The amenities, social atmosphere, and location / proximity to the Jake are definitely the major draws to E2. The apartments are smaller than some other buildings, but the finishes are generally a lot nicer. E2 is arguably the only luxury apartment building in Evanston. The biggest drawback is management. There have been quite a few issues that management did not handle well or in a timely manner. This is especially frustrating given how expensive E2 is.

E2 is a new building and has had growing pains. It has great amenities on the surface but lots of little inconveniences that add up when you live there. I'll try to share a balanced view.

Good
1. Gym on-site. Although it looks quite small for the size of the building, people don't seem to use it too much so I've never had to wait for a single machine (even in the morning). I don't use the basketball court but it's there and they sometimes have free workout classes
2. There are built in speakers in the apartments which is a nice touch.
3. Most of the front desk and mgmt in the office a pretty nice. Package storage and stuff is pretty easy.
4. Although parking is expensive, it's nice it's integrated into the building especially as it's gotten colder.
5. The pool and deck are very nice in the summer although it can get crowded. This year, a lot of folks live in E2 so being social is easy but I didn't feel like I lived in a dorm (you can be as involved or not as you want).

BAD
1. E2 clearly didn't have people test out the apartments. The bathrooms are huge but there is no laundry closet. Might seem like something minor but wait till you are looking for where to put your towels, laundry detergent and a whole bunch of odds and ends. really bad design.
2. The cable/internet company AM3 SUCKS! Internet outage, cable outage all the time. You can imagine how frustrating that is when you want to do finance hw due in 2 hours. It's quite ridiculous how bad they are (and u don't have a choice in provider).
3. They've had lots of issues with elevators getting stuck but as a new bulding, i figure that's part of testing the system so it should probably get better.
4. If you have a 2 or 3 bedroom, you will not have enough cabinet space. They simply didn't plan properly space wise because there's a lot of wasted space.

In summary, E2 isn't terrible. I just think it's too expensive for the types of problems it has. The reserve just down the street is waay bigger and slightly cheaper (and closer to the Jake). even optima horizons is bigger although condos have their own problem.

PS. If you have tmobile - your phone will not work

E2 provides a phenomenal social experience - there are a ton of different amenities (ranging from an indoor basketball court to a theater) that make it really easy to get together for everything from work to play. Rent is a bit on the pricy side, but location is great (close to campus and some of the better restaurants/bars). Management can be a bit of a stickler on some seemingly small details (e.g. specifics on what patio furniture is allowed), but they are working to adjust to Kellogg student needs.

Good: Great new places, close to campus, pet friendly, utilities (minus electric) rolled into rent. Parking garage, 12th floor great view overlooking Lake Michigan, nice hardwood floors and high ceilings, built in bluetooth speakers, great pool and outdoor space, front desk (Sandy) is an amazing, understanding person who really takes the tenants needs to heart. A real stand-up employee. Gym (altough) small is really nice, and the basketball court is a plus.

Bad: elevators constantly are breaking down, internet has been slower than expected (although recently better), directTV is not my favorite, there are some families and older couples that clearly dont like the surplus of college kids (especially at the pool when it was warm)

Ugly: they have been raising prices as more people move in. I am not looking forward to seeing what our new rent will be when we go to re-up for another year in the spring.

The apartment looks nice and is on the surface. However, once we started living here, we realized how poorly the property is managed. Elevators are constantly breaking down (you'd think that such 'old' technology would be easy to keep running). Additionally, the company that is contracted for TV and internet services, Access media is awful. Internet outages are not a rare occurrence and management doesn't do much to help fix the problem.

We pay top dollar for this apartment, but don't feel like we are getting that level of service! Highly recommend looking for other places to live.

One of the newer non-condo buildings in Evanston, which allows for 1 Year leases. The pool and courtyard area is one of the nicest amenities and 1Y students get to benefit all summer long!

Location - 10 minutes brisk walk from the Jake. 5-7 minutes walk to the main "downtown" area. Not bad in all. But considering Kellogg will be moving to the new building, it will be a little far. Expect a 20 minute or more walk.

Facilities and safety are great - no complaints. There is a large common room that's used for social activities, a meeting room, group work area, small gym, indoor basketball court that's well appointed. Swimming pool and hot-tub are both great.

Management is the biggest grouse - frequently unresponsive. We've had internet access outages 2-3 times in the past few months. That's not the problem in itself. It's the unhelpfulness of the management, who insist on directing us to Access Media 3 (internet provider). This is not helpful because:
- the management chose AM3 as the service provider for the whole building. They should be leveraging their power to influence the internet service provider.
- they chose a substandard provider in the first place, the onus should be on them to make things right.
- AM3 informed us that they would act only after they received a certain number of event logs, which was very unhelpful. The management could have circumvented that by logging an event for the whole building when all of us started calling.

The elevator has also broken down a few times. Management has not been helpful in these cases by providing us with expected times of recovery. While we understand that they need to get an external contractor to work on these issues, we expect service assurance given the price we pay. It's ludicrous to be paying such high prices yet not receiving more responsive service.

E2 has awesome amenities, great windows and an awesome social vibe. The management isn't all that great and the location isn't ideal as its not close to food or downtown Evanston.The bedrooms are small compared to other options, but the bathrooms are on the larger side. It's also an incredibly safe, secure building.

Management needs to fix up a few things in terms of responsiveness to issues (internet or lifts down) but overall a great, brand new building with lots of Kellogg students

There have been a lot of problems with the internet connection.

For some entire days internet connection is out, unexpectedly. It is not reliable.

There are other problems (car park) that do not affect me, but its useful to have in consideration.