The Ivanhoe

I have been living here in a one bedroom apartment for over a year and the Ivanhoe has been great. The location is amazing for commuting into the city. There are a few bus stops all within walking distance from the apartment building. The ²⁴⁄₇ security is a great bonus and the people at the front desk are always friendly and really get to know the tenants.

Updated 10.14.15: Since this post a couple of months ago, the property manager responded below to address my concerns.
While the Ivanhoe just doesn’t have Luxury standards, they are improving in maintenance response time, Super and Doormen professionalism.
Why an additional Star — just 1
— Victoria immediately responded to schedule an apt walk through at my convenience. During the walk through, she pointed out a few issues that i didn’t notice, attentive and kind.
— Victoria f/​u weekly to ensure repairs taken care of timely.
— Two of the five closet doors are being replaced; I’m content, though the apt design aesthetic will be mismatched (can’t have it all, may be in a luxury standard building)
— One of the two dysfunctional HVAC units were replaced. reference to above luxury comment
— the unprofessional behavior in the building lobby is non-​existent besides early AM sleeping– the doormen are not robots, I can dig
— The Super speaks to everyone and no longer yells at Ivanhoe staff in front of tenants
— The terrace was repaired and minimal bathroom updates
— Less police presence in the lobby
**PRIOR TO ABOVE UPDATE**
I’ve lived here for three years after moving from a luxury building, World Plaza on Prospect Ave. Why three years? tired of moving and needed to settle in.
Two stars because it not a luxury building but it isn’t horrible just meh…
People are constantly moving out and complaining which I can relate.
The doormen are pleasant; not polished customer service; most mornings the Super Greg is in lobby discussing tenants personal business and threatening to fire an employee. Tacky.
Location is amazing the building grounds are beautiful since the recent upgrades. Balconies are private but the paint is peeling and walls cracking; also in the bathroom.
The bathroom walls, kitchen floors and apartment closets including doors are in need of serious upgrades. They will deny your request as they did over the three years which is why I am moving. The rent increases by 2.5% average but nothing is repaired properly.
Air conditioning unit does not warm nor cool the apartment unless it is on for over 4 hours in which it turns off and on when it wants. I honestly keep my apt. door open in the winter for the apt to warm up faster. The units simply don’t work properly spiking electrical bills upwards of 400.
The Property Manager, Victoria, is pleasant but very much about saving Sanzari money oppose to making sure the correct repairs are being handled. She supports her staff offering a reason why they are not doing something oppose to a solution or repair.
My closet doors broke 5 times in various rooms; they put a metal hinge which devalues the apartment — Not luxury. UPDATE ⁸⁄₁₀ — Door broke AGAIN and fell on my head (this is the door with the metal hinge).
For the price, it would be helpful to have upgrades and real solutions that are not equivalent to a band aid on a severed leg.
Washing machines are 2.25 per wash but are constantly broken. They recently updated them to the older model that you are unable to wash sheets, blankets in and barely towels.

Living here hasn’t been as pleasant as expected. Like anywhere else, the building has its pros and lots of cons.
Pros:
1) Other tenants and most doormen are very friendly as well as the maintenance staff.
2) Location is great! Close to all major highways, malls & restaurants.
3) Best views in the neighborhood because of where the building is located.
4) Balconies are very private, don’t need to worry about seeing your neighbor. Great plus!
5) Very Very clean!!! Maintenance crews are around 7 days a week making sure every floor and common areas are kept clean and garbage is removed twice a day!
6) Laundry rooms are also very clean and there is one on each floor.
7) Pool & Outdoor common areas are one of the best in the area!
Cons:
1) It is very hard to contact the Property Manager. When finally contacted, seems as if there is always an excuse as to why something is happening and can’t be fixed.
2) Garage Maintenance is taking a bit long and is causing a great inconvenience to all tenants, especially those with multiples vehicles.
3) PSEG!!! The building itself and apartments are very very cold during the winter season! Expect to throw away an extra $ 500 a month for PSEG just to keep yourself comfortable. Not even warm! Comfortable!
4) Parking rules are a nightmare here! You would think the property manager would be accommodating with parking since the maintenance in the garage has been taking longer than expected but no! The property manager would rather play parking police and complain to you about where you are parking rather than rectifying a completely different problem that was brought to her attention weeks prior.
5) Elevator was broken for a few days and management advised it would take two days to complete the work that was needed. Eight days later the building finally had a working elevator. Unacceptable in my opinion especially in a 20 floor building carrying hundreds of tenants.
6) Management expects you to change your schedule to get something in your apartment done. I’m pretty sure the average person works 9 – 5 but sanzari enterprises seems to think differently. So unless you have a day off, don’t expect a work order to be taken care of because it’s your fault you have a 9 – 5 job.
7) The overnight doormen tend to sleep more than anything! Coming home at midnight after doing late night grocery shopping, one would expect help from the doorman. Not at the Ivanhoe. Your better off helping yourself to a cart to help yourself unload packages while they catch up on some rest. The best doormen in the building are Mike (daytime) & Willy (early afternoon-​10pm)
8) The leasing office hasn’t had an agent in MONTHS!
9) There is no rent drop off box in the building (almost all buildings have one) so one must mail in their rent a few days before the first of the month or make the trip to south Hackensack to sanzari enterprises office. (Very inconvenient) Paying almost $ 2000 a month in rent one would expect to be able to drop it off somewhere on building grounds not have to drive and physically hand it in. Paying a parking ticket seems easier!
10) The parking garage has a second entrance located in the back of the building which isn’t utilized for whatever reason. Sometimes this causes lots of congestion within the parking garage since everyone must enter and exit the same way especially now during the garage construction.
11) There is a suggestion box for tenants in the mailroom that seems to just collect dust because I see every single day it just piles up with more and more notes. Notes that are never looked at since the property manager or whoever is in charge of collecting them does not do so.
Overall, I am personally giving this building 1 star because of the pros listed above. They have a few more months to get their S*** together or hire a new property manager before I decide to renew or move to another building worth my money in the Hackensack area. They advertise their building as «luxury living» but so far it’s been a nightmare. Only luxury in this building are the granite countertops. Woo-​hoo.

