that could reach above the 30th floor were working, and that our only recourse would be to take the AVA elevators to the 30th floor and trudge up 25+ flights of stairs with said cart of goods. We were told by one of the doormen that earlier in the evening, some residents were trapped in one of the elevators and had to be extracted by the FDNY, which resulted in the FDNY ordering the shutdown of all the Avalon elevators, including the freight elevator.

After waiting around for an hour and a half, commiserating with fellow infuriated residents and hearing about how repeated calls to the management and leasing offices yielded no results during previous elevator outages, we decided that leaving our feedback on Yelp might be the only way for something to actually be done. Eventually we relented, and walked up the stairs, which was a good decision, as service was not restored until 8am the following day.

To summarize:
* One elevator was completely disabled (prior to June 2017 when we moved in to about November 2017)
* In the last month, ALL elevators were out of service twice (once on New Years' Eve and once again on January 20-21, 2018)
* Often one or more elevators are disabled; during these times, remaining elevators are routinely overpacked and travel times to and from the lobby can be on the order of 5-10 minutes

I am grateful that I still have the physical capacity to walk up 20+ flights of stairs, but this
mismanagement of the ongoing elevator failures is unacceptable and irresponsible, especially considering that one of our fellow residents who was also stranded by the elevator situation was pregnant. We all have our own lives to live outside of worrying whether or not we can make it to work on time; whether leaving the apartment for some groceries might mean having to walk all the way back up with them; or whether we will be trapped in one of these notoriously unreliable elevators for hours on end. This is also embarrassing to, and reflects poorly on, me because I actually referred a friend to
come live in this building, not realizing the severe and dangerous mismanagement of the building with respect to its elevator service. It's the least of my worries now, but I should also note that the referral bonus promised by one of the leasing agents (Janelle) has never materialized, even after a friendly e-mail. This was surprising to me, especially considering how helpful and responsive she was throughout the leasing process.

It is a shame that I have to give this building such a rating because the front desk staff has been uniformly excellent (after agreeing that waiting for the elevator situation was a hopeless endeavor, Jean offered to store our cart of goods for us so that we would only need to carry ourselves up the stairs). They always greet me when I come home and put up with my Amazon habit with a smile.
Unfortunately, they are just as powerless in the face of this ongoing elevator disaster.

None I can think of.

The elevators are consistently down. There is never a time where all 4 elevators are working and multiple occasions when none are working at all. The lines to get on the elevators are extremely inconvenient.

Five stars for the concierge and maintenance staff, and because it is a nice building with incredible views.

The part that has been unacceptable about living here at Avalon Willoughby and should cause serious concern for potential tenants is the constant elevator issues. Mind you, I think everyone that lives here already has accepted that there will always be at least one of the four elevators out (not hyperbole), but what is becoming more and more frequent is that ALL elevators, including the freight have been going out for several hours at a time. Many instances of people being stuck in elevators requiring the fire department to rescue them, one such occurrence happening on NYE. For the premium we pay to live here, I expect a working elevator and not having to walk 15+ floors to my apartment.

Building management is lacking in effective communication about the issue and has recently taken to tricks to avoid telling tenants about elevators that are down (they will park an out of service elevator at a floor so it appears it is in service, but it doesn't move - whereas before we would be able to see which elevators are down because the screen that shows the floor movement would be off). Safety is an obvious concern in a 58 story building with elevators that are constantly not in working order and with no explanation on why.

I like a lot of things about living here. The apartment itself is nice (it's new), great views, sunlight and a really great front desk, leasing and maintenance staff.

Unfortunately, the elevators continue to be a major issue and are getting worse.

As other reviewers have noted, we've had multiple instances of a full shutdown and FDNY intervention to get people out. I've also been stuck for a few minutes in an elevator and experienced numerous times where I'd wait 5+ minutes for an elevator only to give up and walk down 14 flights of stairs to another elevator bank. On a good day, we're often down an elevator or two making wait times less than ideal.

