Dimensions Management

I wanted to write this review because the negative reviews I read almost affected my choice to rent from Dimensions Management.
All of my experiences with the management company, building manager, and building staff were fantastic. I rented a studio apartment at 525 S Dearborn and was very happy with the condition and management of the building and the apartment prior to moving in. The building manager, Andre, was always extremely responsive over text or phone-​calls and maintenance requests were handled within hours, not days.
Upon leaving, I had to break my lease to take a job in another city, and the management company made it extremely painless to relet my apartment officially without any fees or inconvenience on my end. Each time I called to ask questions or needed help with the process, anyone that answered the phone was very prompt, helpful, and friendly.
I understand how people can have negative experiences with a company, but I also believe there are a majority of people just like me that have very positive experiences but never take the time to write a review. I would happily rent through Dimensions Management again.

I lived at the 808 W Junior Terrace property for a year and had an overall good experience. The unit was nice; it was a gut rehab, so everything was brand new. They installed the toilet the day my roommate and I moved in, it was that new. Maintenance requests were responded to promptly and it was really nice to be able to send the requests in through an online system. It happened often that if I made a maintenance request, the person who would come to fix it would call me to let me know that he couldn’t get to it right that moment, but he would by 4:00 that day or something like that. I appreciated them just reaching out to let me know it was going to be taken care of. The cons were that it was on the fringes of a decent area so it was slightly above average with a feeling of safety (though I never personally had any problems, and I walked by myself at night all the time); packages were stolen sometimes from the mail area; and I wish the best of luck to whoever ended up getting my old bedroom with windows only on the north side of the building and a drafty window unit A/​C because I could not insulate that room for anything, I half froze all winter. The other major con was that I was told when we moved in that our electric bill (which covered heat) should not be over $ 80. So going off of that information, I obviously wasn’t pleased when we had to pay $ 130+ electric bills in winter. The unit was a good size – not large, but comfortable. The open kitchen and living area was great for entertaining. I had a queen size bed, desk, bookshelf, and recliner in my room. My roommate had a full-​sized bed, dresser, and desk, with plenty of room to walk around. Neighbors were pretty good, the building was quiet. (Then again, I saw the guy who lived next door to us many times and never actually heard him speak, so maybe he was just a quiet person.) I could often hear either kids playing at the school right there or people working out on the playground, so most of the noise came from outside rather than noisy neighbors. I’d recommend it overall, especially since everything in my unit was nice and new and any of our concerns were promptly attended to.

I rented with Dimensions Management for almost 2 years. I never had any big issues and Tom Vollman was very helpful with subletting my unit.
The handyman was fantastic & helped out whenever I needed something. They were great with responding to me.

Second star is for kind and responsive facilities staff, despite finding one of them drunk and passed out in the stairwell of my apartment once. They were otherwise handy and reliable, responding quickly to issues and even unclogging several drains for us.
The apartment was fine, too: a charming but hastily refurbished loft studio in Printer’s Row. We were obviously paying mostly for location, though.
What made our experience so negative was every interaction we had with Tom Vollman in the management office. From our lease application, for which he demanded to know the identity of my wife’s employer in spite of her non-​disclosure agreement and readily available proof of income; to our renewal negotiation, in which he took more than a week to answer voicemails and emails about badly needed upgrades in our unit; to our lease termination when we subleased and moved out, when he attempted to pass through a bank fee to us because Dimension’s online rent payment program charged us an extra month’s rent after we terminated the lease. The guy seems to look for opportunities to be rude.
When I was finally able to reach him by phone, a rare feat, and explain why his company’s error in charging me an extra month’s rent made the fee their responsibility, he ultimately relented, but only by sending an email saying he had «pleaded [my] case» with the VP and had «reversed the charge.»
I don’t like to criticize a whole company for the behavior of one bad actor, but unfortunately Tom’s the person tenants seem to be stuck dealing with. Reaching someone else who handles business with a level head wasn’t usually an option for us, and confronting Tom directly about this ridiculous behavior got me nowhere. Hence this negative Internet review. Sorry, world.

I have been with Dimensions for almost a year now and I have nothing but nice things to say about people I’ve dealt with … particularly Tom Vollman, one of the property managers. I agree with one of the other reviews in terms of getting a voicemail when dialing their office more often than not … but every time I’ve left a voicemail for Tom or sent him an email, I always got an immediate response.
I love that you can pay your rent and make maintenance requests online. For the maintenance requests I’ve sent, I have always gotten a response within a few hours and completed by the end of the day.

