NEW YORK - A New York property developer is offering the uber-wealthy the opportunity to buy a condo parking spot for a cool $1 million - merely six times the value of a typical American home.

The 10 parking spaces are for sale at 42 Crosby Street, the luxury apartment building under construction in the SoHo neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.

Based on the $1 million price tag, the spots are probably the most expensive residential car spaces in the country, said the broker marketing the seven-story building.

"Anyone who lives in Manhattan and has a car knows that parking is a premium in the city," said Shaun Osher, chief executive of the brokerage CORE. "There's definitely a large demand and a short supply."

Prices for the spots compare with the US median single-family home value of $174,800, according to real estate website Zillow. For that price, however, there are few if any residences for sale in trendy SoHo, known for its high-end fashion shops and art galleries

Osher said he expected residents of the 10-unit building to snap up the parking spots when the underground spaces, which were approved for construction this week, hit the market.

The building, designed by German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf, will include 10 luxury condominiums priced at a minimum of about $8 million, each with private elevator access.

The 150-to-200-square-foot (14-19 square-metre) parking spaces will be offered under a 99-year license to tenants, who will have the right to transfer or sell their spaces to other building residents.

The pricey spaces will not lack for amenities. Osher said they would come with storage space and electric car charges.

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A cool million will buy a parking space in trendy SoHo

By - Associated Press - Wednesday, September 10, 2014

CHICAGO (AP) - A lawsuit has been filed against the owner of a Chicago apartment building where a fire killed four children this week, attorneys announced Wednesday.

It was filed late Tuesday on behalf of the mother of a man who jumped from a third-floor window and was critically injured while escaping the blaze.

The lawsuit contends the 18-unit building was unsafe and accuses owner Tahir Sheikh of suburban Oak Brook and J & J Management and Construction, Inc., of failing to adequately equip the third-floor apartment with fire escape routes and working smoke detectors.

There were no working smoke detectors in that third-floor unit or the one on the second floor where the blaze started, according to Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.

Sheikh said earlier this week that the management company informed him last month that all tenants had signed statements acknowledging they had working smoke detectors, the Chicago Sun-Times reported (http://bit.ly/1rGYPQJ ). Debra Jenkins, an agent for the company, told the newspaper all tenants had detectors as of Sept. 4.

Mondays fire began shortly after 3 a.m. and raced up a stairwell, trapping four children in their bedrooms and forcing their mother and her boyfriend, Nate Johnson, to leap from a third-story window.

Lawyers representing Johnsons mother released a statement Wednesday saying he suffered burns and smoke inhalation in addition to injuries from leaping from the window.

Sheikh did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the lawsuit.

He told reporters Tuesday that he was heartbroken over the childrens deaths.

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Lawsuit filed over Chicago fire that killed 4 kids

A woman walks past the construction site at 42 Crosby Street, which is being developed into a luxury apartment building with 10 subterranean parking spaces priced at $1 million per parking space, on September 10, 2014 in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. (Andrew Burton / Getty Images / September 10, 2014)

5:50 p.m. EDT, September 10, 2014

NEW YORK

The 10 parking spaces are for sale at 42 Crosby Street, the luxury apartment building under construction in the SoHo neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.

Based on the $1 million price tag, the spots are probably the most expensive residential car spaces in the country, said the broker marketing the seven-story building.

"Anyone who lives in Manhattan and has a car knows that parking is a premium in the city," said Shaun Osher, chief executive of the brokerage CORE. "There's definitely a large demand and a short supply."

Prices for the spots compare with the U.S. median single-family home value of $174,800, according to real estate website Zillow. For that price, however, there are few if any residences for sale in trendy SoHo, known for its high-end fashion shops and art galleries

Osher said he expected residents of the 10-unit building to snap up the parking spots when the underground spaces, which were approved for construction this week, hit the market.

The building, designed by German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf, will include 10 luxury condominiums priced at a minimum of about $8 million, each with private elevator access.

The 150-to-200-square-foot parking spaces will be offered under a 99-year license to tenants, who will have the right to transfer or sell their spaces to other building residents.

