Icon Plaza

Living here at icon plaza is great! I have lived here for two years and I am renewing for my third year. They host many events for their residents where they give free food. The staff is super friendly and they care for their residents because they take the time to get to know them. I recommend living here!

Living here has been great, I have my own room for the first time and they give out free food all the time. Another plus is that the ladies in the front office are so nice and helpful. Only downside is that rent is high but they are the only building close to campus offering single rooms at a reasonable price for what you get.

It’s small enough so the people who work here actually know your name, and are really friendly! Also cleaner and quieter than Gateway.

I wish I could rate a negative number for Icon Plaza. Please do not move here, it was the worst decision I made. It is way too expensive, plus you have to pay for expensive utilities (at other apartment buildings utilities are included). The wifi and cell reception is terrible. People have tried to call and text me while I am in my room and sometimes it does not go through at all. When I moved in, the rooms were much smaller than the fake room they show you on the tour and my apartment was incredibly dirty and many things were broken when I arrived that they still have not fixed. The only good thing about this place is that it is close to USC, but that is about it.

Sigh to have to update my review after attempting to maintain an attitude of fairness and honesty. If you’re even CONTEMPLATING moving to Icon please do not do so, if my two reviews don’t cover it all send me a message. I can easily explain why this is the worst apartment complex to move in to and give advice.
I try to give reviews that will actually provide some sort of clarity into why they should or should not do something. I give pros and cons to establishments and try to look at the positive unless something goes bad.
Here’s why this review will be extremely negative, frustrating, disappointing, angry – you name the negative adjective I was feeling it at the time!
So it’s the 28^th, my issue happened in early-​mid October, so I’ve had time to not only fix my problem but mull over my review and come back and try to warn people why to not come here. My first review was a rational pros and cons review, this is an update to an issue that caused extreme unnecessary stress to myself and others BECAUSE of their faulty issues.
I left Icon in May. I along with multiple other people had charges being sent to us super late. Left in May and was getting supposed «notices» to me that I never received. Gee, well that’s what happens when you move out and don’t renew right? I mean that’s just my opinion, but the white out on my envelope kind of told the story to me that there was obvious lack of attention to where these envelopes should probably be going to. Probably not the apartment I moved out in May now huh?
Long story short, a lot of us were getting charged for things we shouldn’t have been and it was our job to dispute the claims and all this stuff. Which was fine, your bookkeeping/​finance team sucks and glad you as a supposed established business can’t figure this out, but we dealt with it.
What I could not handle was some of what you would technically call «management». I call them students with name tags in polos. I didn’t say ALL because some of management is nice, but there’s a couple of STUDENTS who you kind of just stand there for a second and think wow how did you even get in to USC? I’m being completely serious; the level of disrespect and rude tones you’ll receive from some of these kids is baffling. It’s like you’re doing them a disservice. Equate it to going to a store to buy something and the sales assistant looks at you like you’re wasting his/​her time even though you’re buying something. That’s part of the student ‘team’ you’ll deal with here and it’s frustrating.
And you may think to yourself well maybe I won’t have that issue with management. Look at the reviews. I’m not one to tell you to look at past reviews for backup, but if you haven’t noticed most of the reviews from this year are not pleasant recommendations to the management team as a whole.
I give it one star because it was already balancing on a very average review with bad management. This issue took it over the cliff for me. I’d never return to a place like this. I had to fight tooth and nail for my issue and was dealt with the most apathetic attitudes that were severely depressing to work with. Knowing people like this get hired was just saddening.
If you want to sum up Icon, it’s the type of establishment that makes you go «this is why I have no faith in humanity». Look no further than Icon.

to be honest stay away from this place. The stuffs work here all have a terrible attitude. They don’t treat you like a customer after u sign the contract. And this place is too noisy to stay. STAY AWAY from icon plaza !

