Oct 1 2009
Some residents of a new condominium building in York will be able to open glass doors from their bedrooms and step outside to look across the city rooftops.
Four units at the top of 30 SoHo, a complex at 30 S. Howard St. being developed by Kansagra Real Estate, feature upstairs bedrooms with rooftop decks. Adding the new fourth level to the building was one of the ways the project tried to bring new life to an old factory building.
"We like doing the adaptive reuse of old warehouse buildings in town," said Bob Mock, project manager with SAA Architects. "It's good to see that people are considering other uses for these old buildings."
Two model units in the building are finished, and the rest are nearly complete, said Gerry Michaels, sales manager for the project with Community Benefits Real Estate. Some details, such as kitchen cabinets and countertops, are left unfinished because the buyers get to choose the items.
He began showing the units to prospective buyers about two weeks ago.
The building has 13 units with 11 different floor plans -- partly by design, and partly because it was necessary.
"When (you) deal with existing buildings . . . you're limited by the structure already existing," Mock said.
It requires more work, but "each condo owner will have a more unique home," Mock said. "Each one has its own character and style."
Throughout the building, which has 85 windows, there was an effort to allow as much natural light in as possible, Michaels said.
In some of the lower two-floor units, bedrooms are on the basement level of the building, meaning no windows. But walls made of an acrylic called LUMAsite, a translucent material, aim to bring natural light downstairs. The material was used in several other places in the condos.
Mock and Michaels said great efforts were made to pay attention to noise abatement. For example, the floors are heavily insulated so that someone downstairs won't hear someone upstairs walking around.
The $2.3 million project was originally supposed to be done in the fall of 2008, but there were some delays, Michaels said. For example, unexpected rain came inside the building when the roof was opened to prepare for the addition of the top floor, causing a wait while everything dried.
"I think the year delay actually helped us," Michaels said, referring to the housing market. But while the market has been unsteady, he said, urban residences have remained fairly constant.
The SoHo units on the lower floors will be sold in the $200,000 range, and the upper units will be in the neighborhood of $350,000, Michaels said.
"Being that there are only 13, I think we can sell them," he said. "There's really nothing else here like it. . . . It's as fancy as it's going to get."
Kevin Schreiber, the city's economic development director and Redevelopment Authority coordinator, said the city is happy that the project will bring more residential owners downtown.
Source: http://www.saaarchitects.com/