The Legacy at Powelton Village, philadelphia-pa

This apartment has two major advantages and three major drawbacks. The first advantage is that maintenance requests are handled extremely quickly. I once submitted a request at 11 PM and a maintenance technician showed up at 10 AM the next morning. In my experience, they always respond within a day, and the maintenance staff are very friendly and professional. On the other hand, the leasing office is incredibly slow and inefficient. During my lease renewal, I had to exchange several emails regarding corrections to the lease agreement. Their responses were so delayed that my original lease actually expired before I received the updated contract. Fortunately or unfortunately, because the leasing office was so disorganized, I was able to continue living there without any issues. Utility billing is also questionable. They will provide usage and billing records if requested, but the charges sometimes seem inconsistent. Since the overall cost probably averages out over the year, it has not been a major issue for me, but it does make me uneasy. The second drawback is that the apartment tends to be cold. During the winter, when outdoor temperatures drop below freezing, the indoor temperature struggles to get above 70°F regardless of the thermostat setting. The heating system seems to give up. However, if you can tolerate the winter, the apartment stays wonderfully cool during the summer. Even when temperatures exceed 100°F outside, the indoor temperature rarely goes above 76°F and usually stays around 72°F. As someone who gets cold easily, I have never needed to turn on the air conditioning during the summer. The final drawback is the cockroach problem. A few years ago, there were even mice, although I have not seen any since getting a cat. Recently, I have been seeing cockroaches about once a month, which is ultimately the reason I decided to move out. While University City has a reputation for having cockroaches even outdoors, I would prefer to live somewhere that provides regular pest control services. If you are someone who gets hot easily and does not mind occasional pests, this apartment offers a lot of space for the price.

I decided to wait 1 year after moving out to ensure I got my security deposit back (5 months later, mind you) because I saw past responses that said management likes to delay sending back the deposit. The deposit was not sent back in full because of additional air conditioning charges. Let me tell you why. From end of May 2025-July 2025 by AC did not work at all. My apartment was consistently 76-80 degrees in the middle of the heatwave. I could not open my windows because there was no set on the windows and I did not want to risk animals, insects, or even people breaking in. I contacted maintenance multiple times and of course, no response. One day, I came home to a giant new AC unit attached to my window. That was the cause of my excessive AC bill - installed without my consent. Next, the building falsely advertises that it has a fitness center. It does not. You can access one 15 minutes away. There is also no package room and UPS and Amazon actually do not receive FOBs to enter the premises, even though that is what tenants are told, so your packages are definitely getting stolen if you live here. Wifi was meant to be included with the building, but it was not. You have to get your own wifi and I just deducted this every month from my rent cost. Still a major headache. This situation alerted me to how disgusting the building was. When the Wifi guy came to help me set it up, he had to go to the back and open the cable box or something (not sure of the technicalities) and he opened it and found a bunch of dead animals (I think dead rats and birds). So that is probably why the Wifi does not work because the unit is literally rotten. I ended up tipping the poor guy because of what he had to see and apologized profusely. Even he told me to complain about the building, so here I am now. The building also always smelled and the management was never available. I can go on, but you get the idea. Do not live here. Cheaper and nicer options in West Philly.

Please try your best to avoid this HORRIBLE place. The following pictures show the initial conditions of my apartment when I moved in. Guess what happened after that? The maintenance team spent almost a whole week to get the disgusting toilet seat replaced and spent nearly THREE months to get those dangerous windows repaired. I live on the 1st floor, and I have no words to describe how afraid I was during that period. This apartment is NOT located in a safe district - I’ve lost four packages in the past couple of months. The delivery guy of USPS also faces problems regarding the access to the apartment. This has caused serious delays in package delivery for many residents. However, the management team doesn’t care about that at all. Please be aware of these problems when you think of off-campus housing! I reported the conditions of the damaged mattress and sofa, as well as other problems, to the managers at the time I moved in, but they pretend to ignore those issues. I feel they didn’t maintain the apartment at all after the former resident moved-out. This is immoral. I PAID MY RENT ON TIME EACH MONTH. ***There is also a mouse in my apartment😀. This apartment might be a good choice for you if you enjoy living with small animals or different kinds of insects. 3 days ago, I could no longer bear the condition of the sofa. So I requested maintenance and reported it again. I’m expecting to see how long it would take for the management team to respond to that. Have a guess? Maybe 6 months?

Let’s just get it out of the way: the 5-star reviews are fake. This place is at most a 3-star, depending on your experience (mine was not that great). No student found this place their first-year at Drexel, because they can’t live off-campus at that point. It is not a short-minutes walk from campus, more like 15-20 mins. Nobody writes a review for a place after “visiting a friend”. And the most misleading thing about it is that it is not quite in Powelton (try Legacy at Mantua). The apartment itself is not too bad. It is spacious. The kitchen is very nice and the bathrooms are neat (except for the water pressure which is POOR). But, the furniture is just sad. It is falling apart and the property manager said it would be replaced… shocker… it wasn’t. The wall paint is also quite sad. The beds are old and noisy. If you’re a light sleeper, like I am, this is not the place for you. The AC is incredibly loud; so much that the neighbour’s AC sounds like there is constant construction work. The windows in the rooms are also basically useless, as they just look into your neighbours apartment. As soon as you enter the building, it smell like old moist carpet (probably what it is). The mail situation is HORRIBLE. It is also incredibly dirty. Overall, I can live with all of that, because the walls can be fixed, the furniture covered up, and the hallway can be cleaned up, but the neighbourhood is just the worst thing about this place. A man got murdered one block away last week. There are consistent robberies and muggings that Drexel alerts for in the area. However, Drexel police doesn’t exactly patrol this area on a regular basis. Overall, for the price, this place is just not worth it.

Terrible management, you will not get your deposit back. Took months of headache and ghosting. Would not recommend living here.