I lived here for two years. I experinced the most incompetent managment from an apartment building ever. I resigned for the second year after only a few months when the manager threatened me with not being able to live with my friends in the same apartment again. After this, the managment went downhill even more. My apartment flooded due to their flawed construction, they refused to put me in a hotel and I had to study for finals with construction going on. Finally, the manager I resigned with promised me discounted parking, but the manager that replaced her refused to honor that deal. It seem like every person who works there failed out of USC. Overall, the worst place to live at USC. Look for cheaper and higher quality housing elsewhere.

Icon has limited parking… scratch that, don’t bring anything but the clothing on your back because you’ll have no place to park. The building itself is nothing special, but the staff has all been wonderful. Their gym is nothing special (no golds on Venice) but it gets the job done. the gaming room is nice, usually empty. Their study rooms are not bad but let’s be honest most don’t go to icon for the studying. So why the 3 stars? Well, for their so called 2.0+ million dollar «amenities» I should be able to park as a guest, and I’d enjoy having a theater room or more useful gaming room rather than a useless golf game and minimalist gym. I do however enjoy its proximity to all the local shops, it’s a shame that’s all it really
if you have someone you want to visit, you better show up in your magic carpet and hope they don’t try and tow it.

Internet sucks here… its too expensive… you pay 1400+ for a bedroom in a 4bed apartment… but you do not have a good wifi access…
Btw the rooms are super tiny and you always feel confined… specially if they assign you to a room by the hallway it is super noisy…

Icon Plaza: a veritable cesspool of greed, lies, and inefficiency.
Here is a non-​exhaustive list as to why Icon Plaza sucks:
1) Greedy, mercenary-​minded management. They act all cute before you sign the lease: BEWARE. They will lie to your face (I was told the utilities are included in the rent, for example). They consider Californian law applicable only when it suits their purposes.
2) Not worth your money. Icon is way too expensive, folks. Not satisfied with paying 1400+ to get a private bedroom? There are also hidden fees for everything: ALL utilities except wi-​fi are extra. Then there’s the subletter fee, late fee, cleaning fee, etc. Parking is ridiculously expensive, too.
3) Absolute lack of quiet and privacy. The walls are paper-​thin: you can clearly hear people talking in the next room no matter how quiet they are. Music carries over from apartment to apartment. The cleaning staff uses an extremely loud vacuum machine early in the morning. Some people throw parties that last well after midnight and the management does not care. Fire alarm goes off at random, usually at the worst hour imaginable (think 3 – 4 am). Also this fire alarm is like nothing you’ve heard before — extremely loud and high-​pitched. You will never forget that INFERNAL SCREECH. No, sir. Never.
4) Poor maintenance. Garbage keeps piling up in the chutes. Work orders are never completed in good time and you are expected to prod them multiple times before they start working on it. There are ants everywhere, no matter how clean you try to keep your own space.
5) Mediocre amenities. The printer is never working. Poor wi-​fi. Do not be fooled by the gym and that tiny pool. f you care so much about showy amenities, just move to Lorenzo (which basically has all the same issues with Icon, but at least you get a bunch of wonderful amenities).
Please, please DO NOT MOVE TO ICON PLAZA for your own sake. Also, do not be fooled by the 5-​star reviews, they are all written by Icon Plaza employees. Do not be deceived by the model apartment they show you, either. THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU WILL GET. Hint: they will never show you the actual room you will move into.

WOULD NOT RECOMMEND. Although the location is great, the management of the building is very disorganized and there are a bunch of hidden fees. Also we received our apartment in sub par condition, hair was on the mattresses, socks under the bed, and dust everywhere.

I have been living in Icon Plaza for over 7 months now and can honestly say it has been one of my best housing experiences. The apartment came fully furnished with quality furniture and even a TV, which I was not expecting! The maintenance staff is amazing and whenever I have an issue they respond extremely quickly. I cannot stress this point enough, having an on sight maintenance staff is a blessing. The gym is much better equipped than most buildings and is really convenient since the Lyon center is on the edge of campus and always crowded. Being a 2 minute walk from all my classes is also a huge plus.
The leasing office has been a huge help to me and has a lot of great people like Brian, Hollie, and Lindsey. Getting package notifications the same day they come is another big plus.
Would definitely recommend this place to anyone attending USC.