I've lost trust in building management to address the issue or even be honest about it. We've been getting the "sorry!" emails since last spring at least. Despite the great apartment, I can't see myself staying and can't recommend the building to anyone in the market at this point.

None I can think of.

I would give zero stars if I could. The elevators are CONSTANTLY broken. How is this a new building and 90% of the time the elevator is broken???!! 10 people got stuck on nye for goodness sake. I don't feel safe in this building at all. I'm on the 53rd floor and if there was emergency and I needed to get out or emergency personnel needed to get up I'd probably be dead. No I'd definitely be dead. It's unacceptable that you charge for rent and another charge for the gym and another charge to rent the spaces ($500/ a cotdam hr!) and you can't even get to the lobby without going into the trash room and hoping the freight elevator works or burning out your damn calves on 30 flights of Steps!!!! Unbelievable!
I can't wait to move out of this BS overpriced building. Fix the damn elevator! Spend the money and just f*cking fix it!!!!!!

Overall I like living here. Everything is nice and new. The views are phenomenal. The staff are wonderful, professional, and responsive. It's conveniently located near many subway lines and a block from CityPoint.

However, there's a few issues worth mentioning.

Apartments: the cabinetry is terrible and the appliances are mediocre. The heater/AC is extremely loud.
The window shades don't block enough light to sleep past sunrise. There's no screens on the windows, and you will get insects coming in your windows in the summer, even on the 50th floor. The layouts though tend to be fairly generous and with decent closets.

Gym: the gym is very good but the weight area is pretty small for a building with 840 units.

Lobby: the front desk concierge is constantly overworked, meaning there is often a line of residents waiting for packages and food delivery guys waiting for permission to go up. They really need two people working the desk at peak times.

Elevators: there have been multiple instances where people have gotten stuck in the elevators for well over an hour. There have been even more instances where elevators have randomly been out of service. The management is trying hard and doing everything they can to fix this but unfortunately it's still an issue.

Edit: unfortunately have to take this down to two stars. The elevator situation has only gotten worse despite the best efforts of the management to get it fixed. At the very least they need to get their act together to notify us immediately via email when there are service disruptions so we can plan our days accordingly (for example, so we can cancel plans, or cancel doctor appointments, or call in late to work, rather than assuming we will actually be able to get in and out of our apartments).

Edit 2: bumping it back up to 3 stars because nobody's gotten stuck in the elevator in a while, and management has significantly improved their communications about when elevators are out.

Big Shout out to the maintenance team!m- Ivan and Allen!! First I really appreciated the quick response to my email in less than 24 hours and they came in with those things to cover their feet which I really appreciated since we don't allow shoes to be worn in the apartment- makes too much dirt for this lil mama to be constantly cleaning up. Not that I make a lot of maintenance requests but I'm so happy that it was quick and friendly. Avalon folks really do go above and beyond. Love this crew!

None I can think of.

My favorite thing about this building is that you can submit maintenance requests online. Then the staff will come to your door to fix it. It's simple and convenient. Big thanks to Allen and Ivan, who are super nice and definitely know what they are doing.

None I can think of.

None I can think of.

The elevators are constantly broken. Earlier this week, only one worked. Today two are working.
Imaging waiting twenty minutes to get down to the lobby. So pathetic. The building manager (Lauren) hasn't even emailed about this latest problem. What a joke. To make matters worse, one of the long term doormen quit, so we have temps on the lobby who have no idea what they are doing. What a secure building!!! Pathetic!!

Update: August 4 -- for the past three days, two or three of the elevators have been taken offline. One day this week only ONE of the elevators worked. Multiple times, an elevator would pass our floor but no one could get on due to the overcrowding.

To compensate, the lovely management crew was serving wine to residents as they walked in the building today - probably to calm tempers!!

Message to Avalon Management: I am contacting corporate leadership. Your negligence is putting residents safety at risk. People are getting trapped in the elevators at all hours of the day. You have bungled the management of this situation and you should consider resigning.

