Though expensive, the staff are all friendly and kind. The administration respond to inquiries in a timely manner. The executive secretary is very kind and helpful over the phone and by text and email. The maintenance man, Jason, is the best and I mean the best. They are also upgrading the water heaters and the air conditioning units.
First and foremost, the 5-star review from Tyler Shirley is completely biased as he has been the manager of Park Forest for at least 3 years, has been flagged as conflict of interest.
Park Forest Apartments are located on the north end of Marion, across from the mall and several eating establishments, as well as a gas station. There's also an elementary school just down the road, so it goes without saying that it's in a nice location, everything is in walking distance, even the movie theater. However, for the rate they charge (with or without a pet fee), you would expect a more pleasant living environment. They have done some "aesthetic" touch ups on the building outside. The actual apartments, which are 2bd/1ba, are incredibly dated. There are bi-fold doors throughout for closets, sans bathroom. The metal ones use a considerable amount of force to slide (and often come off the track completely, falling out), the wooden ones are flimsy and have no track at the bottoms, leaving them to freely move about above the carpeting. The front access door from the foyer has a considerable gap from the carpet and the door frame, allowing plenty of creepy crawlers to reside within your abode, as well as making it very unpleasant to sit anywhere near the door in cooler seasons due to the severe draft. While I personally have little complaint about hearing next door neighbors and pets, upstairs neighbors are another story. If they so much as sneeze, you will hear it. We could actually hear their cellphones vibrating on surfaces. Speaking of noises, if you feel that another resident in the complex is being unreasonably loud, and you make a complaint, it will go unheard. This goes for ANY complaint; neighbors, pets, or repairs/maintenance needing done.
There's a handy little storage shed within the "assigned" parking garage (I use quotes because seldom do people use their own, or have guests park in other tenants garage spaces and refuse to move them, making it impossible to access your own storage). However, these sheds are not completely closed up. There are pieces of wood missing, allowing several stray cats to enter and have litters, mice are evident if you look through your items after removing them from the shed, and there's also been several black widows found hanging out in them. If you were to try to avoid hearing upstairs neighbors by BEING the upstairs tenant, be very wary while using the back access; the steps leading to your balcony are old and wooden with a severely rusted, thin decorative metal rail, rendering them downright dangerous during wet or freezing weather conditions.
The claim that this complex has a park-like setting, is fair to say, pretty inaccurate, unless you consider a park to be a few small trees here and there along the street and sidewalk, and hedge shrubs in front of the buildings to hide the water access from the street (but hey, if you're on the first floor, keep your bedroom blinds closed, because if someone's working on them, they're right outside your window looking in.) The "Private" patio/balcony is stretching the truth. There's nothing private about them, at all, first or second floor.
A personal event that occurred during the time of my husband and I moving out of the complex after 2 years --with being what the manager referred to as "great, trouble free tenants" after leasing from the company for over 3 years collectively-- As we were moving things out, we requested a short extension on the lease as we had a toddler and I was pregnant at the time, making moving a bit of a process, which was well received and granted for a fee. However, upon returning to the complex, during our extended lease time, to make a final sweep that nothing had been left, we find they had already moved in a new tenant, after we had already paid for the the rented time. We were told we would be getting the money back, a week later we're told there was damage done and that the extension fee was going to be used to cover the expense. We of course were never told what supposed damage there was.

Jennifer Garretson
Nov 05, 2016