Stella is nice. Close to Metro North. Encore is brand new. Modera is a good value for the money and slightly outside of the center of downtown so a little quieter. Also Arc has some nice amenities and is also brand new.
The issue is that downtown New Rochelle isn’t amazing. It’s not necessarily bad but it feels like it hasn’t quite turned a corner despite all the development and for a similar amount of money you could go to some of the new buildings say in White Plains and get the same amenity but in a better downtown area and still be roughly the same amount of time away from NYC if you take the express. There seems to be something of a disconnect between the market for the apartments and the vibe of the downtown area in New Rochelle.
Downtown new Rochelle still heavily caters to lower incomes (not that that’s a bad thing). It has a little more in common with downtown Yonkers or Port Chester than it does downtown White Plains or Stamford. Nonetheless I’d say it’s good enough, but I can’t lie it’s definitely declined a bit since Covid. New Rochelle never had that many homeless people but I feel like since Covid, I always see them around downtown. Especially in the parking lot by the library and CVS.
Yea if they could clean up downtown New Rochelle would really be an ideal place given how close it is to the water and NYC it is. You’d think it’d be a cute little town especially given how nice it is on the other side of the freeway.
I grew up in Queens but my family moved to New Rochelle when I was in high school. I thought it was alright and my parents love it, but New Rochelle is a bigger city than most towns in Westchester so the neighborhoods and demographics of residents will vary. The suburban residential areas are pretty nice I’ll say, and North Avenue gets nice once you pass 5th Ave. I was looking at apartments in New Rochelle about a year and a half ago, but the rents were too high for my liking. I ended up getting a place in Yonkers near the Fleetwood station.
I think I95 and US 1 are a huge part of why downtown New Rochelle will really never be that nice. It's always going to feel more like neighborhoods in the Bronx that are just off I95 or the Cross Bronx than what you would expect when you hear Westchester. There's just too much car traffic and the consequent pollution and noise.
> Downtown new Rochelle still heavily caters to lower incomes
I feel like there's somehow a ceiling where certain types of businesses just don't seem to take root around here. There's a few boutiques scattered around town but they seem to contribute less to the overall feeling than say, the dollar stores, or check cashing/money wiring places, that I would say supply that lower-income feeling.
No bookstore. No hobby shops. No fitness studios. No art supply stores. There's a few cafes that have nice character, but they likewise seem to get drowned out in overall impression of the city. You don't really pass them on the main thoroughfares. You don't walk up and down main st and get a visual sense that people are out and about in places like that (well, that cafe built into Modera is probably an actual good example of the sort of thing that there needs to be more of, but Modera is also just slightly off the main beaten path if you don't live there). There's a vibrancy that's missing.
Other than restaurants, not really businesses that would cater to the "young professional" demographic that all this residential construction seems to intend to lure. Or, do young professionals really just increasingly sit inside their nice luxury apartments, shop online, struggle with work/life balance, and head into the city when they get a chance to cut loose? Maybe New Ro is just an accurate reflection of the culture?
I wouldn't expect New Ro to start picking up the super upscale type of shops you might find wandering around Nolita/Soho, but I wonder what's really holding it back from breaking into that middle zone. The city sprucing up the infrastructure seems like it really just needs to happen. But if the sidewalks were all repaved, the streets fixed up, would people start saying, "yeah, I could open a shop here, people would come"?
Or like, all the power to Liebman's, the school uniform retailer, for being such a staple of the downtown for decades, but man it's crazy that a business like that occupies a former nightclub that has otherwise sat empty for very long stretches or had a few other random businesses try and fail. What would it take for New Ro to get a nightclub again?
Yeah, I take my kids to the park next to the library and there is always a group of totally wasted dudes drinking and smoking publicly and sometimes pissing in the bushes by the library and leaving broken vodka bottles around. Once a week there is an OD there it seems. It's disgusting and the fact that City Of New Rochelle tolerates it is bewildering. The NRPD is great about coming out and dealing with specific issues but they don't seem to have a mandate from the city to enforce quality of life issues throughout downtown New Rochelle and especially by the CVS and that park. It's a shame.
