Mercedes House

It took the better part of the year for them to fix a very noisy air unit. There is very frequent noise from buses beeping outside pouring through the window. There is a hum. Dog’s make a mess of the sidewalk outside. The neighboring Verizon building does not maintain their sidewalk. People feed pigeons on the sidewalk, leaving a constant mess. Way too expensive for the time 1bdrm. Some really trashy residents.

Best building in Manhattan! Great facilities and one of the nicest staff members I’ve ever had — I lived there for 3 years and I highly recommend it, Marc the super and the rest of the team made it easy and flawless!

Follow-​up: We passed. Deposit refunded. Questionable leasing behavior + consistent terrible reviews did it.

There isn’t any communal space for residents. Don’t waste your money here when their are other luxury apartment buildings that include amenities and are in the same price range.
The only positives about the building are that its new, some of the views, and each unit has a washer/​dryer, but all things are becoming common in the area.
Everything is cheaply made– the floors are popping up, the windows make scary sounds and the walls are paper thin.
The only security are men at a desk that let anyone pass by with «facial recognition».
The pictures used on their site and other real estate sites like street easy, are incorrect for the apartments they list. Just another example of how everything is falsely advertised,
The club that you must pay for is great for the gym, but it’s rare to get a chair at the crowded outdoor pool as the gym is available to the public. The indoor pool has kids programs on the weekends so it’s difficult to schedule a good swim. Also, I have seen kids without proper swim diapers on and the hot tub had been out of commission for sanitary reasons for a while.
To note, you pay per member. I am in a studio apartment and when my mom visits me, there is no where to sit inside or outside. Residents that have kids in the building can include them in their membership, which is not a fair policy.
The parking garage is over $ 500 per car with a waiting list and its $ 30 a month to store a bike. I double locked my bike outside one day in front of the security desk and it was stolen.

In addition to what everyone said about management being terrible. The walls are SUPER SUPER THIN, to the extend I would awkwardly hear my neighbors having sex, or having a regular conversation, to me that is the worst thing about this place-​absolutly no privacy from cheap thin walls. This whole place is a façade from front office to cheaply made apartments. I get it the place is appealing due to it being a new building and the nice units, but I would not recommend it at all. there are so many nice apt building in the city, no one should have to live here. Plus the the water being blackish brown from sewage is totally true, absolutly disgusting.

Absolutely Awesome!
This building is amazing! Great New Architecture inside and out. Ultra modern lobby and facilities. My apartment has stainless steel appliances, glass cabinets, hard wood floors, floor to ceiling glass windows. Even my own washer &dryer. Super location close to fabulous restaurants! The facilities are world class! Love the gym and outdoor pool!
The management office and concierge door men could not be any nicer!
Really do not understand the bad reviews.

Valentino and Jet hair salon is the hot spot for Hair, massage and facials. We would like to welcome all the guests at the mercedes house to enjoy us .we are open 7 days a week located at: 822 tenth avenue (btw ⁵⁵⁄₅₄ street). call us for appointment at 212 2 470 206 or 212 2 470 627 10% off for first time guest.

When we were looking for a new place to live, my boyfriend and I toured several «luxury» apartments in the midtown area, and we fell in love with the Mercedes House. The apartments were beautiful and had all the amenities that you could want: washer/​dryer in unit, overhead track lighting, pet friendly, gym included, central heating and air. The list goes on. So when we left our broker after seeing the apartment, I was shocked to find so many negative reviews on Unilocal.To be honest, it was unsettling for me, and we considered looking elsewhere, but as my boyfriend pointed out — people mostly take the time to review something when they are displeased and not when everything is going well.
We decided to go for it, and I couldn’t be happier that we did. Our experience here has been absolutely wonderful. The staff could not be more pleasant. When our heat wouldn’t turn on, the front desk sent someone immediately to come and restart it. The young man who came to help was polite and friendly. He even offered to take off his shoes at the door so he wouldn’t dirty the floors. The new market opening downstairs is very convenient, and the apartments are absolutely gorgeous. As people have mentioned before, the walls are a little thin, but the sound is very muffled — even when someone is singing at the top of their lungs (as my neighbor likes to do.)
My boyfriend and I are very happy to call the Mercedes House home, and I just wanted to take the time to let potential renters who look at Unilocal reviews know that while some people dislike the building, others love living here.