Stay Away from Ivanhoe Building (Hackensack), you can get better options with less money & hassle!
The owners have unreasonable charges for anything and everything you need, I paid $ 500 for extending my lease for a month, month on month extension is $ 500 extra every month along with increased rent, also they have deducted $ 133 against carpet cleaning even though the carpet was spotless when we left and that’s what they wrote in move out inspection form but when we received security deposit back… it’s no where near our expectations. Just because we did all the hard work cleaning the carpet and didn’t hire professionals to do it. Apart from all the hassle we had to bear due to garage maintenance work, we ended up loosing extra money for their own laws in the country which are written in small fonts somewhere in your lease, no one will bother telling you at the right time when you need them!

I’ve been living here for 2 long happy years so far and I don’t plan on moving out any time soon. I’d sign a 5 year lease now if I could but first let me address some of the harmful things said about this wonderful building.
1) While I agree with some of the reviewers about Dan, he wasn’t the type of person you’d trust. The good thing is that Dan is gone and a new building manager named Greg was put in his place. Greg is unbelievable, I had a broken dishwasher that I had brought up to Dan for a month and still hadn’t heard anything. I brought it up to Greg once, and he replaced it the next day, not only that he asks me how it is every time I see him.
2) Security is great, ²⁴⁄₇ concierge which is a huge bonus even if it isn’t a necessity, it’s certainly nice to have it there. Any time a tenant or even a guest needs to have things brought up to their apartment, they go to the front and security will bring a cart to you, cart it back to the elevator lobby for you AND they’re generous! What more can you ask for? The security guard on duty helped me carried four of my 4×4 by 10 foot long lumber up the stairs because it turned out that it couldn’t fit in the elevator. What security guard will do that for any regular tenant??? Needless to say, this just made me even more ecstatic that I chose this building to live in 2 years ago!
3) I’m barely home and I don’t have an insect problem or roach problem. Sometimes people just post negative reviews on Unilocal to get something out of the company that owns the business.
Another thing that blew my mind was when I saw a security guard help a elderly lady up to her room because she couldn’t carry all of her groceries. Faith in humanity restored.
All these reviews are outdated, realize this and realize it now, Greg remembers your name, makes sure every problem is addressed as I have had the chance to see him work firsthand and will make sure your experience at the Ivanhoe is worth every dollar you spend on your rent. Security at the Ivanhoe will always have your back. This building is worth well it, I say thank you to management for the 2 years and for the many years to come!

I only wish there were more reviews to warn people away. Hopefully I can save someone from dealing with what I’m now going through.
I agree with Leoz L — Dan can be a real piece of work. He’s usually pretty nice to me, but has always had a tendency to act like he’s doing me a favor by fixing things that are included in my rent. I’ve just sent a certified letter to Sanzari stating that I won’t renew my lease at the end of April, due to a few things:
1 — Roach problem. I was traveling a lot when I first moved in, so it took me a couple of months to realize. To be fair, they brought in the exterminators very quickly, and more than once… but I never saw any results until yesterday.
2 — Unacceptably slow response time and attitude concerning my broken dishwasher. It was actually broken when I first moved in, but they fixed it the next day so I was fine with that… although perturbed that they failed to make sure they delivered me an apartment with working appliances. As of today, the dishwasher has been broken again for 2 weeks now, and I’m told they ordered one yesterday and it will be another week before it’s installed. Dan seems to think I’m lucky they agreed to buy one at all.
3 — Insect infestation. This is not the same as #1. Two days ago I went into the kitchen to find that there are bugs INSIDE the clock on my microwave. I’ll just pause to let that sink in. There are bugs inside the workings of my microwave. To be fair, again the exterminators came in very quickly — within an hour or two, and it was a snowy day. The exterminators themselves were grossed out and stated they have never seen anything like this before. They did come back and gas the place yesterday and now I’m sweeping up dead/​dying roaches every day when I get home. Bittersweet is an understatement. To top it all off, when I mentioned my unhappiness with the state of affairs to Dan, he told me, «I will try to be polite, but — you guys have way more to do with those things than we do.» Yes, folks, that was Dan’s version of «polite».
Do yourself a favor and keep a wide radius around this place. I know I can’t wait to get out.