Read more here:
Where $1 million will buy you a parking space

A New York property developer is offering the uber-wealthy the opportunity to buy a condo parking spot for a cool $1 million - merely six times the value of a typical American home.

The 10 parking spaces are for sale at 42 Crosby Street, the luxury apartment building under construction in the SoHo neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.

Based on the $1 million price tag, the spots are probably the most expensive residential car spaces in the country, said the broker marketing the seven-story building.

"Anyone who lives in Manhattan and has a car knows that parking is a premium in the city," said Shaun Osher, chief executive of the brokerage CORE. "There's definitely a large demand and a short supply."

Prices for the spots compare with the U.S. median single-family home value of $174,800, according to real estate website Zillow. For that price, however, there are few if any residences for sale in trendy SoHo, known for its high-end fashion shops and art galleries

Osher said he expected residents of the 10-unit building to snap up the parking spots when the underground spaces, which were approved for construction this week, hit the market.

The building, designed by German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf, will include 10 luxury condominiums priced at a minimum of about $8 million, each with private elevator access.

The 150-to-200-square-foot (14-19 square-metre) parking spaces will be offered under a 99-year license to tenants, who will have the right to transfer or sell their spaces to other building residents.

The pricey spaces will not lack for amenities. Osher said they would come with storage space and electric car charges.

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For $1 million you can buy a parking spot in New York City

A broad alliance of major German housing-related associations, the Verbndebndnis Wohnungsbau (VBWB), presented a "German Plan for Affordable Housing" on Wednesday (10.9.2014) in Berlin.

"Having a place to live is a basic need," said Hartmut Goldboom, a representative of the German construction materials supply industry, speaking on behalf of the alliance. "It should be affordable."

The VBWB claimed that the monthly rent of a typical medium-quality new apartment in Germany's major cities could be reduced by as much as 40 percent compared to current prices, if the government adopted a set of policies making it cheaper to build new apartments.

That could represent a great benefit to millions of renters over coming years - if it turned out to be both accurate and achievable. Moreover, despite its focus on Germany, the twin reports underlying the VBWB report could prove thought-provoking for policymakers in other countries faced with housing affordability challenges.

Reducing the landlord's claim on renters' monthly income

One of the studies underpinning the report was produced by the Hanover-based Pestel Institute, which specializes in regional development and urban planning studies.

There's no shortage of luxury apartments being built, like these in Frankfurt

"In pre-unification West Germany, we had around four million social housing units. But a wave of privatization policies post-unification has led to a situation where there are only a million and a half in the whole of unified Germany today," said Pestel Institute director Matthias Gnther.

"There's a shortage of affordable housing in the bigger cities - not in most small towns, or in the countryside, but in big cities it's getting worse. We need another 250,000 to 300,000 new apartments in the cities - affordable ones, for low- and middle-income people."

The study's focus was on new build, not on renovations. The latter may make life better for residents, but they don't increase the building stock - or its affordability.

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German building industry proposes affordable housing push

BY STEFANO ESPOSITO AND JON SEIDEL Staff Reporters September 8, 2014 5:50AM

Updated: September 9, 2014 2:14AM

Eric Patton Smith spent much of Monday morning standing close to the empty brick apartment building, as fire investigators traipsed across a courtyard littered with shattered glass and charred debris.

And then a bit before noon, Patton Smith pulled himself away to face a grim task: identifying the remains of his little girl, Eriana Patton Smith.

Beautiful in every sense of the word, he said of his 7-year-old daughter, one of four children who perished in a fire early Monday in the apartment building in the Roseland neighborhood.

Two adults, including the childrens mother, also were critically injured in the extra-alarm fire on the Far South Side, officials said.

The blaze began at 3:25 a.m. on the second floor of an 18-unit building in the 11200 block of South Vernon Avenue, authorities said. It was not being treated as a suspicious fire, Fire Media Affairs Director Larry Langford said.

Eriana and her three siblings were found in a bedroom of a third-floor unit, he said.

There were no working smoke detectors in either the unit where the children were found or in the second-floor unit where the fire started, Langford said. But hard-wired detectors were sounding in the buildings hallways, Langford added.