I can’t even begin to express my frustration towards this management company. When dirty sewage water began POURING into our apartment one night, they said they would «send someone over.» After multiple calls to the manager stressing that this was an EMERGENCY, nearly 16 hours later a pumber shows up. 24 hours later the manager shows up to assess the damage (he told us he would get the carpets cleaned for us before arriving). As soon as he saw the disgusting sewage soaked carpets, he realized we needed to immediately rip out the carpets and order new ones. (Did he think we were being dramatic when we said dirty sewage water was pouring into our bathroom and bedrooms?)
We are now experiencing a similar problem in our apartment. We informed them of the problem almost 24 hours ago saying there was rising water in an outside drain and our bathtub. Of course, the issue was not addressed and now there is water coming out of our toilet and a drain outside that is leaking into our bedrooms. My roommate and I both had to go to work, so I’m sure we have a pleasant suprise awaiting us back at our apartment.
You think they’d learn that by putting off an issue it will only escalate.
I will say that the older maintenane man that has been to our apartment 5 times this past week is a lovely human being and should get a raise.

Let me start by saying that the office of Dimensions has never been rude to me. Every time I call, they remember me by name & so on. However, the reason they remember me by name is because i have to call so much in order to request maintenance requests.
when we signed our lease for our Old Town apartment, we were told gas (heating and cooking) was included in our rent. our first week in our apartment, we noticed the stove was not working and blamed in on a faulty pilot light. When our maintenance guy came to check it out, he explained (in broken english) that the reason the cooking gas wasn’t working was because we hadn’t set up our People’s Gas account & it had not been paid for. My roommate immediately e-​mailed the agent who initially showed us the apartment with questions on why he explained this would be included in the rent, when apparently it was NOT. He emailed back with no explanation except for, «who told you gas was included?»… We were completely appalled. After 3 months of not having gas & living off lean cuisines, we decided we might as well pay the $ 14 a month in order to have cooking gas. When we contacted People’s Gas we were told that the radiators and the stove gas were on the same line, basically, that they did not provide gas there since it WAS included in the rent. Furious, we called Dimensions and told them what happened. Our gas was turned on & we moved on. Until this…
Maintenance installed new blinds in our apartment about 3 weeks after we moved in. Which was great, except for the fact that they missed two windows in my room. When i called, they said they needed to special order smaller blinds because they were smaller windows. that was 5 MONTHS AGO. I still don’t have blinds in my room & after calling multiple times, nothing has been done.
get it together.

Shady, shady, shady. Applied for an apartment, and was approved for credit and income. However, management said that they wanted me to take the smaller apartment (not the one I applied for /​wanted). I was told I was first to apply, first approved. Apparently a friend of theirs wanted the unit. Shady, shady, shady.

I have never rented an apartment from this management company, but I have dealt with the broker, Brady.
I scheduled an appointment with Brady to see an apartment and was thrown off instantly when he replied to my voicemail with a text. The day comes around and I am stuck in traffic, so I text him to let him know I am running behind– because apparently it is now considered professional to only communicate with potential customers with text messages. I get nothing back. I try calling at 6 PM, no answer. I call numerous times upon arriving, seeing that he is not there. So eventually I leave because it’s freezing out and I’m annoyed at wasting my time (and gas/​loop parking money) traveling from work in Evanston to get to the freaking South Loop in rush hour.
Over an hour after the scheduled appointment is over, I get a text saying that he was sorry, but he had to get to another appointment. Yes, it was my fault for being several minutes late, but seeing as I was calling him at 6pm (when my appointment was scheduled!) I don’t understand how he wasn’t able to PICK UP THE PHONE and do his job.
I replied by asking him how long he was expecting to spend showing me the apartment, since he had to leave after only 10 minutes. He said 15. I have been renting apartments for a while in Chicago and don’t see how one could, according to him, decide in 15 minutes if the place was suitable enough to sign a 1 year lease for. Maybe I am just picky and judgmental when it comes to looking for apartments!
I told him I was no longer interested in looking at the apartment after he asked if I would like to reschedule and he replied, «cool.»
Unfortunately, I see that he is the only contact that is listed for a lot of the rental postings I am interested in, but I refuse to attempt to view another apartment shown by him. I will probably just go to Chicago Apartment Finders so I won’t have to deal with this company!

They were rude to me when I contacted them as a prospective tenant. Read a lot more negative reviews over at
. I would not rent from these people even if I got 1 month free rent!

