Franklin Woods

Just a terrible terrible place. I lived there for most of 2011, and truly regret it. The rent is high, the location is boring, the staff is at best useless, and most, but not all, people around there unfriendly. You can do much better in Chapel Hill, and certainly Durham or Raleigh if those are options.
The apartments are fairly big. I had a 1 bedroom, and had plenty of space. They are terribly maintained however. I had to bother the leasing office every week for over 3 months to get a window fixed. The appliances are old, light fixtures work sometimes. The buildings reek of mold, but nobody will do anything about it if you complain.
The leasing office will promise you free utilities if you negotiate with them, but even if you get it in writing, don’t count on it. I received water bills, which they explicitly told me they would cover, but then denied it. They paid my electricity, but then invoiced me after I moved out, and refused to send me the bills. This is the biggest problem really: THE MANAGEMENT ARE LIARS! After a few months I decided I wanted to move, found a subletter and came to an agreement about when I would move out. The leasing office, which is open maybe 10% of the hours they claim, approved the subletter, and we all signed a contract we were happy with. This all occurred 2 months prior to the agreed-​on move out date. So, on the move date I drop my keys off at the rental office and drive off. Two weeks later, I get near-​incomprehensible emails from the leasing manager demanding double rent from me, telling me she had never heard of the sublease agreement.
Here’s the situation:
Ronni — leasing manager — completely batshit insane, and incompetent. Never in the leasing office, will never sign anything
Eric — assistant — Sometimes in the leasing office, very agreeable, will say anything to get you to leave him alone
Their deal is that Eric agrees to everything, signs everything, reassures you. Then, when it comes time for them to hold up their end of the bargain, Eric disappears, Ronni claims she never knew anything, and that Eric has no authority. If you call the company (GSC corporation) they refuse to help you, directing you only to Ronni, who never answers phone calls or emails. GSC will go as far as to tell you that Ronni owns the entire property, and is the final authority on anything. So unless you want to employ a lawyer, stay the hell away from Franklin Woods.
Some other miscellaneous goodies about Franklin Woods:
1) My neighbor started a fire in our building at 3 a.m. Firefighters take an ax to the outside wall of my apartment and rip out my window. The whole apartment stinks of smoke. Ronni refuses to do any repairs or have the apartment cleaned until the fire investigation is complete, which took 2 months. When my wall was finally patched (there was a hole to outside the size of a softball), she refuses to paint over it.
2) The parking lot doubles as a pinball machine weekend nights. I don’t know if drunk driving is a local tradition, but if you park your car there, I hope you have good insurance.
3) The pool is filthy and never open.
4) The «gym» they advertise is at another GSC property on the other side of town.
5) They don’t believe in advance notice for entering your apartment.
DO NOT RENT THERE!

I’ve lived at Franklin Woods for a while now and while it’s in a good location and seems safe, I wouldn’t recommend living here, for many reasons.
First of all, the rent is too high for what you are getting. $ 710 is the going rate for a single WITHOUT utilities, and is NOT furnished! That is just too steep for Chapel Hill imo… I have friends in DC who pay less than that for their apartments! It does not include utilities (it used to include water, but then they started to charge us for that too). It does not include cable, or the internet. They are unwilling to work with you on rent, even if you are a student and have been here for a while.
The management is, to be blunt, AWFUL. Seriously, read other reviews of this place on other sites… this is common knowledge. They are often gone from the office and leave early. The management always promises to put in requests for maintenance upkeep or other issues, but never actually does it. I put in a request to talk to them about my rent, as they had increased it and I didn’t know if I could live here. Well guess what? They got back to me a WEEK AND A HALF before my lease was up for the year, saying they had to increase it. They had two months to tell me this, but instead they waited until the last minute. Then they told me that «there are a lot of people who are interested in our single apartments.» If that is true, then why has the apartment across from me been vacant for TWO months??? LIARS.
As for the utilities, they are crap. My neighbor and I have both had similar issues with our fridges… they have made high-​pitched noises off and on and then lower noises. My washer overflooded and had to be replaced. My drier had to be replaced because my last drier was constantly making noises. The new drier doesn’t make any noises, but I’m lucky if heat comes on (I usually have to put my clothes through three heat cycles) The utilities are old and constantly breaking down. The maintenance guy, Jose, is super nice but be prepared for him to be over a LOT, since there is something that is always going wrong (I have been cooking off of one stove for the last 6 months since the other three don’t work). There are way too many maintenance problems for one person to take care of (most of the utilities are from the 60s) The pool is tiny, and there is no gym.
Then there is the issue of noise. The floors are SO thin and there are cracks in the floors. You can hear every movement of the person who lives above you. This is the reality of an apartment complex. but be prepared for noise complaints to be made left and right… it seems that everyone in my complex has had a noise issue or someone has complained about them.
The apartment that I have is nice, facing the sun, with a lovely porch. The arrangement of the rooms are really weird though, and the bathroom is… awkward. There is a bus stop that has the main bus lines, but it doesn’t run late at night. And yes, it’s conveniently near Whole foods, harris teeter, the post-​office, 15 – 501, etc. But the area is also very bland, and yuppie-​fied, just fyi (there are students who live here though, but they don’t stay long).
In short, this apartment is not worth the price. Take my advice… look for other places in the area. There are MUCH better prices out there. The reason why I got this apt is because I was in a bad living situation my first semester of school and had to get out asap. Since moving is so hard and I live by myself, I have just resigned myself to living here. But don’t make a rash decision like me… scope out the area, and see what else is out there. You may decide that FW is the place for you, and that’s fine, since it is in a good location and seems to be safe. But it’s not the only place and my guess is if it’s this expensive now, it’s only going to get more so in the next few years.