Towne House Apartments

I have enjoyed living at Townhouse for the last 2 years. I live in a studio apartment by myself, and the space is perfect for me. The location is about 15 minutes from campus and right by the capital building, within walking distance to the downtown area. I like the convenience of being able to walk places, but also having easy parking so driving is not an issue either. Overall, it is not the most up to date housing option, but I find it to be very convenient.

Overall Towne House is a decent place to live for someone who is looking for a place close to downtown Harrisburg or is looking for better public transportation coverage. The units are large and most have great views of the city and the river, with closets that rival the size of some bedrooms! The people are generally very friendly, and the Towne House community is by far one of the most diverse I've ever lived in--you'll find people of all ethnicities, socioeconomic levels, ages living here. The management is always friendly and decently responsive to any need you may have with billing, maintenance, or lockouts, as Towne House has a dedicated full-time maintenance and management team.

Yet, there are some drawbacks to living at Towne House.

First, the apartment is rather old and not very energy efficient. The building uses old, centralized gas heating system that is not effective and makes the apartments either very hot or cold depending on your location in the building. Air conditioning is essentially a wall unit that is also inefficient at cooling. These issues make it so that either you're generally going to be uncomfortable during peak winter or summer without any interventions like additional heat or air conditioning, which of course increase electricity usage.

Second, Central Pennsylvania has a public transportation system (CAT) that is worse than the even the public transit available in many poorer rural areas in other states, which makes using public transportation in Harrisburg a very degrading experience. That said, Towne House is served by Route 12 which is the most robust bus line in the CAT system and can get you to the essentials like groceries, shopping, restaurants. Importantly for Widener students, Towne House is close to Route 39 which is the only bus line that gets you close to campus, which is something that few other apartments complexes outside of downtown can boast.