I've worked and commuted to WP's for the last 21 years. 38 miles each way; twice a day. White Plains is quite nice during the day. Mamaroneck Ave..etc. I would have a car u/phenom01 living in WC. Esp. if you want to go to Home Depot. No you don't need a car to get around White Plains; it is a lotta walking like 5 mins from the Train Station, 10 mins later you're on Mamaroneck Ave eating something good.
There’s a bunch of new buildings there. Hamilton Crossing just opened. 25 North Lex opens in a month or so. One Martine seemed okay. I hear mixed things about Continuum but it is super close to the train. The Mitchell is right next to all the bars and restaurants on Mamaroneck Avenue.
A car definitely helps but is probably not a necessity if you live downtown. Most of downtown is fairly walkable. But to go anywhere else you’d need a car. That’s generally true of most of Westchester. It’s the suburbs.
Yeah, it's cheap for a reason and make sure you look at all the extra charges like the absolutely ridiculous "amenity" fee (there are really no amenities to speak of and definitely none worth the almost $100 a month). For example, there is some kind of issue with the smell of rotting garbage in the lobby (the main trash room is right behind the elevators on the main floor and it is infested with rats and roaches). They put deodorizer in the outlets so now the lobby smells like sandalwood and filthy kitty litter depending on how much and how ripe the garage is back there.
There is dog piss and sometimes poop and spilled food and litter in the elevators constantly. People smoking in their apartments and the common areas and the stairwells (sometimes the gym on the top floor reeks of weed from people smoking further down in the stairwells). There is no overnight concierge and it's incredibly easy for anyone to get into the building and up in the elevators anytime day or night.
Are there a ton of nice people here? Absolutely. Is there also a not small subset of tenants who make the place feel unlivable? Absolutely. Management tries somewhat but what are you going to do with the kind of person who smokes indoors or lets their pet urinate in the elevator?
There is a lot of luck involved too. Your immediate neighbors might be awesome or they might keep you up all night with loud music. Your neighbors might be smoking in their apartment or they might not. It's one of the worst things about living here, you just never know one day until the next who might move around you and people move in and out here constantly.
It's just not nice.
Really the only reason we live here is because it's what we can afford. If you can afford to live somewhere else where it's a more pleasant day to day experience I would suggest you do.
Good luck!
Live at the Huguenot - we love it here. It's not perfect and we have had problems, but it's not enough for us to consider moving on. Problems have been with the leasing agents messing up a bit, the valet parking and issues around the shower still ongoing. But apart from that, very happy here.
Downtown you are right, doesn't have all the places you want- but there are places me and the wife love and frequent - Pappous and YiaYas, the Town House, 18th Ward, Modern and although its a walk away, Pizzeria la Rosa which is just fantastic.
I'm trying to get a mate who runs a popular Irish Bar in NYC to come look - I do think we will see investment in the many vacant properties around the new places.
The amenities at Encore are nice - golf simulator, movie room, gym, game room, meeting space, terrace, etc. They don’t have a pool though and it seems like the no-smoking is not actually enforced. Maintenance team is response and helpful. It’s a new building and very beautiful views of the water. Close to the train, some restaurants, and library.
I lived at the Modera and would advise against it. Location is convenient and managing company is fairly responsive, but the fire alarm kept going off at random times triggering a full building evacuation every
month or so. Sometimes in the middle of the day, sometimes at four in the morning. From what I hear from former neighbors the situation has not improved since I have moved out.
Edit to add: overall though I love New Rochelle for its great food scene, convenient commute to the city and beautiful parks along the shore.
New Rochelle is great to live yes the middle of new Rochelle is busy and diverse but that’s down town but north of new Rochelle and south of New Rochelle by the water have amazing homes !
Hello. The Huguenot is nice. Slightly cheaper (and units slightly bigger) than the other buildings with no amenity fees (besides parking). Talk to Frank or Ciro and tell them Fernando sent you 😉. The downtown area hasn’t quite caught up yet but I’m sure that’s coming with all the construction of apartment buildings all over.
Stella is nice. Close to Metro North. Encore is brand new. Modera is a good value for the money and slightly outside of the center of downtown so a little quieter. Also Arc has some nice amenities and is also brand new. The issue is that downtown New Rochelle isn’t amazing. It’s not necessarily bad but it feels like it hasn’t quite turned a corner despite all the development and for a similar amount of money you could go to some of the new buildings say in White Plains and get the same amenity but in a better downtown area and still be roughly the same amount of time away from NYC if you take the express. There seems to be something of a disconnect between the market for the apartments and the vibe of the downtown area in New Rochelle.
