Home  >  Philadelphia  >  West Philadelphia  >  University City Apartments  >  Evo at Cira Centre South

High-rise Apartment  «  Greystar
University City, 2930 Chestnut St | Philadelphia
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Amenities
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Top Amenities

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  •  24-Hour Front Desk
  •  Business Center
  •  Cat friendly
  •  Dog friendly
  •  Fitness Center
  •  Granite Countertops
  •  Minimum Lease Term  
  •  Parking Garage
  •  Short Term Rentals
  •  Stainless Steel Appliances
  •  Swimming Pool  
  •  Washer/Dryer In Unit

User Rating

6.0
Average
44 Reviews

About this Location

Trader Joe’s
7 min via 44 (bus)
MFL (metro) - 4 min
30th Street Station - 9 min
In a quiet
neighborhood
Schuylkill Banks
8 min walk
Lots of bars and
restaurants nearby

Pricing 

Studio, 1 Bath
$1,740+
1 Bedroom, 1 Bath
$2,350+
2 Bedrooms, 2 Baths
$2,600+
3 Bedrooms, 3 Baths
$3,150+
4 Bedrooms, 4 Baths
$4,000+
Schedule Appointment At
(215) 222-7100
  • Bedrooms

    •  Walk-in Closets
  • Building Related

    •  Elevators
  • Convenience

    •  Business Center
  • Entertainment

    •  Game Room
  • Kitchen

    •  Dishwasher
    •  Garbage Disposal
    •  Granite Countertops
    •  Microwave
    •  Stainless Steel Appliances
  • Landscape

    •  Courtyard
  • Laundry

    •  Washer/Dryer In Unit
  • Lease Terms

    •  Furnished Units Available
    •  Minimum Lease Term  
  • Living Room

    •  Air Conditioning
  • Parking & Transportation

    •  Parking Garage
  • Pet Terms & Amenities

    •  Cat friendly
    •  Dog friendly
  • Security & Maintenance

    •  24-Hour Front Desk
  • Sports & Fitness

    •  Fitness Center
    •  Swimming Pool  
X

Overall rating 6.0/10, based on 44 renter reviews Write a review

8.8
Location
7.1
Amenities
3.6
Management
6.4
Value
6.5
Social
7.9
Safety
Excellent
4
Great
10
Good
15
Average
7
Terrible
8

Evo at Cira Centre South reviews and highlights

  • Lots of Drexel Students
  • Floors have an "industrial look"
  • All rooms have their own bathroom
  • Awesome amenities, furnished units, and utilities are included
  • Some of the undergrads can be rowdy and noise travels easily from room to room
  • The view and the location are excellent
  • Bedrooms are on the smaller side, but have efficient layouts
  • Management is excellent, but the overall quality of units could be better
  • Lots of study rooms and tons of great amenities including an amazing gym and pool
  • Very responsive management
Filter reviews for
8
Great
Overall score
Location
Amenities
Management
Value
Social
Safety

Great location and value for money

Pros
- Great location, conveniently located between school and CC
- Apartment appliances are new and work well
- Decent gym and pool (during the summer)
- Fair price
Cons
- Not a lot of Wharton MBAs around (not necessarily a con)
- Small apartment and kitchen area (it's hard to fit four on the kitchen table, plates barely fit in the cabinet)

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  • Roommates
  • 2 beds / 2 baths
6
Good
Overall score
Location
Amenities
Management
Value
Social
Safety

Expensive, but convenient

definitely expensive and when I leave it will more expensive. But if that is what you want when you attend Drexel/Penn it is worth it.

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  • Roommates
  • 4 beds
8
Great
Overall score
Location
Amenities
Management
Value
Social
Safety

Evo - very convenient for Penn students

The location of Evo is incredibly convenient - 15min walk from PennMed, 5min walk from 30st. Station where you can access the Amtrak trains, Megabus, the Septa subway and trains, as well as the Lucy bus that is free for Penn students/employees. The amenities are also great - free utilities, color printing, gym, concierge for packages, etc. Great place for convenient living.

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  • Roommates
  • 2 beds / 2 baths
6
Good
Overall score
Location
Amenities
Management
Value
Social
Safety

Fully furnished, convenient location, but not so great neighbors

It's tremendously helpful to NOT have to worry about moving your belongings into this apartment just before pre-term... because this place is fully furnished! Also makes move-out quite easy. The location is perfect-- a block from 30th Street Station, the second-closest to Huntsman Hall (after Domus), extremely close to 2401 (although the walk across the river can get chilly during the winter) and to Pub. The management was not great when the building first opened, but they've gotten a lot better. (Still not great though. Once had to explain debits and credits to their management while hashing out an issue with my billing.) But really, the one issue that's hard to get past in this building is that the neighbors are mostly snotty, intolerable Drexel undergrads who treat the building like a frat house on weekends.