Moved here about 2 weeks back and the experience was nothing but pleasurable.
After waiting frantically for a few days for other applications in nearby properties to go through, we were surprised on how lesscumbersome the approval process in Avalon was. Even the security deposit was not high, which surprised us. We were lucky to get a corner apartment on the 32nd floor overlooking the river :) The apartment has a current subway connection to many subways, and the R line is right below the apartment.

The move in was smooth, they validate the parking in the underground parking lot, so you can bring your car/truck whatever and use the elevators and the ample luggage trolleys to take your things up. They also have a larger freight for the large furniture, but we didn't have to use it.

Quality of living: our apartment has high ceilings, floor to ceiling windows, airy and 2 AC's which has been a respite in the NYC heat this summer. We were lucky to also get a larger sized kitchen with ample pantry space. The penthouse lounge is supposed to open up later this year, we saw pictures of it and it looks fantastic!

Everyone at the concierge is super sweet and helpful, and Melissa from the rental management made the entire experience smooth for us. Emanuel and his partner at maintenance have always been so efficient & solved any minor maintenance issues.

Thanks avalon, we will surely refer our friends here!

Edit 3: Got to reduce the stars once and for all unfortunately for the elevator situation in the building. All the elevators have gone out of service, once on NY's eve and once again on 1/20. We got an email on the 20th around 9:45PM saying "Please be advised that all Avalon Willoughby Square elevators, including the freight elevator, are temporarily out of service. We are working diligently to get them back in service. Until service is restored, please use the AVA elevators from the 30th floor.

If you have a medical emergency please call 911 for emergency services assistance. We will keep you posted on our progress to restore elevator service."

Note: AVA elevators go up to the 30th floor and this building has 58 floors. We are lucky to live in the 32nd floor so it's just 2 stairs of walk up. But for someone who lives in the top floors, it's easily a 10+ flight of stairs walk, which is completely unacceptable!

I cannot possibly imagine paramedics of fire fighters trying to get someone on a top floor if there was a medical emergency that night, but thankfully there wasn't one. But there were tons of people having to walk up 15+ stairs with pets or little kids and that is ridiculous. Most of the tenants in the building are frustrated and are considering legal remedy for this situation. At this point taking the Avalon Willoughby square elevators are a matter of safety for me. Fire fighters having to come and cut a hole in the wall to rescue people on NY's eve doesn't sound normal to me, although the building management re-assures that it is "normal" for elevator malfunctions to happen up in high rise new buildings such as this.

I hope the management buckles up and finds a permanent solution to this, else this building is going to face harsh competition from the other high rises in the neighborhood.

Edit 2: Upped a star again as the elevators have been working well now.

Edit 1: I had to decrease a star because of the recent plight of issues here :

1. Elevator: elevators have gone from bad to intolerable. One of the elevator is permanently broken. They sent out an email saying that these elevators are built with the highest standards, but does it take so many months to fix an elevator? If it does I can't help but worry if other problems are going to affect the other elevators. One of them always seem stuck at the highest floor which makes me wonder if they are tuned to stay around there to tend to the penthouses and the lounge.

2. Staff responsiveness: the staff have been less and less responsive as the building gets more busy. There have been multiple times my emails have been unanswered

3. Unruly behavior on the 30th floor terrace: though the apartment has quiet hours after 10pm, people don't seem to get it. We stay on the 32nd floor and once we were woken up by loud noises and music from people partying on the terrace. The conceirge which are really awesome, helped stop this. Even when we complained to the staff, they took it lightly. I had hoped they send an email to alert people of the quiet hours.

Pluses: the Maintenence people are really awesome and friendly still. The concierge continues to remain really good especially Kol. I heard David has left the job recently, and now I see a lot of new faces!!

Hopefully Avalon Willoughby get their game up, else they are going to seriously lag behind the other great living options in the area.

New building in a fast developing neighborhood with a subway station underneath the building and a Trader Joe's and a food hall across the street.

My studio is modern, with huge windows, while the building offers multiple amenities including study areas and terraces with grills.

