The Highlands at South Plainfield Apartments

Dog poop everywhere! Come on pet owners! it is a common courtesy to clean after your pets. Because of that the place just stinks. I think it is also very expensive for the size of the apartment you get. Not sure what qualifies this place to be «luxury», because i didn’t get the luxury feeling at all. The staff is amazing and helpful though. (Only stayed here for 3mo, and we are breaking the lease).

We were here for 7 months and that included the 2014 Polar Vortex! One of the best things was Highlands kept the parking lot and community as clean and as snow free as possible. Conveniently located close to the free way and grocery (walkable distance)
Pros– great office folks like Noël, and Suzzane
Cons — Freeway is too close for comfort (noise levels are too high to open windows)
An Equity Residential property, hence very helpful with regards to their coast to coast moves as well as online payments and booking options.

We lived here for almost 18 months and had a great experience.
Noise: Was never an issue for us. We lived on the second of three floors, and the worst problem we had was a guy living upstairs who walked on his heels (I’m talkin’ to you, 1136) that we could hear– walls were not thin. The apartments are very close to 287 but that wasn’t really an issue for us either– I can’t think of a time that I was woken up by the highway noise or anything like that.
Amenities: A really gorgeous pool (with a lifeguard in the summers), a moderate sized club house, playground, exercise room.
Location: SUPER convenient. It is literally right off of 287, and minutes from the movies, Target, Shop Rite, gas stations and a good selection of restaurants.
Security: It is gated, but they are always having problems with their lift gates which bugged us sometimes. Never experienced or heard about any security issues outside of that though. Also, the front doors of every building are locked– so you need 2 keys, 1 to get into your building and 1 to get into your apartment. I always liked that extra layer of security too.
Cost of Rent: Price is right! For what you are getting, it really is a great deal. We were paying $ 500 more per month at our last apartment that was the same square footage, a worse layout and much worse location. Also, at the time we moved in, your security deposit is based on your credit score which is really nice!
Management: Really a great team. Shawn helped us with the move in process and she was great, and Stan who is the GM is really a great guy. When we had to move out of state, he really worked with us on the details, and did what he could to minimize the financial impact of us needing to break our lease. Gary in Maintenance is also great– never had an issue that wasn’t fixed within 24 – 48 hours.
Apartments: A little dated (built in 1992 I think?) but they are clean and well maintained. We lived in a 1 bed, 1 bath (about 750 sq. ft) and we really loved it. Has a nice sized patio too. We had a pool view, which we really loved in the summertime. Would definitely suggest an apartment on the second level– in the winter, we could often turn our heat down wayyyy low and the apartment would still be warm enough because we were sandwiched between the other apartments! Washer/​dryer in each unit, gas stovetop, no microwave but you can pick one up for cheap!
Overall a great place to live– I highly recommend!