I’m wondering if Dimensions has just gotten their act together in the year since the last review? I have nothing but good experiences with this company. They’re very responsive to maintenance requests — once replacing my fridge less than 24 hours after I called to complain about it. There have been other issues with the apartment and they have been nothing short of amazing in terms of getting things resolved in a reasonable amount of time.

We all know how difficult it is to find apartments anywhere. We often select apartments based on which deal breaker is more tolerable.
I’d actually had a terrible first experience with my current unit on Belden. One of their leasing agents, Brady, was the first to show it to me and hadn’t been particularly friendly or enthusiastic about getting me to sign a lease. I understand that repeatedly showing apartments can become monotonous, but have a little personality! He said nothing could be done about the carpet but offered to knock $ 10 off the monthly rent. $ 10 freaking dollars? I passed but was excited when I saw that another unit had opened up and was posted on craigslist (this one promised hardwood floors). I contacted the agent who posted it, Ray, and was disappointed to find that he was about to let me into the same unit Brady had showed me a couple of weeks earlier.
The difference was that when I voiced my concern about the disparity between the ad and the actual unit, Ray listened, promised to look into whether or not taking out the carpet and installing hardwood would be possible, and told me when he was going to follow up with me.
Suffice it to say that they installed awesome wood floors (not pergo or some other synthetic flooring) and I have been a happy camper ever since. Minor tangent — Brady tried to get credit for having the unit rented! Sorry, buddy! Ray wins.
I have had minor maintenance issues that needed attention, and the management office is easily accessible and my building engineer, Mihai, and his wife, are always quick to respond. A trio of douchebag frat boys live upstairs and their constant stampede of friends and women (and gentlemen callers) have a habit of littering the common areas and the front stoop with random bottles of beer and bags of chips that spontaneously explode but Mihai and his wife manage to never let the common areas remain in disarray for very long.
I was even locked out of my apartment and once the office opened, I let them know and they dispatched someone to let me in within 30 minutes (thankfully it wasn’t oppressively hot or intolerably cold that day).
I’m not certain why there are so many negative reviews of them here, but they seem outdated and the company seems to have made enormous strides in becoming accessible and quick-​to-​act while remaining friendly. You won’t go wrong if you rent one of their units!

Lived in their Irving park 1 bedroom apartments for a year. The management was okay, however we didn’t really contact them too often though as everything worked okay. They do occasionally enter the apartments for maintenance, but that is mentioned in the lease agreement and once your lease is close to ending they come in with potential renters, but that is also mentioned in the lease and pretty standard.
The apartments themselves are older, but in pretty good condition. The only complaint were the windows, which are not the best for keeping heat in. No major insect issues, no mice or other unwanted sub-​letters :) Good water pressure, lots of sunlight and good neighborhood for a decent price. Apartments the same size a block south went for $ 100 more per month.
When we just moved in there was a miscommunication about rent and they did seem a bit disorganized about payments, but a phone call to their main office solved the whole issue quickly.
Overall satisfied and would rent from them again.

We absolutely LOVE our apartment and its location, but dealing with Dimensions Management has been a horrible experience. They are disorganized and IMPOSSIBLE to get ahold of, even in emergency situations.
There is often mismanagement of our rent checks, and on several occasions we have received threatening calls/​invoices claiming that we owe money (turns out they just have a disorganized accounting system). I would think twice about renting with this company.

I had a bad experience and would not rent from them again. The lower rent is NOT worth it.
When we moved in the stove wasn’t working. I called Dimensions and tried to get them to fix it, but they kept saying that it was the gas company’s fault. The gas company kept saying that they did everything right and that it was the stove that wasn’t working. This went on for a few days, with me playing the middle guy between the gas company and Dimensions. Finally, I had my boyfriend (an attorney) write a letter. And what do you know, but within the day the stove was fixed (it was broken to begin with). I also got an angry phone call from Shawn for having my boyfriend write the letter. Well at least the letter worked.
A few months ago, I walked into the appartment and smelled gas. I called the gas company right away, because it was a very dangerous situation. They concluded that the «new stove» was leaking. I told them to fix it, figuring that Dimensions would pay for it since it can cause a lot of harm. The next day when I called Shawn to explain the situation, he told me that Dimensions would not pay for it because I called the gas company and not the building manager. So I guess I was supposed to call the guy who installed the leaking stove in the first place, instead of the gas company.

