Posted on 04/26/2014 11:21:33 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
It would be hard to confuse Minneapolis for Manhattan, but the Nic on Fifth might make it possible.
The Nic on Fifth is new 26-story apartment building that sits smack on a light-rail stop and boasts amenities like a pool deck and a private dog park. From the top floor you can see miles of the Mississippi river and the field where the Minnesota Twins play.
When the building opens in August, it will be one of two new rental towers that are stretching this city's skyline and—with monthly rents ranging from $1,450 for a studio to $9,000 for a penthouse—charging prices rarely seen in the Twin Cities.
Minneapolis isn't the only place building upward. While the U.S. housing market as a whole may still be creeping back from recession, downtowns around the country are seeing a veritable boom in high-rise apartment buildings.
This year, 74 rental towers are on pace to be completed, and there are 81 on the books for 2015—the highest number since at least the 1970s, according to Axiometrics, a Dallas apartment-research firm that defines a tower as 15 stories or more. At the same time, strong apartment rents and sluggish demand for office space have resulted in some high-rise buildings being converted to apartments.
Overall, the growth has been largest in denser and pricier markets like San Francisco, New York and Chicago. But in percentage terms, the increase has been most dramatic in smaller cities like Minneapolis, which is building apartments, including high-rise apartment buildings, at the fastest pace in decades.
In Austin, the seven apartment towers that will be completed between 2013 and 2015 compares with four from 2005 to 2012, according to Axiometrics. Houston has eight apartment towers set to be completed in 2014 and 2015, compared with six from 2005 to 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I’ll keep the rural life I was born into-it is hard at times, trashy by city standards, and you do have to drive your 4X4 to the grocery store, and provide your own protection-just about anything else can be ordered online, or by phone.
But it is cheaper, the air is clean and after dark there are the sounds of donkeys, coyotes, owls, and the occasional dog instead of sirens...
No matter how elegant and convenient the condo/apt/flat, even if I could afford those prices, just the thought makes me claustrophobic-I’m not a bee or an ant-I’d run away screaming in a week or less...
If the Illuminati is really running the world, then why did they allow forced busing to happen? That was the biggest incentive for getting the middle class to move out of city centers in order so they could send their kids to neighborhood schools.
If some people are moving back toward city centers because the traffic is getting horrible or because they prefer a more urban lifestyle, and investors are willing to meet the demand by building highrises then so be it.
My grocery store didn't sell booze, but I never ran out. My takeout drivers would know to call me when on their way to ask if I needed any.
The pizza driver was so smart that he figured out that, when I called after midnight to order a pizza, I didn't want the pizza. ;)
And we have a lot going up all over in Houston. Ongoing battle between home owners in small, older single family dwellings living within the 610 Loop versus the City and high rise builders. Narrow side streets which currently have maybe 20 homes and 40 cars being replaced by thousands and thousands of high rise residents with thousands of cars. The mayor has to have all those tax dollars.
Drove from Houston to Pottsboro weekend before Thanksgiving last year on Highway 75. Lots of road construction. Thought I’d never get through Dallas and I thought Houston was bad. Won’t do that again.
Along 75 in Dallas, they are everywhere.....$1200 to $2500 for 900 square feet. Ugh.
Life in “The Hive”.
I used to like parking my car in the high-rises garage and the dry cleaners was right inside the door of the building. Pick up laundry, elevator to the 35th, and my work clothes are done for the week.
Tiny cubicals for environmental idiots!!!
Obviously there are Demand pressures which have caused a Supply of high rise condo towers in urban areas.
However, there are powers at work here that are far beyond Free Market factors.
For example, it is not uncommon for the developers of these condo towers to receive tax abatements from local governments. It is also not uncommon for HUD and other federal agencies to aid in the financing of these liberal urban condo towers.
It is extremely common to see cites invest transportation funds into public transit and urban roads and bicycle lanes and ignore the funding for expressways to and from central business districts and the suburbs.
And now they are even building HUD housing projects out in the suburbs not far from suburban schools, parks, Christian churches, Bed Bath and Beyond, Applebees, Chucky E Cheese and even fine department stores.
Expensive, vertically stacked, glorified closets in the sky with the concrete jungle down below. No danke.
It’s white people taking the cities back as blacks move to cheaper housing in the burbs...
“Until some liberal federal judge decides t o poor are being discriminated against and orders 20% of the apartments be rented to low income housing recipients. Then you’ll have a nice ghetto in the middle of your city.”
To get a development okayed locally you have to set aside 20% and charge “affordable” prices. I interviewed the developer of my last neighborhood and asked him why he didn’t build all high-end houses as they were all on one acre of woods in a great location. He said that because of the set-aside requirements he had to build several 1100 square foot houses, which limited the total size of the largest house to just 2,500 as nobody would buy a larger house in a neighborhood with 1100 square foot houses. (There just 44 total houses.) He said he had to pay roughly $1500 out of his own pocket to sell the small houses. The one $3,000 square foot house was on the market a long, long time.
Virtually all of the “problems” originated in those smaller “affordable” homes. It wasn’t caused by the owners, but by relatives or friends. One house had a guy staying who’d just got out of prison. He robbed several homes within walking distance, including the home next door where a high-ranked black deputy lived. (The deputy caught him and beat the cr*p out of him.)
Your first sentence says it all. Most people I know who have lived all of their lives in the suburbs put "comfort and safety" above all else -- including freedom and liberty. People who live in urban rat-holes often behave like caged animals, while people who live in the "comfort house pets that have gotten used to having someone feed them.
AGENDA 21
also urban centers are controlled by liberals. they wnat us in there to be under their rules and they want our money to pay for their stupid welfare and redistribution schemes.
A lot of condo buildings are going up in downtown Boston. Most of downtown used to close after 7pm. Now parts of the city that have been ghost-towns are becoming neighborhoods.
High-rise condo living is not for me. I live in an inner-suburb close to Boston that has a mix of city & suburban amenities. I have a small ranch house that fits my needs until I retire then I’m off to a semi-rural area to await the coming troubles....
That said, Obama would love to kill said oncoming recovery because he hates America and American business.
>They want to destroy the suburbs socially, politically and economically and that will draw the poor to the suburbs causing suburban areas to also go Democrat.
Yep. I look at the suburbs of Detroit, LA etc and they are filling with urban blight. They are more dangerous after dark than just about any city project highrises. There may be a day of reckoning before too long. Brass and blood will litter the hoods.
It's cyclical. These new apartment high rises in cities are great for construction profits and jobs, and for awhile they'll probably be quite successful. But what happens when those couples decide to get their kids out of the city? When there's over building and prices decline? When there's inevitable difficulty with crime? These new paradises will be in a decade or so the next subsidized housing.
>Expensive, vertically stacked, glorified closets in the sky with the concrete jungle down below.
And I’m guessing they will be no gun zones. Any renters caught with a firearm will be evicted or jailed.
And just which of the 8 colors (that we have “approved”) would you like to paint your house? Bear in mind it must not be in too sharp a contrast if you are within 50’ of “your” green space. LOL!
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