In general, the units themselves are good. However:

The worst thing about the Drake is the management. They are so incompetant. They don't answer your emails, they won't answer your calls. When you go to the office, they are not helpful. Are the telephones working??

For some reason, the previous manager in charge is gone and a group of amateurs are managing the building. They have no idea what's going on.

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I wanted to move to another unit within the Drake and the management office took more that a month to give me the lease to sign. I constantly followed up, but still took a month.

When everything was done, the new lease was signed, on the move-in date I went to get the keys for my new apartment and realized that the new apartment is not ready and it took them two days to prepare the apartment.

As of today (almost 60 days after I returned the keys and I provided will all required information), I am still waiting to get my check. This is clearly violating PA landlord-tenant law.

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They are always in the middle of some sort of change. The rent system, the property management system, the maintenance request system. Whenever I go to the office, I see someone new.

Maintenance issues get weeks to get resolved. I need to constantly follow-up on everything. The chute is clogged and it took them weeks to fix it. Some ACs in the hallway (and gym) do not work. I have to ask multiple times to for maintenance to fix small issues in the unit.

I'm writing this review in the hopes Brookfield properties management will see this and make the necessary changes.
Apparently the Drake used to have a team of property managers who were in office. Makes sense, the building is old and there's nearly 30 floors of tenants. Unfortunately Brookfield's management instead decided to cut corners and hire only one property manager to deal with not just the drake, but two other large properties (one Franklin town and the lofts at 1835 arch) as well. Understandably, she's incredibly overworked and can't manage all of the severe maintenance issues in these buildings on her own. She's trying to do the job of what used to (and should be) the jobs of multiple teams. Even worse, Brookfield is mid changing online portals so there's currently no way for her to even track and coordinate help for all of the maintenance problems except through email or text.
Jasmine, the maintenance team, the leasing agents and the front desk are absolutely trying their best to help tenants. Not their fault, this is on Brookfield. HIRE MORE PROPERTY MANAGERS/STAFF. Pay them a living wage with good benefits and stop cutting corners. Your employees and the tenants deserve better.

As far as specific concerns go-I have not had AC in 3 weeks. The water keeps getting shut off during the day. The elevators keep going down, and multiple people at different times including myself have gotten stuck in them to the point where the fire department was called to get us out.

Unfortunately I think someone would have to get hurt badly for the management company to actually care about upkeep of this building...

I have lived at The Drake for about 4yrs, Every place has its ups and downs. Many residents have complained to managements about the MICE issue, NOTHING is being done about it. The elevators are down at least 2x a week. DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!! NOT WORTH THE HEADACE.

It was solid. We are moving because it's a little cramped but perfect for first years. Close to PATCO

Great for Single Grad Students on a Budget

Great location.

The building is very run down; service requests for broken appliances take weeks to be resolved; front desk staff is frequently unfriendly; fire alarms go off multiple times a week; the building does not provide adequate notice before entering the unit; on the upside, the location is great and rent is relatively cheap.

The apartment is in a great location, and I have two roommates so having our own bathrooms for reasonable rent is great. The building is quite old, so we have occasional maintenance issues which can take a while to get resolved.

It's a prime location with generally affordable rent, however, the new management has made maintenance issues harder to deal with.

Highly recommend!