Overall Ratings & Reviews Kasa The Niche University City Philadelphia

Nice

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The space is very nice, modern and clean. It is a walk up, so if you have luggage you need to be prepared to go up steep stairs as there is no elevator. They were very responsive to my questions and concerns. It is conveniently located to the University of Pennsylvania. It is in a generally safe area, but it is not an area you want to venture too far by yourself at night.

The place is nice and clean. However, the stairway is very narrow, making it hard to move my luggage up and down the stairs.

The Niche is simple, easy and well priced. No frills but has everything you need!

Nice and quite place

Industrial chic recently renovated. A bar with music into the wee hours is adjacent to the bedroom. If you like eavesdropping on bar patrons and dancing to your favorite reggae beats, the bedroom is a prime spot.

An awesome location if you’re visiting Penn campus, easy walk, lots of food, groceries & Starbucks right there. Street parking is easy

The room was very nice and clean, however the lock on the door was loose but still functioned and the only amenity was a fridge which was good for storing snacks and a coffee maker that did not work. Other than those two things I found the place very chic clean and safe and the local area very nice. I would definitely book again.

Very good experience room was nice a cozy.

Misery from start to finish. Bar downstairs blasts music non-stop - Niche pretends to care but does nothing that makes a difference. YOU CANNOT "SLEEP" HERE - which is all we wanted the place for... We reserved at the last minute as we were driving several hours to Philadelphia. Unfortunately after we reserved thru hotels.com (and pre-paid for both nights), we were sent emails that we did not see while driving for 5 hours. We arrived expecting to have information about how to enter the property, instead we had an email demanding that we immediately send a deposit worth more than the hotel rooms - and which was NEVER mentioned on hotels.com. (Bad on them too). Niche also wanted photos of my ID & credit card - even though I had already paid for the room and was not about to send that info over the internet. It took 45 minutes of phone calls to deal with their requirements while we were exhausted and dying to use the bathroom. Finally got in .... Room is ok, basic, one cup in the entire room. Cheap amenities... We were immediately assaulted by insanely loud music ... unfortunately music was louder when we came back to go to bed. Both nights we were kept up by loud music - niche offered a different room, but we had already settled in and I don't think it would make a difference - the music was overwhelming. The problem is cheap windows and a bar downstairs that doesn't care. (I did ask that they turn the outside speakers down).

Great spacious apartments/rooms, very clean. Good location.

The blinds were broken.

Really great people with a great apartment to stay in, would for sure recommend.

Great location, responsive booking, etc., will definitely be staying here again! The area is totally walkable, easy parking, it's right by Penn but also just a normal neighborhood.

Loved the apartment. Hated the onerous pre-checkin process and requirements. Not worth a short stay. Also note there’s no elevator and the stairs are steep, so not for everyone.

I booked a standard bed&bath "studio." The 3 good things were the number of electrical outlets in the room, the wifi, and the cunning lock system. The standard bedroom had no closet. The standard bath was a two-piece up a short set of painted wooden stairs (slippery when wet) with no heat. The sink was in the bed area. Clothes storage was a one drawer in the base of the cheap platform bed. There was no wastebasket. There was a dorm fridge but no way to heat anything. The heating/cooling unit near the ceiling just inside the door of the bed area made a lot of noise. The dorm fridge gurgled. No place to work--tiny pedestal table. Very steep stairs leading up from a foyer were the one way to access the rooms. The place is very bad for anyone with a mobility challenge. Basically, it was a flip that they tried to make seem chic, but that was for all that a builder-grade renovation made nearly legal by the drawer under the platform bed (one has to have something to serve as clothes storage in anything called a "bedroom"--normally, a raised closet, wardrobe, or bureau). I'll head for a proper place next time work takes me to Philadelphia.

WARNING - City View units DO NOT actually have a city view. Overall location and unit were fine. They required a large security deposit and referenced non-smoking building. However, 2 of the 3 nights there was HEAVY smell of marijuana in the hallways. When booking, we paid extra for the city view unit. City View is actually the name of the type of room and it cost more money than others at the same location. And, although VERY chatty via text for check in and check out, I had to ask more than half a dozen times for a response to my question about the CITY VIEW that we actually had - picture attached - as soon as we arrived. A response did not come until after we got home from our 3 night stay and they: - 1st blamed covid for a room switch - when asked about refund for room type difference said that the city view is a type of room vs a promise of a city view.

STAY AWAY! Not disability friendly whatsoever: my "suite" was on the third floor with no elevator, so I seriously considered rebooking somewhere else but nothing was available so I got stuck here. Room was filled with Ikea furniture (at least one piece was broken), the cheap digital lock on the door could definitely be taken off easily, there is no drinkable water in the building (they could at least put a water cooler in the entry!), and the whole thing reeks of gentrification. Most importantly, though: there was an audio surveillance device in my room, which was not disclosed in the paperwork I had to sign to stay here. I found a strange plastic thing plugged into the wall and assumed it was a scented plugin or something until I took it out and realized it had a FCC label on the back and looked up the company. NoiseAware is a sound monitoring system that relays information to property owners, and the company's site is clear that its use must be disclosed to renters, but the owners here didn't bother, which makes it illegal. I am completely appalled and would never, ever, stay at a URHIP property again.