I moved here in May. The leasing process was pleasant and pressure free. One of the elevators has been out of order since I moved in, while on two occasions only one elevator worked due to a temporary issue that was quickly fixed. Seems to be growing pains of a new building. The management communicated promptly about the issue by email and served wine in the lobby to improve the mood... I obviously don't share the sentiments of the angry reviewer who posted multiple negative reviews.

The concierges are friendly, while Kol is exceptional.

Perfection doesn't exist but this is pretty close to it.

None I can think of.

None I can think of.

The residents of this building are very fed up, and many of us feel resigned to contact the city or do something more drastic because no one is listening and nothing is changing.

1. The elevators are terrible. One elevator has been consistently out of service. We are only told that the main motor is broken.... so fix it? I understand that the building wants to save money but these things have to be fixed. I have been in many residential and commercial buildings that are brand new and have never experienced problems like this.

Most of the time, only TWO elevators are working. This is a 58 story building. If someone high up had a medical emergency or something happened, there is no way emergency medical personnel or first responders could get up there. I don't know how this building has not been fined or reprimanded by the city due to this alone.

Ever since the rooftop opened, the elevator situation has been made exponentially WORSE. This is because everyone from AvaDoBro, the other building on site, has been using the Avalon Willoughby Square elevators to go up to 58.

Common sense says that if the residents who LIVE THERE only have two elevators working, the management should restrict those two elevators to people who live there, and not allow the other building to use them for now. When an elevator finally arrives at your floor, it will be full, and you will not be able to get on it, so you end up waiting 20-30 minutes for an elevator that you can actually get on. Then the elevator stops. at. every. floor. seriously.

Sometimes there is only ONE elevator, and a couple of weeks ago, NO ELEVATORS were working.

I cannot express enough how infuriating the elevator situation is to all the residents. You literally cannot make it to work on time, and when you're home, you feel like you can't leave the apartment because it will take forever to get back up.

2. The security issues in this building are getting crazy. One of our longtime doormen left, and another is thinking of leaving. We are left with temps who don't know the residents and so literally anyone could come upstairs and not be questioned. People could also come in through the AvaDobro side and just go up to our apartments through the 30th floor transfer. No one in Ava is stopped, their doorman is probably even worse than our temps.
I have friends who come over, and no one at the desk ever stops them to ask them who they are.

I have serious reservations about the safety of this building, especially given the elevator situation. I am surprised that the city is allowing this building to run in the condition that it is in. They are one medical emergency away from a serious lawsuit!

None I can think of.

Half of all the elevators are broken, so there are unbearably large queues to get up and down. I cannot imagine a more poorly maintained structure. None of the staff have explained what the elevator issues are nor provided any timeline for fixing even one of the multiple broken elevators.

EDIT: all but one elevator is broken.

None I can think of.

Seem like a nice building at first, and the deal is only $500 rental deposit, with a free months rent - however be careful - we could not live there due to the noise, neighbors, and medical reasons - so did not complete or sign the rental agreement. They are now coming after us for cancelling an agreement we did not sign, and refusing to refund out deposit. So here is the deal if you make an application, give them a deposit, and cannot move in, they will try to charge you for every day that you did not move in... here is what they said note we did not have a lease as it was not a lease but an application the lease was never signed- good luck

Sorry to hear you had to cancel the lease. I just wanted to send you the information on the application you submitted in regards to the application fee being non-refundable and the reservation fee for holding the apartment off the market. You applied on the December 19, 2016 and emailed on December 28, 2016 to cancel. We usually charge up to 10 days of a reservation fee, but since your lease was not signed we will only charge 5 days of rent. The total for a 5 day reservation fee is $885. You have a $500 deposit on hand so the balance owed is $385.

Just is just fraud - hope you all enjoy it there - location location location and the neighbors

Living here is great. The maintenance team is very helpful, fast and kind. Especially Sam. He always gets things done. Today he came with Allen and he was also very nice.

I really like the concierge team, too. They're always trying to help you with everything you need. David pays special attention to details and goes the extra mile.

None I can think of.