5757 N Sheridan Condominium Association

We recently bought in this building and it’s been lovely. The assessments are on par with the rest of the beach strip near Hollywood ($ 715) and the location couldn’t be better. It pays to have full time doormen and maintenance and the staff is wonderful. The building seems to have had a shaky previous management company, but they have recently switched companies and things seem fine. The board approved full overhauls to all of the common areas including the penthouse/​party rm on the roof– very swanky new designs, and all without ANY special assessment! They’re also upgrading the security features of the building and all new cable and internet service throughout. We have an energy consulting firm coming to help continue to improve energy efficiency. The building is creating a new web page that will feature updates and important info as well, which will greatly improve communications. The building may not have amenities like a pool or gym, but the related property values make it an ideal first home choice. Overall we have been very pleased with the purchase and would certainly recommend this building to new owners.

With 2 bedroom assessments reaching well into the $ 700 per mo. range, this virtually no-​feature building is a financial money pit of poor management, turnover and overstaffing.
Property management has in several years had a turnover rate that garnered about a once yearly change of office staff leaving nobody with any kind of longer-​term knowledge of the staff nor owners. Each consecutive manager has become more abrasive, disrespectful and inept than their predecessor. This, coupled with a board that is replete with «lifers» who cannot see nor understand changing needs, a frigid, ruthless business-​only mentality and an unwillingness to be directly accessible to the owners (aka hiding behind the property manager) and you get an overall sad place to call home.
For that high price (one of the highest we could find on Sheridan) we got no pool, no pets, no dry cleaners, no store, no services, and for the most part no overnight staff in the fact that one of the two door staff is asleep 90% of his shift and owners and guests must knock on the window to wake him for access. Complaints result in no changes and from what we witnessed with former neighbors, actually seemed to garner a level of hostility and retaliatory actions from management. Additionally, a still-​surviving minority of the longer-​term elderly owners has a power bloc that has kept staff levels ridiculous high raising costs for all owners, mostly so that they have a 24 hour nursing home type of environment and can have someone open their bottle of Scope or see if their window is closed all the way. In this association the many pay the needs of the few for nearly everything.
Luckily we were able to get out and at least get our money back more or less on our unit and we couldn’t be happier in our new location. We are now in our 4^th condo in Chicago and of the four no experience has been as disappointing nor frustrating as 5757 was and you can see it in the faces of the other owners. In fairness I will say at least this; the financial state of the association seems to be perfectly fine, strong and healthy. For $ 700 mo. it should be. If there is anything of a silver lining in the environment there it is that. It is more in the areas of waste, attitude and innovation that the association lacks and those could be the cancer that eventually eats away at the healthy parts of the body as a whole.