I have never understood why someone would pay so much money to live, esentially, in an apartment. Granted you get the tax benefits of home ownership but you still have neighbors a thin 6 inch wall away!

Most apartments, if not all, that are being built now are of condo quality so they can easily be converted down the road.

So far, I’m unimpressed with the exterior…

There were a few new construction homes built in the neighborhood that sold in the mid to upper $300k about a year ago. Those homes were only about 1600 sqft.
The condos seem priced right when you consider their size. Now if they are including garage sqft in the total (which they shouldn’t be) then that is another story.

New Construction in the Neighborhood

Drove by the site and saw the building a couple of days ago. It’s the same building plan someone is using throughout their subdivision at the south end of Spanaway. “Superbly appropriate architecture” for all of Pierce County I guess.

Krause construction strikes again! This is what happens when a builders whim isn’t tempered by a tempered by a clients vision.

I won’t say it doesn’t fit the neighborhood, but I recall from my driveby that the front door is at a 45-degree angle to the street front. I can’t think of another home in the area with front doors 45-degrees to the street.

This is not a big deal. I don’t think houses need to look the same to fit the neighborhood. This home strikes me as a caricature of the neighborhood.

The starting point for the layout of this home was to maximize the building volume. Then some cute curved windows were carved out. People like octagon windows so let’s put a couple of those in. Oh, and we should add a porch, but not enough to be useable because then we’d have to shrink our building footprint. We can carve these things out of the blank first floor of the front.

Since I’m not buying it anyhow, I don’t care too much about how it looks, I just hope this is not what passed for historic architecture in Tacoma these days. Actually another hope is that the front facade gets some more ornament to distract from its uninteresting bulk.

(This isn’t directed only at this project, just a general frustration that fakeries of certain periods seem to more socially acceptable than quality design of other periods. I also seem to be a bit snarky lately.)

Oh my. You had me slapping my knee on that one, Crenshaw.

sorry folks but there hasn’t been anything new and exciting built in Tacoma for years…all the yuppie condos/noodle bars are stupid and will be passe in 5 mins. So who cares if some trust-fund/stock market/real estate nouveau riche buys in to TTown….I was in the trades for years…it aint that hard to build a nice respectful Vic/Edw style home….and that new condo on Yak/I street is TTown perfect…sadly….
declasse and pretentious for no reason at all….

The condos at 6th and St. Helens, while done in a faux “Seattle” style, are quite fetching http://www.triangle-townhomes.com/default.htm . I guess we could import some Seattle design. I guess I like the design of the Triangle Townhomes. I like the planned conversion of the old Mecca theater. They are rehabbing what was an unused and defunct hotel into condos and apparently a sports bar and some retail. Good project in my book. Keep some of the old, don’t displace anyone, create some employment opportunities, it is all good. If I had the dough I’d buy into the Triangle, to be sure, or the Mecca project. Some of the conversions, formerly commercial structures, into condos are interesting. I tend to think they are fairly benign in terms of impacting people other that those that may have lost jobs when the building went from commercial to residential. The conversion of the Old City Hall is a great project, out of my league in terms of cost, but I like what they have planned to a great extent. 600k for a 1200 square foot one bed room with a view of the colonial apartments has got to be insane, but I’m sure they will sell it. I hated to see the Walker and the Ansonia go condo but I think they will be good additions to the condo landscape. The Marcato is an abomination, it’s greatest selling feature is apparently its state of the art moisture detection system, very sexy, I must say. I’m sure that some of the soon to be shut down schools will end up as condos and I think they will be good additions to the landscape. The big enchilada I’m waiting for is for the city to sell the Medical Arts (Municipal) Building to some developer to convert into condos. You know it will happen, it is just a question of when. I’ve got nothing against condos, I’m primarily an urbanite. I see the value of ownership in a neighborhood even if the neighborhood is comprised primarily of flats. I do want to see lower income people provided for, I want to see diversity in my neighborhoods. I like mixed use. I like public parks and green spaces. I like street life, night life, and the good life. I want it all, to be sure, but I want all to be able to share in it. I’m a terrible person.

A little reality check for the condo-crazed. In order to reasonably afford a $300K mortgage you need to be pulling in $100K annually. A $500K mortgage would require a significantly higher salary.

Where are all these wealthy folks who are clamoring to live in Tacoma condos?

If anyone takes a look at the apartment building on South 7th and Yakima (at the Yakima/I Street transition) that building and the one we are talking about here have a lot of similar features. So maybe it is a bit taller (fyi new 2 story houses are usually taller now then they were in 1908)then the home next door but it still fits in.

This building reminds me of Kent.

For the record, I’d have put some extremely contemporary, sleek-lined building there, so it didn’t appear as though it was ‘trying’ to even look quasi-Victorian.

And Mr. Sepulveda , those can be built economically…for those readers who may think we’re all architectural snobs.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house for his first wife. It was between two Victorians. When asked why he would build a house like his between two Victorias he replied “because they wouldn’t tear them down”. He goes on to say that the views inside the house are designed so that you don’t see the Victorians. There are a lot of places I would consider spending 479k on long before I considered this development. I really feel sorry for the neighbors that have to look at this abomination on a daily basis.