I had an appt to view some units on Monday, November 3^rd with Ria. Big mistake. If the service you receive in this building is anything like the service you receive when trying to lease a unit, I’d recommend looking elsewhere. Prepare to be treated like you are chewed up gum on the bottom of her shoe because you are somehow interrupting better things that she could be doing. I guess since I had an appt, I was expecting to learn more about the building amenities, see a few floor plans, learn about the features of each apt! Etc… And perhaps most of all not feel like a dog running behind her to keep up as she moved through the building. I mistakenly also thought I would receive a reply to a small question that came to mind after my tour. I guess I should have realized it would go downhill when she didn’t even introduce herself and at the of the tour completely dismissed me without asking if I had any questions or explaining the application process.

I’m conflicted with this building — the building management (Two Trees) appears to be the problem, in my opinion. The on-​site staff such as front desk/​doormen and the maintenance folks are top notch; they are the ones who make you feel like you live in a luxury building. I have terrific neighbors, great on-​site amenities, and I enjoy the neighborhood.
The management company however, Two Trees, could learn from these folks. The girl at the front desk in their office, is always eating and will tell you to hold while she finishes chomping her food before acknowledging you. The manager, Herminio could not be more callus, arrogant, and rude and could use some management 101 training & well as email writing 101 training.
If you are going to live here, my recommendation is to avoid Two Trees (which is easy to do unless you have questions with building policies or lease-​related questions) and you’ll be fine. You should be able to address everything you need through the front desk staff.
Because of Herminio specifically, I will never live in another Two Trees building again. For the record, this is the first time in all my years of living in NYC that I’ve ever had a challenge with a management company — I pay my rent on time, always, and consider myself to be a low-​maintenence, quiet, respectful tenant.
My particular unit does have laminate floors as opposed to the prior reviewer who has hardwood — I can attest that several apartments do have laminate while others have hardwood (I witnessed it while touring several units before choosing mine, and the on-​site leasing office person mentioned it as well).
Lastly, parking is $ 550/​month on-​site (self-​park), but there is a full service valet lot 3 blocks north that only charges $ 275/​mo — so if you’re looking to save some money, contact Icon Parking for the best rates in the neighborhood; they have terrific customer service (perhaps they can train up the Two Trees office @ The Mercedes House).

Really, where to begin with this building. As a real estate broker and property manager in the city, this building is honestly awful. My partner and I moved into this «luxury» building on January 25, 2014 and from the start we have had nothing but problems. Unlike one review stating the floors are laminate, actually they are real hardwood. I mean I should know, the floors in my kitchen and all down my hallway have been replaced since we have lived in the unit.
It started shortly after we moved in. Our hallway floors of our two bedroom apartment bounced up and down when you would walk over them. The management company replaced them with no problems. The refrigerator motor went out and it was replaced. Our hallway/​living room butt up against the elevator shafts where the counter balance weight proceeded to come loose and punch 30, yes I said 30 holes down a ten foot section of wall in our apartment. This took the building two days to rebuild the wall, put new baseboards down and repaint the wall. Granted after this was fixed they sent a house keeping crew in to clean out apartment as it was filthy from all the construction dust. Thank you Mercedes House, I mean that’s the least you could do for someone in this situation, right?
Now lets get to the bulk of my issues… first off I want to say Mark who is now the super for the entire building is absolutely great. Personally I don’t understand how he can deal with all these issues in a brand new building that people are writing about. Around April of this year we unfortunately got a new building general manager by the name of Herminio and ever since then the building has been going down hill. In my opinion as a property manager he is only concerned about advancing himself personally and has little if any regard for the residents who currently call this building home. He fired or forced out all of the building doormen which were spectacular when he took over. Now our doormen are good, but they are not as friendly as the old staff. The doormen’s chairs were taken away by management because he want’s them to stand. When you live in a building and take care of your door people, they let you in on the «drama» they deal with in the building on a daily basis. Once a week like clockwork all the building residents receive e-​mails from Hermino about something else residents are doing wrong. If this is such an issue, evict residents causing problems that violate the terms of their lease, it’s really pretty simple.
A little back history on Mercedes House that the management office does not want the typical person to know. First off it was built in two phases West 53^rd street and West 54^th Street. The 53^rd street entrance has larger apartments with less units per floor and a more secluded lobby. The 54^th street side has more apartments per floor which makes the apartments smaller. Also the 54^th street lobby is very transient as people who choose not to pay for the gym go up through the 54^th street elevator banks, jump the gym turnstiles and don’t have to pay to use the gym. People do it all day long and they can’t do nothing to stop it, so have at it. Also, when phase two was completed the management office along with Pavlov Media were supposed to move the satellite dish to get a better signal for DirecTV, but they chose not too. Management office says they forgot, but now it’s to expensive to move. I’m sorry, we pay almost $ 5,000/month for rent, how is it to expensive to move?

