Thank you for the updates soleri.
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Originally Posted by soleri
44 Monroe: over 50% of the units are now under contract. The project will be at ground level by the end of July, and will rise a floor each week after that. The cheapest unit is around $520,000. The foot traffic into the sales office has shifted from younger and government workers to those more apt to qualify to buy. There is now more demand for two bedroom units. The architects are still tweaking the final design. They're dissatisfied with the latice work covering part of the parking podium. The rep had no idea about the alternative rendering from DFDCH. I'll email him that image. There are still plans for a 3300 sq ft gourmet grocery on the ground floor.
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Of course there's more demand now for two bedroom units. Multibedroom units have been missing almost entirely in the bigger picture--right now developers have been counting on two distinct groups of people: Wealthy couples at either the start of life or the end of life.
To have a family in one of these towers, say, Esplanade, you have to buy near the top--the only 3+ bedrooms range in the millions. Who buys these things?
Some of these condominium projects seem more like overglorifed bachelor castles than anything that can make a dent in the larger housing market. Would wealthy young couples have fewer qualms about plunking down hundreds of thousands for one of these units if they could actually grow into them? Why does a 4 bedroom on a lower floor just not exist?
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San Carlos Hotel: the Melikians have been trying to sell the hotel for a couple of years now. The high-rise proposal is an effort to sweeten the pot, as it were. Parking is their main problem. They contracted space at Van Buren and Central where Central Park East is going. Since ASU has that property, they've lost that space. They apparently considered going condo. Their water park concept would be for adults only.
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An adults only water park? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the whole thing? But the parking thing aggrivates me to no end: we have mostly empty edifices like the Garage Mahal, sometimes at great cost to the public, yet parking is still a problem for both old and new developments. If Phoenix consolidated all the spaces available as part of a public/private corporation augmented with an improved circulator/valet system, the parking problem would be solved downtown and towers would go up quicker. Simple as that.
It would make sense that the San Carlos was trying to drum up interest--right now it's just hopes, dreams, and a rendering. I can't wait till when we get out of the idealism phase and into reality--where projects like this don't make big news until plans are actually filed or approved. Either way it's good stuff all around.
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W Hotel: they call 44 Monroe on a regular basis to see what the sales progress is like. Apparently they're gauging the market before proceeding.
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44 Monroe seems an odd place to check up on to gauge the market. They seem like two different projects--the W caters to wealthy folks just staying for a bit, and it seems no shortage of that here. 44 Monroe, on the other hand, is far more pioneering.
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Originally Posted by soleri
Professional Building/Sliver Building: construction is slated to begin this fall turning the Professional Building into a boutique hotel. There will be units for sale too as hotel condos. The Sliver Building would be condos. It could be anywhere from 23 to 40 floors (depending on demand, apparently).
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Anybody know who's behind this project?
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Originally Posted by John_Vandercook
After checking into it, it would appear that rendeing is for a condo building in San Diego.
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Source?
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Originally Posted by plinko
Do you guys think the buttresses at the top are spiked or something? Look at the skewed perspective on that rendering. They're flat.
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Despite the skew, the roofline on the tower doesn't match the angle of the buttresses. Architecturally it makes the most sense--why have them at all otherwise? But the rendering is totally whacked--I'd say they cut and pasted a rendering of a parking garage on top of another rendering of a tower without much regard to the perspective. I swear it's like they do this on purpose tho. It certainly keeps us talking about it.