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  • 3 beds / 3 baths
1
Terrible
Overall score
Location
Amenities
Management
Value
Social
Safety

Literally the worst place I have ever lived

The only good thing about business school ending is that I get to move out of this miserable building. Incompetent is a generous compliment given the experiences I have had with the staff.

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  • Roommates
  • 4 beds
5
Average
Overall score
Location
Amenities
Management
Value
Social
Safety

Subpar apartment experience

Evo has never lived up to the promise that the management and leasing staff sold me on. The building is overrun by wild undergrads, the location is semi-isolated, and the apartments are cheaply constructed.

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  • Couple
  • 2 beds / 2 baths
1
Terrible
Overall score
Location
Amenities
Management
Value
Social

Could have been great

The apartments have cement walls and ceilings with writing from construction, and randomly placed huge cement pillars reducing the amount of available space in the already tiny apartments and even blocking the view. Overall, the apartment looks unfinished and worse than a dorm room. Additionally, the bedrooms do not have any lighting.

The company advertised something completely different thereby misleading everyone. This place is a terrible value for your money.



As for the amenities, they are NOT all ready even though I moved in almost a year ago. The management makes matters worse by constantly lying to the residents and being rude. Their general manager quit around the end of February, but they never informed the residents and I only found out when my emails and calls to him kept going unanswered for weeks. Moreover, the new management refused to keep the promises made by their own general manager simply saying "We're sorry we can't help you with any promises made by the previous manager" even when I had emails from him detailing those exact things. So they have management issues and screw the residents over in exchange...

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  • Roommates
  • 3 beds / 3 baths
8
Great
Overall score
Location
Amenities
Management
Value
Social

Great Place!

I know that there have been a lot of mixed reviews about Evo but I can't say I have really had any bad experiences here. Everything in my apartment works just fine and the only issue I had was with my washer but it got fixed pretty quickly. There is a lot of construction in the area but obviously the building is still a work in process so its expected. The location is great because its exactly a halfway point between Center City and the Drexel campus. The gym is pretty nice and the view from it is amazing. It is a little overpriced if you live buy yourself or with another person but the more people you find to live with you, the cheaper it will be. What I love the most is the fact that you have large windows in every room and you get a lot of natural light. Some might argue that the apartments are ugly on the inside because they are concrete but its just a modern building. Overall, great place to live if you are a college student.

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  • 2 beds / 2 baths
3
Terrible
Overall score
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Amenities
Management
Value
Social

Evo Review

This building was incredibly mis-marketed. I made the fatal mistake of signing the lease before viewing an apartment. The virtual tour made the apartments seem much larger and even displayed hall closets and pantries when, in fact, the apartments did not have them. I was very clear on my needs and deal breakers for an apartment, as well as pricing. The management blatantly lied to induce me to sign the lease. The building was inevitably not finished for move-in. We are still waiting on some promised amenities, despite a $500 amenity fee and had to be woken up at 7am every morning, including weekends to the construction noise until late January. We still do not have a security system. The management is unresponsive and make rash decisions and are awful with communication. In addition, the apartments are ridiculously small for the price and dorm-like. They are cheaply furnished and management has no issue giving you 20 minutes notice that they are going to randomly inspect your apartment. They also are raising my rent 20% for next year, which is another reason I am moving. The management does not take criticism very well, and sometimes resort to harassment instead of politely talking to you about the problem. They also have interns as the majority of their staff. These interns are often left completely unsupervised and generally do not know what is going on. There are many better value options than evo.

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  • 1 bed / 1 bath
7
Good
Overall score
Location
Amenities
Management
Value
Social

It's a great First-Year Place.... Sort of

So Evo is okay. It is close the Law School and close to center city, but it isn't actually close to anything. There is nothing around the building except for a small deli. Yeah the train station is close, but how often does one go to the train station? While the building has AMAZING amenities, and the rooms are furnished, there are just random problems that come up that really irk me. For example, there is an amazing business center, 8 of the 10 times I've gone there, the printer didn't work. There is a concierge that receives packages for you, and they have now TWICE lost my packages, causing me to stop by multiple times, and call to see if they have even really tried looking for the missing packages. The Staff is super friendly, but seem to always be swamped and therefore sometimes unable to help you adequately. I also think they are more interested in signing new tenants than actually helping current residents.

There is a rooftop pool, but it didn't open until it was freezing out (I moved in when the building was under construction-- what a fiasco.....) There are study rooms, but most of the furniture in the study rooms are not conducive to studying, meaning only 3 people can actually study in there. And studying can only happen when the study rooms aren't trashed. There isn't much storage space in the kitchen, big sized plates wouldn't fit in the cabinets.... There are washer and dryers in the units, but the dryers are terrible. You'll set it for an hour, and it'll go off 10 minutes later. The fact that everyone has their own bathroom is great. The only downside is the water pressure sucks, and the water level in the toilets is very low (its weird....)