Upon moving in residents have the choice for their tv/​internet services between the following companies: Verizon, TWC, RCN and DirecTV in conjunction with Pavlov Media. My partner and I chose DirecTV as they have been our provider for more than 10 years with NO issues EVER. During storms or not, we have never had issues with them we are having now. However, here in lies the problem as a resident of Mercedes House you must go through this Chicago based company called Pavlov Media. Now I’m not sure who at Two Trees Management (Mercedes House management company) is in bed with someone at Pavlov because there is no DirecTV without paying them. So naturally we went with them for our internet as well. Then as the snow came and went, then the rainy season came, our tv and internet would go out every time it was anything but sunny outside. After continuously arguing with Pavlov Media over the lack of service we were experiencing, three separate signal tests and moving my apartments cable wires to a different cable closet, this problem still continues.
2 month and 20 emails later and this problem is not fixed. When I told him I was going to write a review on social media, he wrote me back and asked me not to threaten him with a bad review. I don’t threaten, I do. If a building offers a service, they are legally responsible to ensure it works and works correctly. As I’m out of space, I say, don’t move in here… you will regret it!

AWFUL leasing office front desk.
Additionally, I was told by the leasing girl that the parking is going to be more than $ 500 per spot per month and self-​serviced??? She explained that they are tight at the spots and there is a wait list too. So save yourself some time if you want a underground parking spot in the building.

It’s kind of difficult to write a review of an apartment building. Where do you begin? What are your rating it by?
So as we all know there are luxury buildings that are very similar being build up and down 10^th and 11^th avenue from the high 30s to the low 60s on the west side of manhattan. They all have a doorman, most have a rooftop deck, entertaining amenity space, some have more than one, usually they all have a gym for residents, and some have a few other amenities.
Basically if you move into these buildings you are moving into them for the amenities. The actual apartments aren’t built with the same quality as pre-​war buildings. The materials are usually mass made for buildings of this kind.
So… Mercedes House
The apartments:
— The kitchens aren’t bad. The stoves are normal, nice microwaves, nice fridge. The problem here is that on the 53^rd street side the kitchen counters are made of STAINLESS STEEL. This is HORRIBLE for cooking, eating, and most of all cleaning. They show absolutely every single smudge. They look constantly dirty unless you clean them with a 100% rag with 0 residue on it, and they show tons of scratches. Horrible choice that I’m guessing had to do with cost.
–The washer and driers are nice and normal.
–Bathrooms are fine.
— Annoying enough… the floors in this LUXURY building are VERY VERY cheap laminate and not real wood. The floors warp easily because of this.
The Staff:
— Front desk people are really nice and helpful.
–Maintenance guys are great.
— The new super better. They used to have this awful guy who would literally text you rude text messages if he had any kind of issue. Im guessing he was fired for this kind of behavior.
The Amenities:
This is where the issue comes in. You have an entertaining space. There’s seating, a kitchen, tv, a gym, an indoor pool, and an outdoor pool.
That sounds nice right? You live in a building with all of that! Well unfortunately your astronomical rent doesn’t afford you access to ANY of these amenities. Your LUXURY building doesn’t own any of this space. It ALL belongs to the gym and they charge you to use 100% of your amenities.
Yes, that’s right. You pay insane amounts of rent just so you can… have a door man and laminate floors.
So you’re saying ok so I pay basically to join a gym… but at least i can host a small gathering of my friend in the nice amenity space. Nope. You can’t. You cannot bring ANYBODY into the amenity space that isn’t a member of the gym. That means they have to join or pay a ridiculous daily fee of 35 $.
So if you choose to living Mercedes House you’re basically getting a very basic new construction apartment with 0 amenities but you’ve got a doorman.
There are many other buildings along 10^th avenue and 11^th. They may not have a pool but you’re actually treated like you live in a luxury building. You have actual amenities that you can actually share socially with your friends.

