The Aston struggles to get the bare minimum done and I think it's because ICO doesn't properly…read moreincentivize its employees at the ground-level.
Move-in wasn't the issue, but throughout my time living there, maintenance and front office response times were bad. For even simple service requests, the turnaround time was horrible. Average 4-day turnaround time. Of all the properties I've lived at (e.g. Kielo at Grass Valley in WA, Vector in OR, Aura Uptown in AZ, Camber & Cinq in SLC UT, list is not-exhaustive) I can see that service requests were turned around in less than 24 hours, at most 48 hours.
Then there was the issue of front office just dragging their feet on things like emails. I don't understand how a staff of 3+ can take more than 2 weeks to reply to one email. The properties I just mentioned, I'd get same-day replies, sometimes even same-HOUR replies. With LESS STAFF and MORE TOTAL UNITS than The Aston.
I'm convinced that Utah County just has a bunch of lazy people, because a similar thing happened at a NXT-managed property I had lived at (VALO in Payson). That resulted in residents reaching out to the NXT corporate office, which then resulted in everyone in the VALO front office and VALO maintenance teams getting fired because of negligence. Aston is ALMOST that bad but is ICO managed.
Then there was the move-out issue. All those other properties I just mentioned use Parcel Pending. I KNOW from past experience that the property management team is supposed to do something in ParcelPending after the moveout of a resident. And I have the emails to prove it (Kielo/Vector/Aura/etc).
The Aston will not. So my Parcel Pending account at the Aston stayed LIVE for almost a year after I had moved out, and after sending them an email to address this because a package was erroneously delivered there A YEAR LATER, the Aston's front office team didn't reply to me for (1st) 3 days, to which I replied SAME day, then they ghosted me. It's been over 2 weeks since..
So, I had to call Parcel Pending (a company based out of California where people actually want to work) to get things addressed. Parcel Pending themselves told me The Aston has a horrible habit of not addressing former resident accounts.
All of this to say, I don't think ICO incentivizes their employees and it shows at The Aston. For example, if you work at a Greystar (e.g. CINQ/Camber in UT), or Avenue5 (Aura in AZ), or Holland Partner Group (Vector in OR) you get comp'd for contacts in addition to comp'd for resolving service requests quickly -- e.g. at Greystar the maintenance teams get paid a monthly bonus for resolving service requests quickly. I doubt the Aston's maintenance team has it set up like that cuz good god it was a nightmare waiting for maintenance to show up for the simplest of asks. and Holland withholds bonuses from employees for failing move-out checklists -- if only such checks and balances existed at The Aston because (according to Parcel Pending) they get this complaint a lot from former residents at the Aston because the Aston workers WONT DO THE BARE MINIMUM. Forget going above and beyond.
Now, why 2-star and not 1-star? Because at least the space was livable, and rent didn't go up between my year 1 living there and year 2. But again, the bare minimums just weren't done, like regular recurring maintenance on HVAC filters every 2-3 months.
But hey, maybe that's the ICO management standard. Maybe they keep the money at the top, and refuse to properly incentivize employees at the ground level like the front office and maintenance teams at The Aston. After all I do remember seeing maintenance rushing back and forth between Exton (some other property) and The Aston so maybe ICO's just too cheap of a company or the owners of the Aston (perhaps separate from ICO) are too cheap.
Whatever the reasons are, I think a 2-star review is justified for The Aston.
