443-451 W Wrightwood Apts

I had a very good experience at 451 Wrightwood. The location is incredible. It is close to the lake, food, and great bars. They always keep the building clean and are always on top of any maintenance issues. Mike the building manager is great and always helps out when you need something. The one downside, which is pretty consistent to any Lincoln Park apartment, is the parking.
Other than the parking the building is in a great spot and close to all the action.

Great apartment, awesome rooftop, great staff with timely maintenance, and thumbs up for Mike!

I’ve lived in 451 for almost a year in a studio. I even live with my boyfriend and there seems to be enough space for the both of us to live comfortably. (Yes I know that sounds crazy.) What seems to help is that we both work a lot and we have a huge closet! The building manager Mike has always been wonderful at helping with anything! We send an email and he responds within an hour or so with a solution that gets fulfilled quickly. You really can’t beat that! Especially when there are so many apartments in two buildings!
There was one time where I swore I saw a cockroach but we were also gone from the apartment for over a week, had left bread in the bag out … But they had a man in to spray the next day and he was saying how since it was raining the bugs were coming in through the pipes and it shouldn’t be a problem after he sprayed. And he was right!!!
I think that some people forget we are living in a big city and there are things like bugs etc out there. This place is nowhere near crawling with any kind of insect and to those people having issues — call right away and the problem will be solved!!!
We never hear our neighbors and the most important thing is that the neighborhood is safe! Yes the elevators could be faster but hey you people road up the elevators when looking at apartments!!! You know how they run. If you want something like that then move to another building and pay double! Your choice ;)
Thank you Mike and staff!!!

I am finishing my second full year living in a 1-​bedroom corner unit in the 443 building with my wife and two cats, and we have just signed a lease for our third year. We are quite happy with our unit and the management company.
PROS:
1) MAINTENANCE: The maintenance in 443 is excellent. If I tell the desk that I need a repair as I leave for work, the repair has always been made by the time I got home, even if the repair required replastering an area or replacing a part. The management also regrouted tiles in our bathroom and refinished our bathtub, which was very nice. Once a main water pipe burst and the problem was fixed quickly and professionally by the sub-​contracted plumber (on a Sunday afternoon). The management company is large and has the resources to fix problems. I have had no problems with appliances, and I have always had good water pressure despite being on the 13^th floor.
2) MANAGEMENT: The building manager Mike Hochhauser is very friendly and professional, and he clearly cares about how happy his tenants are and how well kept the building is. The doorman Bill recognizes all the tenants and is very friendly and professional. He is very good about buzzing tenants in so they don’t have to struggle to open the door while holding groceries, etc.
3) LOCATION: The building is in a superb location. Express buses to the Mag Mile are a 3-​minute walk from the building’s front door, the lakefront trail is a 10-​minute walk away with great views of the skyline from Diversey Harbor, North Pond and Lincoln Park proper are also within 10-​minute walks from the door. From my unit on the top floor of 443 I can see Wrigley Field, and out the bedroom window I have a broad lake view.
4) TRANSPORTATION: You do not need a car to live here (is better not to have one here, too). Retail shopping and 3 grocery stores and 2 pharmacies are within 8−10-minute walks of the unit. Shopping on Broadway in Lakeview neighborhood is an easy walk, and downtown is 20 minutes away. It took me 25 mintues door-​to-​door to get to a job by CTA bus I had on East Wacker Drive (by the Trump Tower), and it now takes me 30 minutes door-​to-​door to get to my work just west of the Loop by CTA bus. I also worked at DePaul, which is a 20-​minute walk from the building.
5) PUBLIC AREAS: The lobby is very well kept and appealing. The hallways are clean (I believe they vacuum them once a week). The ROOF is great, with views of downtown, the lake, and the cityscape to the north and west. The laundry room has 8 washers and 8 dryers. The area is kept clean, and whenever the machines break, they seem to get fixed within a few days of breaking.
6) QUIET: The walls are thick firewalls through which no sound seems to penetrate. I have never had issues with hearing other people’s music from my unit. I can tell the walls between units are good because if I go out in the hallway I can hear my neighbor blasting music but I cannot hear when inside my unit.
CONS:
1) NO RECYCLING ON SITE: To recycle you have to carry your recycling down to one of the bins on the Lakefront Trail or to the larger recycling dumpsters at the nature museum. I carry more than half of all my trash in my arms down the street.
2) SPACE: For two adults and two large cats, the space is limited, which is the only thing that might make us eventually move to another place. However, the space-​per-​square-​foot is comparable to other high-​rise apartment buildings in Lincoln Park and Lake View (I just researched this extensively again before signing for a 3^rd year). It is nearly impossible to get a lot of space in Chicago’s best neighborhood, and 443 is on-​par with the competition here. There are larger apartments for equal or less money in LP/​Lakeview, but those are often on lower floors with few windows and no view. (My unit has windows on 3 sides with a cross-​breeze). There are some small storage cubbies in the basement that can be used for free that are probably about 2’x2’x3’. If you want more space for your dollar you will have to move farther out regardless.
3) ELEVATORS: The elevators are a bit slow. It takes about 20 seconds to ride from the bottom to the top if no other stops are made. One of the two elevators is often decommissioned for use by people moving in or out, which on some occasions can lead to waits of 2 – 3 minutes on the elevator.
4) PARKING: This is a non-​issue for me personally as I do not own a car, but it has been difficult to accommodate out-​of-​town visitors on a few occasions. It can be impossible to find any street parking at times, and keeping a car in the neighborhood for a few days is also difficult.
CONCLUSION: Overall, I believe this building is a very good fit for a person desiring a lake view apartment in a high rise managed by a quality management company. The only disadvantages (space, parking) are results of the neighborhood itself which are probably best remedied by not trying to live so close in (try Ravenswo

