Ongoing air conditioning issues, early-morning fire alarms and malfunctioning electronics have caused a number of City Hall residents to complain about the building, prompting the University to offer rebates to the interns and academic-year students living there for the summer.
Seth Weinshel, director of GW Housing Programs, said in an e-mail that a $75 credit was issued to all residents due to “ongoing air conditioning issues with the building that have taken longer than anticipated to rectify.”
In an e-mail to residents, GW Property Management called the issues “unacceptable.”
“We acknowledge the discomfort a number of residents have experienced. A make-up regulator is being installed to the system later this afternoon,” the e-mail said on Thursday. “This equipment will improve the reliability of the system by bleeding any unwanted air trapped in the circulating line that could otherwise trip the system off.”
Problems with the air conditioning come as temperatures in the District have hit record-breaking highs, skyrocketing into the 100’s this week for only the 6th time in a decade, according to the Washington Post Capital Weather Gang.
While housing issued the credit because of the air conditioning problems, residents have also experienced several fire alarms, some during the middle of the night, senior Joe Goldman said.
Goldman, who lived in City Hall as a junior and will also live there during his senior year, said that despite the problems, the location of the residence hall and the room sizes are big advantages.
“The housing credit isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing. I hear a lot of the interns complaining about it, which I think is ridiculous,” Goldman said. ” They don’t realize how good they have it in City Hall in comparison to other buildings that have smaller rooms with older facilities and fewer appliances.”
Goldman is living in City Hall for the summer because it is his fall living assignment but the building is primarily filled with interns who are paying from $273 to $329 per week to live there. For interns, there is a five week minimum stay, according to the GW Housing Program website.