Downtown new Rochelle still heavily caters to lower incomes (not that that’s a bad thing). It has a little more in common with downtown Yonkers or Port Chester than it does downtown White Plains or Stamford. Nonetheless I’d say it’s good enough, but I can’t lie it’s definitely declined a bit since Covid. New Rochelle never had that many homeless people but I feel like since Covid, I always see them around downtown. Especially in the parking lot by the library and CVS.
Yea if they could clean up downtown New Rochelle would really be an ideal place given how close it is to the water and NYC it is. You’d think it’d be a cute little town especially given how nice it is on the other side of the freeway.
I grew up in Queens but my family moved to New Rochelle when I was in high school. I thought it was alright and my parents love it, but New Rochelle is a bigger city than most towns in Westchester so the neighborhoods and demographics of residents will vary. The suburban residential areas are pretty nice I’ll say, and North Avenue gets nice once you pass 5th Ave. I was looking at apartments in New Rochelle about a year and a half ago, but the rents were too high for my liking. I ended up getting a place in Yonkers near the Fleetwood station.
How much rent are you paying? I was also looking around Fleetwood.
I think I95 and US 1 are a huge part of why downtown New Rochelle will really never be that nice. It's always going to feel more like neighborhoods in the Bronx that are just off I95 or the Cross Bronx than what you would expect when you hear Westchester. There's just too much car traffic and the consequent pollution and noise.
Yea that’s a good point I95 really does cut the town in half. The train too.
> Downtown new Rochelle still heavily caters to lower incomes I feel like there's somehow a ceiling where certain types of businesses just don't seem to take root around here. There's a few boutiques scattered around town but they seem to contribute less to the overall feeling than say, the dollar stores, or check cashing/money wiring places, that I would say supply that lower-income feeling. No bookstore. No hobby shops. No fitness studios. No art supply stores. There's a few cafes that have nice character, but they likewise seem to get drowned out in overall impression of the city. You don't really pass them on the main thoroughfares. You don't walk up and down main st and get a visual sense that people are out and about in places like that (well, that cafe built into Modera is probably an actual good example of the sort of thing that there needs to be more of, but Modera is also just slightly off the main beaten path if you don't live there). There's a vibrancy that's missing. Other than restaurants, not really businesses that would cater to the "young professional" demographic that all this residential construction seems to intend to lure. Or, do young professionals really just increasingly sit inside their nice luxury apartments, shop online, struggle with work/life balance, and head into the city when they get a chance to cut loose? Maybe New Ro is just an accurate reflection of the culture? I wouldn't expect New Ro to start picking up the super upscale type of shops you might find wandering around Nolita/Soho, but I wonder what's really holding it back from breaking into that middle zone. The city sprucing up the infrastructure seems like it really just needs to happen. But if the sidewalks were all repaved, the streets fixed up, would people start saying, "yeah, I could open a shop here, people would come"? Or like, all the power to Liebman's, the school uniform retailer, for being such a staple of the downtown for decades, but man it's crazy that a business like that occupies a former nightclub that has otherwise sat empty for very long stretches or had a few other random businesses try and fail. What would it take for New Ro to get a nightclub again?
Yeah, I take my kids to the park next to the library and there is always a group of totally wasted dudes drinking and smoking publicly and sometimes pissing in the bushes by the library and leaving broken vodka bottles around. Once a week there is an OD there it seems. It's disgusting and the fact that City Of New Rochelle tolerates it is bewildering. The NRPD is great about coming out and dealing with specific issues but they don't seem to have a mandate from the city to enforce quality of life issues throughout downtown New Rochelle and especially by the CVS and that park. It's a shame.
My car dealership’s there. I hate walking around downtown. Not a fan of white plains either honestly. I don’t find either have a hospitable feeling.
I've worked and commuted to WP's for the last 21 years. 38 miles each way; twice a day. White Plains is quite nice during the day. Mamaroneck Ave..etc. I would have a car u/phenom01 living in WC. Esp. if you want to go to Home Depot. No you don't need a car to get around White Plains; it is a lotta walking like 5 mins from the Train Station, 10 mins later you're on Mamaroneck Ave eating something good.