I love living at Icon Plaza! It’s so nice to live right across the street from campus so I don’t have to walk far to go to class and I don’t have to worry about being late. My favorite part about my apartment is that there is a washer and dryer-it’s so nice!
Also, I have the best roommates ever! They have become some of my closest friends and we have so much fun together. Icon did a great job of matching us together, I couldn’t imagine living here with anyone else!
The staff like Hollie Bowers is the best!!! She is super nice and friendly.

I sincerely wanted to write something positive about Icon, but they just can’t get it right. To keep it short, icon sucks for the following reasons: 1) they always increase rents 2) police, fire tracks, and ambulances make it one of the noisiest places on earth (I lived on the 6^th floor by the way) 3) they charged about 200 $ me for cleaning even though I had a perfectly clean place 4) mediocre amenities.
Stay away from this place. There are much much better options around the campus.

I hate to be negative, but Icon Plaza is AWFUL. It doesn’t even deserve one star, trust me. All the five stars on here probably came from their own staff.
1. I lived there for a year and my room was next to the hallway, meaning you just hear constant door slams and heavy foot steps. Somehow it was extremely dusty too. My blinds were literally BLACK for most of the time, though I tried to keep up with the cleaning. So I pretty much had paid $ 1425 per month for a room the size of a dirty, tiny bathroom. Oh, and guess what, your room will be entered by their staff pretty much twice a week. Enjoy that.
2. Don’t leave your dishes in Icon’s sinks, people. Because one morning when you wake up, you might find all your dishes being soaked in black, slimy, stinking, infested sewer water that somehow backed up from the pipes. And yep, that’s what exactly happened to my unit, and yes, it lasted for half a week, AND YES, my stuff started to have mold spots all over because they were too close to that disgusting sewer water.
3. They don’t have the most friendly staff, especially if you are no longer a resident there. They are extremely sweet and nice when they are hoaxing you into the contract, sure. I had an important mail sent to Icon after I had moved out, and I asked them to hold it for me if they receive it, and initially they said they can leave a note for the mail sorting people, but when I called the following week for updates, then guess what, they didn’t leave a note, and now they were like «no can’t do, biatch». UGHHHHHH!
Sure the location is golden, but it is NOT worth the price and quality. Seriously, no. There really are so many much better options slightly further away from campus if you are willing to travel for an extra 15 minutes or so!

This is the most frustrating apartment building ever. The management is not truthful, will tell you what you want to hear and then when you call them on it, they make up excuses. They are also very slow in processing work orders. Wifi in the apartment is spotty. For the money that we spend on rent there, you would think they would have a better management group… listen up guys… our rent helps pay your salary! If the building was empty, you would not have a job.

I’m giving 0.5 star to this horrible place.
It’s poorly built (you can literally hear everything because the walls are thin, so even if you are paying $ 1400+ for a single room, feels like you have a roommate), has poor plumbing (everything will clog frequently AND it will take 2 days for maintenance to come and fix), and it’s been 3 days that the entire building doesn’t have WiFi (writing this review from Starbucks).
If you have the money to live in a place like Icon, go someplace else (Gateway, Lorenzo, etc.) where it doesn’t feel like you’re renting a room in the third world.
As for management, the staff are usually friendly except for that one girl named Rachel. Avoid her, she has absolutely no idea how to help you (and will start with «uhhhhh» for five seconds to process what you just told her). But as for the rest, they are helpful. Especially the new summer staff.
Even though the location may be convenient, I really really recommend you to look for someplace else because it is waaay overpriced and cheaply built. In addition, there has been a number of incidents where the fire alarm went on at 7am in the morning (this happens about 5 times a semester, usually during weekends).
If you are a fan listening to fire alarms in the morning, suffering bad plumbing, and no WiFi, this is the place for you.

