Articles

Goodbye, Glitzy Condo Pitches, Hello Re-Invention, NYT

Some developers with stalled projects are confident that after a hiatus of a year or longer, now may be a good time to reintroduce
their buildings, because prices have stabilized.

The recession has not been kind to many new condominium developments in New York City. Some have stalled midconstruction; others have shuttered their sales offices because of inactivity; some developers have had to return deposits to buyers as prices took a nosedive.But two years after the real estate market seized up, some of the hardest-hit developments have found ways to rise from the ashes. In some cases, the original developers avoided default by renegotiating their construction loans, and in others new developers stepped in and took over.In all cases, the need for reinvention has been paramount.To adjust to a market strikingly different from the high-flying one that reigned when these projects were conceived, developers have not only created new marketing campaigns but also substantially changed the buildings themselves. Focusing less on trendiness and more on value, they have redesigned lobbies, combined apartments to create more family-sized units, and swapped luxuries like private roof cabanas for shared amenities like common roof decks. The changes all seek to appeal to today’s much more skeptical buyer.
By Vivian S. Toy, August 20, 2010 NYT

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