I don’t have a huge problem with these guys, but perhaps my standards are low. Here’s what I’ve experienced: though Andre, the manager of my building, is nice and responsive, some questions I’ve asked about took a couple of phone calls to get an answer to. Also, when I was looking at my place, I made an appointment with the Dimensions guy to check out the apartment on a Saturday afternoon.
Well, I was there, and he was not. According to a voice mail I picked up later, he had called my cell that day to confirm the appointment, and because he didn’t hear back from me that we were still ON, he assumed we were off.
WHAT? Nooooo… if you don’t hear from me to cancel an appointment, you should assume that we’re still ON. Which we WERE – or at least I was.
Anyway, through various scerw-​ups and cancellations (all on Dimention’s part), it took 3 tries for me to finally see this frickin’ apartment – which, by the way, I loooove.
So, ultimately, I figure that all’s well that end’s well – and renting is a nightmare anyway you slice it.

Do yourself a favor STAY AWAY! I rented from them for 4 years and from the very first day it was a nightmare. Dirty apartment, broken fixtures rude and nasty apartment manager who gets pleasure out of making your life miserable. Living in one of their apartments will drive you crazy, and to top it off the maintenance men are rude and will walk into your apartment and start working without warning you could be in the shower and they will look at you and laugh, they just walk in as though its their apartment. I was sleeping once they just walked in and started doing things at 7 am. When you call Shawn he is rude nasty and will tell you if you don’t like it move. That’s just what I did and instead bought a condo because renting again was the last straw, especially after renting from them.
I have lived in various cities New York, San Francisco, Tampa and New Orleans and have never ever had such a nasty experience and been treated in such a manner So PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOUR and Spare yourself misery RENT from someone else.

Horrid. In every way imaginable.
I had a great landlord. Sadly, she died and the property is caught in the middle of an apparent family feud and in the meantime Dimensions has taken over.
They’ve entered my apartment unannounced or with no advance notice on several occasions. I’ve complained several times to no avail that they are abusing Section 5−12−050 Landlord’s Rights of Access which requires a minimum 48 hour advance notice. It hasn’t stopped.
One morning, 8 am, on my way to the airport for a 3 day business trip, I find the maintenance guy banging on my door informing me that they would be doing work in my apartment for the next two days, and «Oops sorry about not getting you notice AGAIN». So, I had to grab my cat and stuff her in the bathroom, not knowing if they would actually let her out or not when they were finished. I returned home from my trip to find the workers had used my bathroom and not bothered to clean up after themselves around the toilet. Isn’t that lovely? There was dust on everything and they left all the debris from the work in my trash can for me to haul out.
On one occasion they broke the locks on my apartment to get in because they had me confused with the apartment upstairs. They damaged beautiful original wood doors in the process, leaving wood shards and screws all over my living room. When I contacted the office the person I spoke with had the nerve to get irate with me, refuse to let me speak and was incredibly condescending and rude. I contacted the BBB, Dimensions general manager, and the property owner who is doing his best to get the property back under his control. He’s told me they’re having similar problems with their other buildings that were handed over to Dimensions.
If they remain with Dimensions I may not renew my lease next year. It’s a shame because the family that owns the property are really great people and were always responsive and incredibly respectful of the space as their renter’s «home» — not just someone living in their property.
Stay away from Dimensions!

Sadly, I had the best property manager ever until recently when my building management was taken over by Dimensions. And so far all of these comments ring true:
pigeon poo central
burnt out light bulbs in common areas
rude response when I’ve called for the 5^th time to get something fixed (and 4 months later, still not fixed)
I think my only option from here on out is to keep my head down and embrace a DIY mentality. and the animals in my walls.
Keep away from these guys.

(My fiancée’s review)
This is the worst property managers I’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with. They came in unannounced to work in the bathroom when my roommate was sick. They left a complete mess and didn’t bother cleaning up afterwards. We actually had to replace toiletries and the shower curtain… no bother to apologize, let alone refund us. They came in at 8 AM on Saturday morning to show off the apartment. I was alarmed and frightened when I heard someone coming into my apartment. Apparently from the other reviews, they do this all the time. Repairmen, although nice, couldn’t understand our anger at their unannounced visits due to language barriers. Unannounced visits happened every single time.
There were rats in the common area by the laundry. Dead rats weren’t removed from the rat traps, and live ones moved about freely even up to the third floor. Pigeon crap was everywhere and they wouldn’t clean it up.
The laundry room was out of commission for three months during the winter.
The administrative assistant Sean was useless and lost checks. When we called him out on it, he became belligerent and abusive… the same occurred when I tried to get my security deposit back. I’m glad to see that I’m not alone in having had these experiences.
The building was located on N. Lincoln Park West, just off of Lincoln Ave.
PS — This management company seems to prey on people that are new to the city that want to live in a desirable location for «reasonable rent.»