There gym is nice. No complaints there. I can hear things. Noise travels through the building really well. I can hear my neighbor snore. I can hear the upstairs apartment sometimes. Smells also travel, which is normal for any apartment building. I can smell certain smells every so often. But like I said, I guess this is common for all apartment buildings. What is also frustrating is the number of emails I get from the building. I get too many. But overall, my complaints are minuscule compared to other problems apartment buildings face-- therefore I wouldn't discourage living here. I just wouldn't encourage it either.

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  • Roommates
  • 4 beds

The Neighborhood

Signature Spots

dining 39 Recs

La Dominique
Poi Dog Snack Shop
Bridgewater’s Pub
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grocery 2 Recs

Trader Joe’s
Whole Foods Market
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convenience 3 Recs

CVS Pharmacy
Old Nelson Food Company
Rite Aid
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fitness 29 Recs

Balance Studios
Crossfit Rittenhouse
Class of 1923 Ice Rink
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parks 12 Recs

Cira Green
Penn Park
Schuylkill Banks
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coffee 19 Recs

OCF Coffee House
Le Petit Cafe
Saxbys Coffee
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About University City

Sitting west of the Schuylkill River, University City is the scholastic center of West Philadelphia. University City combines the diversity of a college town with the energy of a large metropolitan area. Public parks, farmers markets, restaurants, and theaters, this neighborhood has it all.
Fresh Grocer
College Feel
Very Walkable
Heart of UPenn
Lots of Students
Cheaper than Center City
Solid Restaurants and Bars
Median rents in University City
Studio
$
1,300
1 Bedroom
$
2,200
2 Bedroom
$
2,950

Getting around University City


Parking at Evo at Cira Centre South

Parking Garage

Parking Near Evo at Cira Centre South

Parking rates are for informational purposes only and may vary — for most up to date pricing, please reach out to the garage directly.

University City Reviews

158 reviews
Close enough to campus to walk, but far enough away that you don't feel surrounded by just students. Clark Park is lovely, there's something for everybody - farmers market on Saturdays, regular flea markets, off-leash area for dogs, playground, etc. Several coffee shops within 2 blocks and some good places to eat within 5 blocks. Grocery shopping isn't super convenient if you buy a lot at once, but doable if you're just carrying one or two bags. Street parking isn't too bad but gets competitive on the weekends.
I chose the neighborhood for proximity to the school. If I could choose otherwise, I would be over by Rittenhouse or further West around the Clark Park area. It feels a bit commercial in U City (not so charming or friendly). BUT everything you need is here and it is very convenient. The only real downside is an aesthetic one.
Gentrifying area of West Philly, given Penn's presence and expansion into the neighborhood. Easily walkable. Within several blocks of Clark Park, where there are lots of community events and family-friendly activities in addition to walking paths and dog park. Lots of cute shops and restaurants along Baltimore Ave plus great hole-in-the-wall spots if you want to explore a bit more.
I enjoy living in University City. It is perfect if you want to live in a low key area very close to school. Most people in the area are affiliated with Penn, so the community is generally pretty young and active. You are in walking distance from everything you might need. You do not need a car to get around. Even if you plan on spending a good deal of time in Center City, you can get there easily by rail or by Uber. I wouldn't have chosen to live anywhere else during 1L.
I have developed a sincere appreciation for the lifestyle and restaurants in University City over the last few months. UC is excellent for student budgets: for about $12 per person you get an entire feast at The Greek Lady, a giant cold-banishing soup at the Ramen Bar, or a 15-vegetable salad at Axis Pizza. There's a full grocery store (Fresh Grocer), several nice coffeehouses, and did I mention the 3 block walk to class? In terms of safety it's about the same as Rittenhouse or Center City.
Pros:
- Close to campus (~20 min walk, ~8 min trolley ride)
- Generally safe because University City in general has been highly gentrified.
- Charming and diverse community
- CLARK PARK! (and the Farmers' Market!!!)

Cons:
- No nearby grocery stores (except Fresh Grocer which is gross)
- Can be sketchy after dark
It's hard to pinpoint exactly where University City is right now as a neighborhood, because it's changing so rapidly. It's gone from one of the most dangerous campuses in the country ~5 years ago to incredibly safe. With the new FMC Tower going up at 30th/Walnut, it's hard to say exactly what this area will be like next year... but it's only getting better. It's a nice way to avoid Rittenhouse prices while still being only a stone's throw away from Rittenhouse (and yet at the same time not sacrifice on proximity to campus).
I am right by Clark park which is on the border or UC and West Philly. It is much quieter and more residential. The food scene is incredible with lots of smaller, family-owned restaurants serving food from many different cultures. There have been no major crime issues as well.

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