Found in the bedroom with Eriana were Shamarion Coleman, 12; Carlvon Clark, 13, and Carliysia Clark, 15.

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4 children die in Roseland fire, 2 adults critically injured

ST. PETERSBURG At old Kmarts and mobile home parks, on grassy fields near the edges of town and cracking asphalt parking lots, new apartments, corporate offices and shopping centers are on the rise.

An annual report released by Pinellas County's economic development department this week is full of big numbers: 8,400 condo and apartment units in planning and construction, 1,900 hotel rooms, companies such as General Electric and Tech Data investing tens of millions in new manufacturing and office space.

Niche retailers such as Trader Joe's and Whole Foods preparing to open their first Pinellas locations, and outmoded shopping plazas being reworked into destination shopping locales like downtown St. Petersburg's Sundial.

Construction spending nationally has reached its highest levels since 2008 this summer, with so much new work that many companies have been turning down projects.

Though it's unlikely that every chic waterfront condominium project actually will break ground, there's been a marked shift in the past couple years in the attitude of investors.

They appear particularly confident in the kind of urban multifamily redevelopment that seems to be cropping up on every other block in downtown St. Petersburg, said Mike Meidel, director of Pinellas County Economic Development.

We definitely have the mood among investors and, to some extent, the general public that we are coming out finally from this Great Recession, he said.

It's been a hard go for a lot of people. I think now, finally, people are beginning to invest.

Those investments are happening, to a greater or lesser extent, in nearly every category of construction.

BayCare Health System is spending $99 million on a 300,000-square-foot headquarters in Clearwater, and GE Energy Management is sinking $50 million to add 190,000 square feet to its manufacturing center, where it plans to add 250 jobs.

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In Pinellas, developers hitting the ground running

Vacancy Rate Expected to Rise Another 50 Basis Points By End of 2014, According to CoStar Forecast

Multifamily construction increased 8% in July, continuing a yearlong upward trend, with several large new projects starting last month, including a $350 million multifamily tower in Queens, NY; a $260 million condominium tower in Honolulu and the $160 million residential portion of the $300 million mixed-use building in Los Angeles.

According to U.S. Census Bureau numbers released this week, multifamily spending in the residential sector increased a slender 0.2% between June and July, rising from $43.2 billion to $43.3 billion. But the most significant story is the year-over-year comparison: spending improved 41% from July 2013.

New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Miami and Boston remained the top five metropolitan areas ranked by the dollar volume of new multifamily starts through the first seven months of 2014.

The apartment-building boom will continue through at least next year, according to an early survey of CRE executives' sentiments for 2015.

Asked how much development will commence in the U.S. in 2015, respondents to the Commercial Real Estate Outlook Survey released Wednesday by tax advisor KPMG LLP identified multifamily as the top construction sector, with 53% expecting a "significant amount" of new product to launch, up from 43% in last year's survey.

"The rapid migration of young adults and baby boomers to urban areas coupled with displaced homeowners following the housing crisis remain key drivers of multifamily housing development," said Greg Williams, national leader of KPMG's Real Estate practice. "Though investment opportunities exist, real estate executives should be mindful that the growth potential of multifamily housing could wane given the large influx of capital the sector has already received, driving prices up."

Vacancy rates in the 54 largest markets tracked by CoStar Group remain at a 10-year low. However, the trend has clearly begun to reverse course. The national vacancy rate has risen roughly 30 basis points over the last three quarters to about 5.5% as supply has overtaken demand, and CoStar is forecasting another 50-basis-point rise in vacancies through the second half of 2014. New supply, rather than diminished demand, is driving the vacancy rise, real estate economist Francis Yuen noted during the recent CoStar Midyear 2014 Multifamily Review and Outlook, co-presented with CoStar director of U.S. research, multifamily Luis Mejia and quantitative analyst Mark Hickey.

Apartment developers delivered roughly 170,000 units last year with an additional 260,000 units scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014, CoStar data indicates.

Multifamily starts and permits are well above historic levels nationally and continue to trend upward, and markets like Dallas, Houston, Seattle and Washington, D.C. have each logged more than 10,000 deliveries. In the first two quarters of 2014, construction started on more than 160,000 apartment units, putting the nation on pace to exceed last years 290,000 starts.