I’ve had nothing but good experiences with 443 W. Wrightwood. Any problems with my apartment were resolved quickly, the staff has always been helpful, and my apartment is great. I have no complaints about this place. The location is great and the rooftop deck is gorgeous.

Honest review: Before you consider moving into this building or the 443 building, read this. I know it is long but it is worth reading if you are seriously considering moving in. I have documented pictures of everything I wrote about.
I moved to Chicago a little over a year ago and was so excited when my roommate and I found this place. The location is amazing, outside of the building is well kept and the lobby is really pretty and gives off the impression that the rest of the building is this nice/​in that good of shape.
The other great sells were that there was free cable and internet included. The manager also told me they were finalzing instalation of Comcast for the whole building and it would be done by the time I moved in. They also said the whole apartment was being «refurbished» and there would be new paint, floors, etc. when I moved in.
Here is the reality: Within the first week of moving into my apartment I had to call for numerous maintenance requests. Our shower was not working properly, there was water leaking out of one of the electrical outlets in the hallway, and neither of our sinks/​bath would drain.
They were quick about fixing things but it was only a quick fix. They would just do temporary fixes that cost barely anything instead of investing to make sure the probelm did not occur again.
Our cable and internet were out half of the time I lived in the building (without warning or a definite date they would be running again). Once it was out for over a week. I moved out after 1 year and the comcast that was promised upon move in was never installed.
We had multiple issues with plumming. We had to have them fix the pipes/​drains every couple of weeks because they wouldn’t drain and our kitchen flooded because the pipes from our sink were draining into the dishwasher. This happened late one night so my roomate and I called the «24 hour emergency line» and were told «sorry not until some time tomorrow» The dishwasher never worked the whole time we lived there.
One morning I woke up to the sound of rain and realized our roof was literally raining in our bathroom. The pipes above us burst and every time the man above us showered dirty shower water would just start flowing from the ceiling onto our floor and down our walls.
When they finally came to fix it, they used OUR bath towels to wipe up the mess and then threw them on my BED. They just painted over the water damage and didnt clean up afterwards leaving our hall, walls, rooms and bathroom a disaster.
The staff, especially the building manager Andrea, is extremely rude and unprofessional. The «24 hour» door man is never at his desk which is frustrating when you want to pick up your mail.
Someone threw up all over one of the tiny elevators and it wasnt cleaned for weeks. Half the time one of the elevators didn’t even work.
Overall, I agree it does sound like an amazing deal with great perks for a great price… but I would NOT recommend for anyone to live in this building and I would personally NEVER live in another BJB apartment in Chicago again.
I know it sounds like maybe it was just a series of unfortunate events, but I knew multiple who lived in the building as well and NONE of them resigned their leases. The water/​pipe issue is throughout the whole building and one of the girls my roommate and I knew had her whole entire ceiling collapse exposing the floor of the apartment above her. Her whole apartment was water damaged and her things were ruined.
Take these into consideration before convincing yourself the great location and «free» perks are worth it.

