It's within easy walking distance to all the buildings on the University of Akron's campus. The apartments are nice for college living, the gym is nice, the common room with a giant TV is very cool, there is tanning and the courtyards are comfortable. There is food available right under building (Chipotle, Penn Station, and McDonalds as of writing this.) This should be the way to live in college.
Now the bad. In the process of signing the lease, my girlfriend had to redo her paper work 4 times, twice needing to make a trip from back home because they lost it. I had to redo some signatures the day we moved in. The rooms were not the size we were shown when visiting although we saw rooms in a temporary building and I've heard the ones on location are now more like the one's you'll live in. The girl we got information from was either very uninformed or very misleading and this is a trend that continues with several of their employees. It's obvious these apartments were rushed and thrown together. There are places where trim wasn't put on right, paint was slopped on and is flaking in several places, doors are inconsistent with whether they swing in or out which in my case makes it so my bathroom door can't open more than two feet because it hits my bed, there are dings all over the walls and furniture, and cracking throughout the building. It's nitpicking but for $630/room a month (plus electric) and being the first people here, I would expect more. The furniture here is cheap, the back of my girlfriends snapped from leaning back and my roommate's gets scratched just from sitting on it with jeans. The gym is nice but few TVs work. The walls and floor are apparently paper thin, we can easily hear conversations from next to or below us even when they are at moderate levels. The WIFI is hit or miss, very fast speeds when you can get them but we often face times of complete stoppage. This place is built on appearance but pull back the covers and there are plenty of issues.
Our apartment was on the 4th floor which didn't have screens at move in. We couldn't open our windows without spending the night killing bugs which was an issue because that meant we needed to keep the air on to stay cool, it got muggy quick. We had our air on for the first month of move in. When we were looking into Edge, we were assured our $20 credit per person for electric would be enough. Maybe we allowed ourselves to be manipulated by that but we took their word. For our first notification of going over our $80 credit (four person apartment) we went $50 over that limit. We went and asked about getting screens and Lukas (Resident manager) said that they were ordered. This was about a month into living here. 2-3 weeks later we went back to find out if screens were in and Ricky said that they had screens in since the first weekend of move in. Frustrated, we made an appointment to get screens installed the next day. About a month and a half from first asking about screens we finally got them installed, they had the wrong size and needed to reorder them any way. Then came the next notification of going over the $80 electricity limit.
This time we went $65 over, this is with no air going at all. The employees and managers informed us that we were doing something to drive these prices up. They suggested taking shorter showers, using less hot water, use the dish washer, stove and oven less, and doing laundry less. Again, for $630 without these things, we're not living in the "high class" apartments that University Edge and its employees would lead you to believe but we tried a few of those to cut back and the bill got higher any way.
Security is another spot that Edge uses as a show of their many features that doesn't live up to their hype. The security guards that are occasionally there are just for show. They will respond if you go down and ask for some help, albeit with a sigh, but they are largely just for show. The front door to the building is also never locked. For the first month they would lock it randomly. It would be locked tight at noon but totally unlocked at 2am. Now they've given up on that completely because the doors were no longer unlocking to anyone's door keys. You don't even need to swipe to get to the actual apartment doors because one of the security locks inside was put on the wrong side of the door. You can get to any apartment without needing a key. This place preaches safety.
These apartments are alright but plan on paying $10-$40 more over whatever rent you get locked in at. (As of writing this on 2/27 new electric charges came out for the month. One day before rent is due we are made aware of the charge. The problem is some people had charges of $90 over per person, a $440 electric bill. The charges keep going up.) Expect any problems you have to take several days or weeks to be fixed, if at all without more hassling. Don't expect help from management or 90% of the employees. Avoid this headache. read more