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Ripples from Apartment Supply Wave Beginning to Impact Market Fundamentals

Vacancy Rate Expected to Rise Another 50 Basis Points By End of 2014, According to CoStar Forecast

Multifamily construction increased 8% in July, continuing a yearlong upward trend, with several large new projects starting last month, including a $350 million multifamily tower in Queens, NY; a $260 million condominium tower in Honolulu and the $160 million residential portion of the $300 million mixed-use building in Los Angeles.

According to U.S. Census Bureau numbers released this week, multifamily spending in the residential sector increased a slender 0.2% between June and July, rising from $43.2 billion to $43.3 billion. But the most significant story is the year-over-year comparison: spending improved 41% from July 2013.

New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Miami and Boston remained the top five metropolitan areas ranked by the dollar volume of new multifamily starts through the first seven months of 2014.

The apartment-building boom will continue through at least next year, according to an early survey of CRE executives' sentiments for 2015.

Asked how much development will commence in the U.S. in 2015, respondents to the Commercial Real Estate Outlook Survey released Wednesday by tax advisor KPMG LLP identified multifamily as the top construction sector, with 53% expecting a "significant amount" of new product to launch, up from 43% in last year's survey.

"The rapid migration of young adults and baby boomers to urban areas coupled with displaced homeowners following the housing crisis remain key drivers of multifamily housing development," said Greg Williams, national leader of KPMG's Real Estate practice. "Though investment opportunities exist, real estate executives should be mindful that the growth potential of multifamily housing could wane given the large influx of capital the sector has already received, driving prices up."

Vacancy rates in the 54 largest markets tracked by CoStar Group remain at a 10-year low. However, the trend has clearly begun to reverse course. The national vacancy rate has risen roughly 30 basis points over the last three quarters to about 5.5% as supply has overtaken demand, and CoStar is forecasting another 50-basis-point rise in vacancies through the second half of 2014. New supply, rather than diminished demand, is driving the vacancy rise, real estate economist Francis Yuen noted during the recent CoStar Midyear 2014 Multifamily Review and Outlook, co-presented with CoStar director of U.S. research, multifamily Luis Mejia and quantitative analyst Mark Hickey.

Apartment developers delivered roughly 170,000 units last year with an additional 260,000 units scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014, CoStar data indicates.

Multifamily starts and permits are well above historic levels nationally and continue to trend upward, and markets like Dallas, Houston, Seattle and Washington, D.C. have each logged more than 10,000 deliveries. In the first two quarters of 2014, construction started on more than 160,000 apartment units, putting the nation on pace to exceed last years 290,000 starts.

Link:
Apartment Supply Wave Begins to Exact Toll On Market Fundamentals

View Larger The Bottom Line Other Business Features Local Stories from ThisWeek More Articles By Jim Weiker The Columbus Dispatch Wednesday September 3, 2014 2:17 AM

Columbus has plenty of microbreweries, but is it ready for micro-apartments?

The Dublin development company Stonehenge hopes so.

Stonehenge has proposed a micro-unit apartment complex at the southwest corner of N. High Street and 3rd Avenue in the Short North.

The six-story building would include 32 studio apartments, all of them 540 square feet about half to two-thirds the size of a typical central Ohio one-bedroom unit.

Theres a tremendous movement toward efficiency, that less may be better, said Stonehenge President Mo Dioun.

We would like to be a pioneer in that area, to test this. We believe the community is ready for a smaller residential option.

The ground floor of the complex would include a lobby, retail space and spots for 32 Smart cars, which take up about half the room of conventional cars.

Dioun and Jonathan Barnes, the principal in JBAD architecture firm, who designed the building, said the project is a response to high demand for Short North apartments coupled with the high cost of building apartments in the neighborhood.

This is a trend in cities where theres a lot more pressure to develop, in New York and San Francisco, Barnes said. We have our own version of that in the Short North. So this was a matter of taking an idea thats been successful elsewhere and applying it to the Short North.

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Micro-unit apartments proposed for Short North