The Cornell House Reviews

If you live here, be prepared to face problems and unexpected expenses to pop up one after another, and also expect a condescending attitude when you try to argue with the management. You are not a customer here, but a fat sheep ready to be sheared and milked, especially if you are international. Don't be fooled by the marketing material, practice your judgement and critical thinking skills, marketing and squeezing profits from you are the only things they do well. Don't get too excited about this "passive building" concept. Be warned, electricity bill will be expensive. Even if this building does save energy costs, it only saves their (building management) costs, not yours. If you are a prospective CT student looking for housing, look elsewhere if you see this post. It costs me a fortune to learn and give you this advise, please don't let it be wasted. However, if you still decide to live here, remember to protect your privacy when you feel like speaking up online someday about your experience. They do stalk people online, so be careful if you are not posting praises about them.

Current resident at the house, I've been here for about two months. There are some good things about living here, and there are some bad things.

The good:
- The concierge staff is extremely nice (most of them)
- The building is pretty modern looking
- Extremely close proximity to campus

The bad:
So this is where my experience gets a bit more subjective. I live in a 3 bedroom apartment at the moment. When we were first moving in, we all sign an agreement, essentially listing "house rules". One of these rules is: No outside furniture can be brought into apartments. Totally fair, especially since the apartments are advertised as fully-furnished. HOWEVER, the three bedroom apartments did NOT come fully furnished. None of the people living in three bedroom apartments were provided a desk, due to "space restrictions." The interesting thing is, there is definitely space for a normal sized-desk in every room, once things are moved around in a space-efficient way. The House claims to be making progress towards getting desks for the 3 bedroom residents, but the estimate on getting desks has been changing constantly.

Some people don't have a need for desks, which is totally fine. And maybe this problem is fixed by the time the next batch of students moves in. But for right now, they aren't providing desks to us in a timely manner, and they are also not allowing us to bring in our own desks (due to the apartments being "fully furnished", although they very clearly aren't).

This isn't meant to blame any one person, because I truly don't know what's going on behind the scenes. This shows me a complete lack of preparation, however. Many students live in this house, and a desk is essential for almost all students.

Just some food for thought. Overall, still enjoying my stay here. There are just some rules that don't make sense, and I'm one of the unfortunate students who has to deal with them.

Convenient; nicely built; friendly concierge.
But management is overall bad. For example, they don t allow you bring your own furnitures. (You will need disability proof from Cornell to buy an office chair. ) This is ridiculous particularly during quarantine since we have to work at home and I had WAY BETTER chairs in office.

I love The House. They have the best people at concierge and it's nice living so close to Cornell Tech. The building includes some fantastic amenities like laundry on-site, a gym, and a bike room. The roof is one of the best views I've seen of the Manhattan Skyline; the rooms have great sights as well:

The house pretends to be a student-friendly campus facility, but it's only on the surface. Once you get past the friendly welcome tours you find yourself stuck in foul contracts whose primary interest is the profit of the privately owned real estate firm who owns the building, The Related Companies, L.P. Expect dubious utility upcharges, uncongenial management, and half a month release fee if you ever wish to leave again :P

WHY is this building in use? To be honest, the building does not work fully, it has been in this situation for over 5 months. A couple of problems have not moved yet, the water can go wrong, sometimes there is no clear or warm water. Also, the air conditioning did not work properly, I got sick because of uncontrolled cold air. I love the view, but this quality and management of the buildings is very far from the standard of a legitimate residential building.

I DO NOT recommend living here, because it has to do with SAFETY. We do not know what kind of problem will continue to show up, better not to be the fire.

I recommend you to live here if you come to Cornell Tech. New building with nice view and kind concierges. Just 1 minute walk to class room. And awesome friends.

2018.8 - 2019.7 resident. I think the apartment is good and affordable. The utility is new, but there are always some problems about elevators and the problem happens again and again. I don't understand why they stop one of the three elevators in the name of saving energy. There were also two incidents without hot water which last two days. The electric bill is outrageous and unclear. I can't understand why is it called passive housing. There are too many rules about living in the apartment. One of the rules that piss me off is that you can't reasonably sublet the apartment for leaving for work because you are not a tenant and you don't have a lease! This is the way they avoid the NYC rental law which guarantees the tenant the right to sublet under justifiable reason. Whether their actions are legal is still questionable. I also don't like their burdensome rules about having a friend visit. If it is my apartment, why can't I let my friend to stay without notifying the house management.

Don t get me wrong, the facility is pretty good, but the management is beyond horrible! They have created extremely unwelcoming environment to the residents. They have threaten me many times during my vacation that they ll throw out my packages at the concierge. I had to ask a friend to pick them up. The building had heating problems during last summer and winter and is still not fixed after many emails claiming they are working on it. The elevators were shut down during finals without previous notice, I had to run down from 24th floor to take my exam. They have ridiculous rules for subleasing your apartment. Residents can only sublease the room on weekly basis to students, and only with a lower price than the rent! Not to mention the lack of transparency of the electricity charges and rental deposits. Your money is gone once you sign.

No heat in the winter is nothing compared to this automatic self-turn-on of cold air conditioner in Cornell Tech The house during winter. Plus 120 dollars charged fee of heat and electricity monthly. So much so for being "passive" or "environmentally friendly". I had never seen waste of energy at such staggering scale. This is a senseless and horrifying crime.