Sosuite at Independence Lofts - Callowhill

Got an unceremonious text notification telling me my reservation had been canceled due to maintenance issues literally the day before my trip. No offer of alternate accommodations or rebooking with a partner hotel; no actual customer service of any kind. Oh, and they misspelled my name. Given how sketchy this transaction was, and everything they do to verify your identity, I'm kind of concerned this was some kind of elaborate identity theft scheme.

The room was not clean. There were crumbs and hair under the furniture, the floor was sticky and dirty, there was hair in the bathroom sink, some food debris dried up on the bathroom floor, and the couch was stained. We also reserved the room for 3 and included all 3 guests in the reservation, but there was no bedding for a third guest, and we were told it was too late to get any delivered by staff. The furniture may have been nice at some point but was dingy and nicked. There was also a HUGE bubble (like, at least a foot wide and 4 inches tall) that bowed up out of the laminate flooring under the rug, but we did not dare lift the rug to examine further. The hallways wreaked of **** the entire weekend. On the bright side, the view of the skyline was really nice, and the text communication was prompt at all hours. On the whole though, we could not get out of there fast enough.

I stayed here for almost two weeks and was tempted to give two stars because the apartment was clean when I arrived and the staff is very friendly and try to be helpful. So there's that. But I just can't give more than one star because of the laundry list of other reasons to NEVER book a stay here. First off the "24/7 on site security" advertised on the Sosuite website is an absolute joke. The back gate to the parking lot was left wide open about half the time during my stay, and the door from the parking lot into the building is often left open and even if it's closed it's NEVER locked. Literally anyone can walk in off the street and no one would stop them. The only "security" personnel is the one front desk person on duty at a time who's not always at the front desk. Second, there is NO enforcement of property rules. The people in the unit next to me had a very loud party one night that went until close to midnight, and the following night had an even louder drunken argument from 3 to 4 am. After the argument finally died down they played loud music until sunrise. Calling Sosuite resulted in ZERO action being taken. Third, the units are NOT equipped as advertised. Their website says all units feature a "fully equipped kitchen". My studio had a tiny dorm fridge, a microwave, and a hot plate. This is NOT a fully equipped kitchen, and on the Sosuite website the ads for units without actual full kitchens conveniently do not have any pictures of the kitchens. The white noise machine that the website says is in every room was nowhere to be found, not that it could have overcome the level of noise coming from the neighboring units anyway. There was a sign on the wall of my unit warning of noise monitoring equipment that will alert Sosuite of excessive noise during quiet hours which apparently doesn't do much either. While Sosuite doesn't advertise it on their own site, the Independence Lofts website and a sign right outside the door to the property promise other amenities that aren't actually available, like an on-site pet park that doesn't even exist. Finally, as other reviewers mentioned, one of the elevators was broken. Over the course of my 12-night stay I didn't see anyone even attempt to fix it, and by the dates on the other reviews it's been well over a month that it's been out of service. The building appears to be mostly if not entirely occupied by AirBNB guests and on several occasions when it was busy with check-ins and check-outs the wait for an elevator could be as long as ten minutes. This was annoying and frustrating, but compared to the other issues with this place, if you stay here it will be the least of your worries. These are just the biggest issues; there was a littany of other, more minor annoyances that further contributed to making my stay here unpleasant at best. Suffice to say I will not be back and wouldn't recommend staying here to anyone.

Loft apartment was clean, comfortable, had lots of character with high ceilings, large windows and amazing city views. Very much as described on the website :-) The Institute bar / restaurant was in the same building & great for a quick beer or food if choosing to stay in the building. I liked the location in that I could walk to Center City in c20 minutes (& other places of interest, Art Museum & Eastern State Prison were similar distances). My only issues was that the neighbourhood didn’t feel the safest so I walked during daylight (& in truth had no problems) but took Uber/Lyft when dark. The building reception was manned 24 hours although given thoughts on neighbourhood the one simple improvement I’d suggest would be bolts on the inside of doors similar to hotels. Would feel more comfortable….overall a great stay though & the views were really stunning