At first I thought this was going to be a great place to live… Wishful thinking … you certainly get what you pay for in Lincoln Park
Within the first few weeks of moving in, my roommate and I noticed burst of scolding hot water coming out of the shower head every few minutes. We brought this to managements’ attention several times and finally (after pretended they knew nothing about the issue) they said it was a plumbing problem that could not be fixed. The result– scolding hot burst of water every few minutes every day for a whole YEAR!
Although management was timely with our requests to fix things, but they were always temporary (ie. rust in the tub was painted over, the dishwasher would run on heavy but not normal, Our toilet would flush properly a few days at a time, etc)
Apart from the issues in our actual apartment, a few months ago someone threw up all over the elevator, it has yet to be cleaned up … SICK! Oh yeah and the elevator are usually broken anyway so I guess this doesn’t matter that much.
In case you are a biker and they are trying to sell you on the bike storage in the basement… think again ! The bike storage is in the creeeppy wet area behind the freight elevator in the basement … I would not venture over to that area if you paid me!
The thing that really sold us on this building was that 451 had access to the 443 roof top deck, that turned out not to be true either. We were never given a key to the main door so unless we stood there for someone to come out (not exactly tight security in this place) we couldn’t get it.
Feel free to contact me if you are considering moving into this building and I would be happy to provide more reasons why you should KEEP LOOKING!

this is the worst company in all of chicago, and probably the entire world.
i lived at 443 w wrightwood and the minute i moved in my studio on the first floor was infested with roaches.
the building was not well maintained, thus roaches made a nest in the first floor’s garbage shoot. they spread everywhere. in the pipes, in the walls…
the entire first floor is infested with roaches. it is absolutely disgusting and the management is even worse.
andrea, the manager of the building, was very unhelpful, extremely rude and unprofessional. managers are supposed to help their tenants with any problem. little did i know, andrea was the mother of all the roaches.
andrea would not let me out of my lease. she gave me absolutely no options, and said that i had to live with it. i’m almost prety sure she is also racist.
they were bringing exterminators everyday to fix the problem only to look good, however even after 20 days of me living there, the roaches still existed everywhere. they were pretty much living in my walls and still wander the hallways till this day.
i put an add on craigs list about my apt because i could not tolerate the roaches any longer. i finally found someone to sublet my place. keep in mind that i had already paid for the first months rent the first day i moved in, although i only stayed there for half of the first month. also keep in mind that, i did not sleep there every night because i was too afraid… so i would stay with a friend and come back to the apartment everyday and see more roaches. so technically i never really lived there. i took pictures of every roach i saw and have over 100 photos.
when i found someone to take my apartment (god be with him) the property «manager» andrea said that they are doing me a favor by letting me move out and is not refunding me one penny.
they are dirty thieves, the corporate office was also behind all of it.
i also heard from reliable sources that BJB is the worst company in general. They have roach problems in most of their buildings and i’ve read that people hear mice in their walls.
sorry for such a long post… just letting my frustration out. they are terrible. everyone else who have good things to say about them… it wont last. and the only reason i gave them one star is because Unilocal wouldnt let me post without marking one.
ps: monica works with bjb. she is their realtor… she is actually a very nice woman and wanted to help me… however andrea has authority over her so if she helped me in any way she would have lost her job. monica, you need to get the hell away from andrea and work for a respected company because your better then that and andrea is not worth a minute of your time.

1) My itsy-​bitsy studio was way overpriced. — 1 star
2) The oven was broken all year, and as an avid cook, I was disappointed every time the management did not make an effort to send someone over to fix it. — 1 star
3) The elevators were SLOW. SLOW. S-​L-​O-​W. — 1 star
4) The roof deck was spectacular. Big, clean, with two awesome views (the lake and the skyline). — 5 stars
5) The doorman named Manuel was the nicest guy ever. — 5 stars
I’ll be generous and give it 3 stars.