Icon Plaza is an example of what happens when a residential community opens unprepared and disorganized.
My friends and I were excited about moving into a brand new apartment complex that we were each paying about $ 1500 per month. However on day one it was clear that planning and construction of the building was rushed. Rushed to the point that the wall molding was not sealed to the floor, the bedroom doors hit the bed as they opened, and some areas were not painted or cleaned yet. We brushed these issues aside, hoping that management would assist in fixing the problems. The only members of the staff who were helpful were the maintenance person (yes, only 1 for the whole building) Ken and the doorman, John.
A couple months into the school year, management realized they were unsuited to deal with the property and new ownership took over. In the process, valuable members of the staff were fired, while a new management team with little to no experience attempted to put their best foot forward.
From a dishonest leasing agent lying to us about our room’s location, to random charges being assessed that weren’t included in the original lease, living at Icon has not been what they gleefully refer to as «the best in student living.»
Also the gym and pool are laughably small.
On the plus side, my lease is almost up so there’s that.

Icon is such a mess. Lease signing season is here and management is trying all they can to make people forget about the shitty job they have done all year. don’t fall for it.
Pros:
–Convenient… it’s literally right across the street from USC.
–Good variety of floor plans
–Spacious common areas and high penthouse ceilings (if you pay more $ each month).
^Other than those, this place sucks.
Cons:
–For a period of time, they had random security guards literally SIT in the elevators all day and night. Understandable if they were actually doing something, but for the majority of the time they just sat there, bored, on their phones.
–My single room in one of the biggest floor plans is supposed to be the cheapest single room option but it still costs ~$ 1,400/mo PLUS $ 200/​mo for parking. I would be down to pay that much if the room was a good size but there is literally only 2 FEET around my bed to walk around. There’s basically no room for my desk or for any storage whatsoever.
–Icon was built for the 2012 – 2013 school year but its clear that everything was rushed. There are HUGE cracks in our ceilings/​walls from poor paint jobs, appliances don’t work properly, and 2 out of 3 showers in our unit are CONSTANTLY broken. 6 people sharing one shower when you’re paying that much money is NOT OKAY. It took literally one month for one shower head to get repaired.
–Amenities: So many false advertisements. The «rooftop sundeck» only gets sunlight a few hours a day and there were NO study rooms until about a month ago. The printer is constantly broken and the individual study rooms have awkward holes in the doors… not private at all. No WiFi in the study rooms.
After living here for less than a year, it really puzzles me why some people are resigning their leases again. If you have the money to pay for a single here, there’s so many better options around campus and DTLA. You can almost get a whole apartment to yourself downtown for the same amount of $.
If for somewhat reason you decide to sign here, don’t sign a parking lease. There’s USC parking structures literally right behind Icon that charge WAY LESS ($ 400/​semester versus $ 200/​month).

No one I have talked to has enjoyed their stay at Icon Plaza. I wonder why…
PROS:
–Really close to campus– Very convenient
–New, clean
–Fully furnished
–Fairly spacious
–Suite style living (6 people– 5 singles and 1 double)
CONS:
–Horrible service. Things keep breaking… and it takes FOREVER to get it fixed. Our chair just broke, our bathtub faucet has broken (in TWO different bathrooms), the balcony door was never fully installed, the blinds have broken TWICE, the kitchen drawer broke… ETC
WHY DO THINGS KEEP BREAKING WHEN EVERYTHING IS BRAND NEW?!
Also… it takes way too long to get all of these things fixed. Several times I have asked about the progress on my work order and management will tell me it’s taking a long time because they are «ordering the parts». Well it’s been like 2 weeks. could you have at least emailed me and told me that?
–Much too expensive for what you get.
The amenities are inconsequential (a tiny pool, sundeck and room with treadmills. The study room JUST opened (after like 8 months and there is no WI-​Fi…)
Just not worth it… much better options elsewhere. And they have the nerve to raise the prices for next year after the very unsatisfactory experience provided this year.
——
If living close to campus is incredibly important to you and you have unlimited funds and a high tolerance for bullshit than go for it– otherwise, steer clear.