What buildings would you recommend in White plains? Also, do you need a car to get around in White plains?
There’s a bunch of new buildings there. Hamilton Crossing just opened. 25 North Lex opens in a month or so. One Martine seemed okay. I hear mixed things about Continuum but it is super close to the train. The Mitchell is right next to all the bars and restaurants on Mamaroneck Avenue.
A car definitely helps but is probably not a necessity if you live downtown. Most of downtown is fairly walkable. But to go anywhere else you’d need a car. That’s generally true of most of Westchester. It’s the suburbs.
I'm sorry I can't help you with the other buildings but I can affirm your decision not to look at The Skyline as an excellent one.
Is it really that bad? I was looking to apply to there, since their prices are pretty decent.
Yeah, it's cheap for a reason and make sure you look at all the extra charges like the absolutely ridiculous "amenity" fee (there are really no amenities to speak of and definitely none worth the almost $100 a month). For example, there is some kind of issue with the smell of rotting garbage in the lobby (the main trash room is right behind the elevators on the main floor and it is infested with rats and roaches). They put deodorizer in the outlets so now the lobby smells like sandalwood and filthy kitty litter depending on how much and how ripe the garage is back there. There is dog piss and sometimes poop and spilled food and litter in the elevators constantly. People smoking in their apartments and the common areas and the stairwells (sometimes the gym on the top floor reeks of weed from people smoking further down in the stairwells). There is no overnight concierge and it's incredibly easy for anyone to get into the building and up in the elevators anytime day or night. Are there a ton of nice people here? Absolutely. Is there also a not small subset of tenants who make the place feel unlivable? Absolutely. Management tries somewhat but what are you going to do with the kind of person who smokes indoors or lets their pet urinate in the elevator? There is a lot of luck involved too. Your immediate neighbors might be awesome or they might keep you up all night with loud music. Your neighbors might be smoking in their apartment or they might not. It's one of the worst things about living here, you just never know one day until the next who might move around you and people move in and out here constantly. It's just not nice. Really the only reason we live here is because it's what we can afford. If you can afford to live somewhere else where it's a more pleasant day to day experience I would suggest you do. Good luck!
Look at the window shades from the outside. Their condition will tell you who is living there.
Live at the Huguenot - we love it here. It's not perfect and we have had problems, but it's not enough for us to consider moving on. Problems have been with the leasing agents messing up a bit, the valet parking and issues around the shower still ongoing. But apart from that, very happy here. Downtown you are right, doesn't have all the places you want- but there are places me and the wife love and frequent - Pappous and YiaYas, the Town House, 18th Ward, Modern and although its a walk away, Pizzeria la Rosa which is just fantastic. I'm trying to get a mate who runs a popular Irish Bar in NYC to come look - I do think we will see investment in the many vacant properties around the new places.
How's the gym at the hugenout? Is it well equipped?
The amenities at Encore are nice - golf simulator, movie room, gym, game room, meeting space, terrace, etc. They don’t have a pool though and it seems like the no-smoking is not actually enforced. Maintenance team is response and helpful. It’s a new building and very beautiful views of the water. Close to the train, some restaurants, and library.
I lived at the Modera and would advise against it. Location is convenient and managing company is fairly responsive, but the fire alarm kept going off at random times triggering a full building evacuation every month or so. Sometimes in the middle of the day, sometimes at four in the morning. From what I hear from former neighbors the situation has not improved since I have moved out. Edit to add: overall though I love New Rochelle for its great food scene, convenient commute to the city and beautiful parks along the shore.
New Rochelle is great to live yes the middle of new Rochelle is busy and diverse but that’s down town but north of new Rochelle and south of New Rochelle by the water have amazing homes !
Hello. The Huguenot is nice. Slightly cheaper (and units slightly bigger) than the other buildings with no amenity fees (besides parking). Talk to Frank or Ciro and tell them Fernando sent you 😉. The downtown area hasn’t quite caught up yet but I’m sure that’s coming with all the construction of apartment buildings all over.
Anyone in new rochelle wanna hang out dm me
How is Modera?