Goings On
Wow. Haven’t posted in a while. Busy. Actually, I’m trying to put together a $5 million construction project. Here in the Bay Area–Sunnyvale, in particular–that’s six townhouses on a 12,000 square foot lot. I’ve got the land under contract for $1.2 million and have been working on putting a financing package together for the cost of construction.
Met the architect, yesterday. I swear to God: it’s the coolest office I’ve ever seen. It’s on the 7th floor of a glass building in Burlingame, CA. Corner suite. About 400 square feet. Floor to ceiling glass. Overlooks the entire bay, as well as being just adjacent to the southeastern jetty of SFO so you can sit there watching 747-400s taking off and landing, marveling at where in the world they’re coming from and going to. See what I mean by clicking right HERE (you’ll want to close that balloon that pops up). This is an office I’m quite certain Howard Roark would have been proud of.
Now I’m off to pick up my Winchester Mod 94.
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Free The Animal is an eclectic writing project about everything since November 2003. 23 years, 5,500 posts, 5 million words.
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Wow, packin' em in tight! My house is on 10K sf of land, I can't imagine six houses, town or otherwise, on only 20% more land. I mean, I can imagine it, but jeez, I'd hate to live like that, especially at $1M+ for the house. Some people just like the urban thing, I guess.
You evil capitalist landlord! You should give people a "livable" space!
The units will go for about $5 mil total, so that's the project value. So far, the budgeting renders a land and construction cost of somewhere between $3.5 and 4 mil. So, obviously, it's worth doing.
We moved from a 4 BR house with a 2 car garage with a wonderful backyard to a small loft townhouse. We love it. There are tradeoffs, but the absence of yard maintenance combined with the pleasure of having a small community of smart people outweighs it, for us. Everybody's mileage will vary, of course.
In essence, around here, what's happening is that because land is so expensive, you pack them in tight, and in exchange for the lack of land, you get luxury in the form of gourmet kitchens, large bathrooms and stuff, with granite and hardwood throughout.