From a plugged-in tipster nine months ago:
The existing ground floor windows [of 72 Townsend] got a good wash yesterday and are now adorned with the news that [74] Luxury Homes are coming soon starting from the $600s. Development is by Thompson Development, hoping that that plans approved last year is what actually gets built.
And from a plugged-in reader today:
This development could be off again… all the marketing window material has been removed, so we are either getting some new temp retail (no details [visible]) or the building could be back on the market.
Anybody?
UPDATE: And the answer: “the development is on hold. the space will be leased out in the meantime. the condo construction isn’t expected for another 3-5 years now.” So close, but yet so far.
That’s just behind me. Hopefully we can get the ground level stuff without the high rise. South Beach cafe is a little old.
the development is on hold. the space will be leased out in the meantime. the condo construction isn’t expected for another 3-5 years now.
Although the development was interesting, it’s clear that the market needs a pause in development. This is not bad news to me.
I definitely wish that we would have had more of an explosion in building over the past few years. Just when we’re getting to the point of adding enough inventory to make a dent in prices, we get calls for a “pause in development for the sake of the market”. We don’t need the market to pause so that prices stay stagnant and then begin to rise. I guess the only hope is for something that could drop land prices in the short term, so that the sunk costs would be low enough to develop units that cost less than half a mil. (earthquake maybe?)
I cannot believe housing activists are now hope for earthquakes.
If there is an excess of housing, especially condominiums, then why are prices still so high?
@anony:
On the off chance that you’re asking a serious question rather than simply trying to score a rhetorical point, I think the answer is complex, but includes the following:
— Premise flawed: prices are down, as apple-to-apple (read: with no improvements) examples on SS demonstrate.
— Pricing is sticky. It takes a long time to come down because the market isn’t as liquid as, say, the stock market.
— As ex-SF-er has said very astutely, much of the price “decline” likely will be hidden by inflation.
Another cause for the lag in price declines : A lot of people took windfall profits in 2004-6 (think GOOG employees and the like). This money recently became available and is just now being spent though it was earned over a period of several years.