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You're brilliant. You just may have come up with the idea that saves these developments.

Forget canoe, kayaking is the new yuppie rage. You can sell these units by telling potential buyers of the great Kayaking opportunities available right outside their door.

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Look for the big ad space bought by the developer in the RE section, thats how they pay for puff pieces.

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This woman is always writing real estate puff-pieces... She's written at least 2 about Dixon Mills. I wonder how much the realtors/developers pay her (or pay the NY Times).

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It must be my browser on my cramped monitor then!

As that famous person used to say:

Never Mind

Bright

I think there is ALWAYS 25 threads on the home page regardless of number of heading lines.

And I think it is a 3 line heading max also....

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Hey GP, please try to limit your subject headings to only take up 3 lines as your 5 line subject head drives other post topics off the front page.

"NYT: Hoboken High-End Amenities, Lesser Location"

TIA

Are you sure it is below sea level? Because then the tracks would also be close to or be below sea level.

i walk past these areas all the time b/c i live in the heights and take the elevator into hoboken. when we bought 2 years ago, one of the condo projects had just finished. there's still numerous empty ones 2 years later, but yet this past year 2 more block size projects have started. I don't understand who's buying them, and i really don't believe all the hype "20 have been sold, ect".

i think anyone who knows anything about this area would have second thoughts. I'm not talking about the projects, i'm talking about it being a swamp land everytime it rains.

Word to the wise, if you do buy, you should add in a canoe w/ the closing costs.

in the 80s and early 90s my dad worked as a mechanic in a machine shop on jackson st. it was an awful area then and it's still an awful area now. a couple years ago the owner of the machine shop was offered a few mil for the land so he sold it and now you've got these fancy new condos built on top of land that has had hundreds of gallons of oil and numerous other chemicals dumped into over the years. not to mention the fact that it floods down there almost every time it rains since it's below sea level. lol @ anyone stupid enough to buy there.

First rule in real estate: location!!!

High-End Amenities, Lesser Location

The New York Times
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: July 8, 2007

THERE is no hiding the fact that TreeTop Development’s two new condominium buildings are directly across Jackson Street from this city’s public housing projects, and the developers say they are not trying to hide it.

“It’s a part of life,” said Adam Mermelstein, a principal of TreeTop, which is based in Manhattan. “People in New York live in beautiful buildings right next to housing projects and think nothing of it.”

Mr. Mermelstein and his partner, Azi Mandel, say they see Hoboken and adjacent Jersey City as being like Brooklyn, where rapid redevelopment often generates odd juxtapositions of housing types, and the character of neighborhoods may shift block by block.

“We like to fill in the gaps and work at the edges of the most desirable neighborhoods,” Mr. Mermelstein said. “What we’ve done with several projects in Brooklyn, and what we’re doing here, is to create exciting, high-quality buildings that are affordable because of being in somewhat lesser locations.”

The midrise Hoboken projects are strung along a three-block stretch of Jackson Street between Third and Sixth Streets in a neighborhood between two redevelopment areas.

The neighborhood has the highest crime rate of any in Hoboken, according to the police, and early last year, a man was shot to death after a dispute between two groups on Hoboken Housing Authority property.

Immediately north of the projects, on Jackson between Seventh and Eighth Streets, the high-end Velocity complex, a 24-hour-concierge building, is being actively marketed to “luxury buyers” — starting with an auction last month to spark sales. Velocity’s developer, the Remi Companies, pitched the auction as an attention-getting tactic, designed to recoup momentum after construction delays forced cancellation of dozens of sales contracts signed last year.

But other developers have persistently murmured that the original asking prices at the 128-unit Velocity may have been too high, given its proximity to the projects. One-bedroom units were initially priced from the low $500,000s; two-bedroom units were priced at $600,000 to $700,000, and some three-bedroom units had asking prices exceeding $900,000.

At the auction, nine one-bedroom units went for prices in the low $400,000s, but Remi cut short the proceedings after selling two two-bedroom units in the low $500,000s. The company said it had made 20 sales since the auction.

One block farther north, next to the Ninth Street light rail station, which connects to PATH trains to Manhattan, a 113-unit high-rise condo called Metrostop is starting to take shape — and is said to be 35 percent sold. Preconstruction prices for one- and two-bedroom units and duplex penthouses at the building, being developed by Metro Homes, run from the low $400,000s to more than $1 million.

TreeTop’s two, somewhat smaller, buildings, situated between Fifth and Sixth Streets on Jackson, will offer a total of 33 one- and two-bedroom condos with large, unusually shaped rooms and, in some cases, floor-to-ceiling windows, at prices from $375,000 to the high $500,000s. Eleven units have already been sold.

The TreeTop buildings are called Ariel Square and the Emsee. They are being built on the site of former eyesores — a long-vacant grocery store and an old wood-frame apartment house — and they are situated among other deteriorated buildings, some of them for sale.

The new residences are equipped with closed-circuit television monitors connected to the entry door and buzz-in service for guests.

Ariel Square, an L-shaped structure, is set at the corner of Fifth Street and Jackson; it will open for occupancy in late summer, according to Mr. Mermelstein. A veteran Hoboken architect, Dean Marchetto, who designed Metrostop and other residential structures here in the last 20 years, designed the building.

The facade is traditional — brick and concrete with bay windows — but has modern aluminum accents.

Ariel Square, with 21 units, has three residential floors over 20 enclosed parking spaces and a private gym. The building has a rear courtyard with a patio. One- and two-bedroom layouts provide 750 to 1,292 square feet of living space.

The Emsee, which also has garage parking and a courtyard, was designed by Studio One Architects of Hoboken. Its layouts provide 711 to 1,510 square feet. Most units at the Emsee have small balconies, and each top-floor unit has 224 square feet of walk-out rooftop space.

Interiors at Ariel Square and the 12-unit Emsee are modern and “cutting edge for Hoboken,” Mr. Mermelstein said, although TreeTop has employed similar designs in Brooklyn.

A model unit at Ariel Square has wraparound floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook a recently spiffed-up ball field on Housing Authority property and the brick plaza entrance to the projects, where a fountain is to be installed this summer.

The condos have bamboo hardwood floors, central air, contemporary tiled bathrooms and kitchens with stainless steel appliances, coffee-colored cabinets and white countertops made of CaesarStone, an engineered quartz composite.

The development is being marketed by the Developers Group of Brooklyn.