I really hated living at this apartment building. As soon as we moved in it started with empty promises. It continued with unprofessional management, minimum building services, poorly designed apartments, and a lack of maintenance and upkeep. The management company that runs the build, Two Trees, is so cheap they slip your rent and utility bill under the door two days before it’s due. This apartment building is not luxurious at all compared to other luxury apartments. It’s not just about shiny countertops and new appliances. It’s about the staff and services that go with a luxury building. They fall well below the standard. The building looks nice on a visit then after you move in you start to notice all the subtle things. Cheaply painted and decorated hallways, dirty carpet, broken trash chute with trash piled up contantly, busted plasma tvs which never have any useful info, filthy large glass windows, only one door man that are told they can’t leave the desk for anything, no nighttime/​emergency maintenance, broken down elevators (witnessed two guys being trapped inside for around an hour at 2am in morning), sometimes no hot water, and ‘paper’ thin walls where I could hear the neighbor’s screaming baby everyday. They never mention when you sign the lease that there is a move out fee of $ 250.00. Please don’t let them fool you with the ‘we are still under a construction phase’ or ‘we are a new building so please bear with us’. You pay for luxury and there should be no excuses. Period.

Mercedes House is truly the worst apartment I’ve ever lived in. Don’t be fooled by its great looks. Although the building, apartments and gym are all gorgeous, looks are deceiving and you should avoid this nightmare at all costs.
Overall, the walls are paper thin, many things break and Mercedes House /​Two Trees management is obnoxious, dishonest and incompetent. The property manager, Daniel Fellus is the single most incompetent and vindictive person I’ve ever dealt with. On top of that, the location is 12 – 15 minutes from the nearest subway station.
Our spectacular $ 6,000 per month one bedroom /​one bath apartment — with terrace had a major design flaw: it was built next to the elevator switch room with sub par soundproofing. The constant noise kept us awake for the first three weeks living there. After writing to corporate (because Daniel completely dismissed our complaints without even coming to the apartment to check out the problem), construction was «authorized.» Uh, but these geniuses made us stay in the apartment throughout the loud, messy, dusty construction. And all they did was tear out the walls and install another layer of drywall which only made the noise WORSE!
After a four month, sleep-​deprived nightmare, we moved without getting reasonable compensation from Mercedes House. We left because we wanted the nightmare to end and we wanted to be as far away from Daniel Fellus as possible. We found an amazing building two blocks away (Longacre House) with spectacular service.
Bottom line: Mercedes House is a beautiful building with paper thin walls, in a poor location and it has the worst customer service and management in New York. Avoid at all costs!

I’ve lived here for 5 months and love it. Location is awesome (citibike helps), gym and spa downstairs is great, juice bar is fantastic, washer/​dryer, and all the appliances are new and really nice. Doormen have only ever been pleasant to me. Yes, the walls are thin. But if it wasn’t for my crazy neighbor this wouldn’t matter to me either.
Not sure why there are so many terrible reviews. Love it here.

Completely horrible. Take your $ 5000 and rent somewhere else. I have had a leak in my bathroom ceiling (presumably from someone else’s bath water… gross) for four months now. Despite my consistent complaints, they have just now offered to bring in a plumber, and that’s only after I threatened to withhold rent. Now, they are still making excuses and pursuing me for non-​payment. This is what I would expect from a slumlord. Truly a dump. Also, everything breaks, general maintenance and cleanliness is below par, and walls are paper thin. I have lived in several similar ‘luxury’ properties, and while none of them truly deserve the title, I have never had any reason to complain. The only thing ‘luxury’ about Strata is the price. Don’t make the same mistake that I did!

I hate this place. It’s the worse place to live in the city. I had rats in my apartment for a month. How is that for a pet? Management is horrible. They’re so slow when there is an issue. No such thing as insulation here. You can hear every noise in this building. I recommend people to move out and not rent an apt here. I’m moving out of this place ASAP!

Too expensive for what it is. While the ceilings are concrete so you cannot hear the people above you, the walls are very thin. It is like you are sitting in your next door neighbor’s living room!
And, keep in mind, not everyone pays the same rent in this building. So, if you are uncomfortable living in a building where a lucky few get lower rents subsidized by the city (read you the tax payer), then this place may not be for you.

Love the building, and love Daniel the general manager. Does it have its faults, yes – but what building doesn’t? The point is that when you bring it up to Daniel, he takes care of it. We moved here while the building was under construction too, and we knew that it would take some time to get the place completed… it did, and now, its great. The pool area is beautiful, the gym is gorgeous, and the spa services lovely.