The long, bitter, star-studded campaign to derail the Sanitation Department's huge garbage truck garage planned for the increasingly glitzy Hudson Square area has been defeated. That can't sit well with the residents and prospective partiers of the Urban Glass House across the street, but there's no escape from the shakes. In New York this week, JhoRo reports that a group of brokers hired to sell units in the posh Spring Street building held a confab to trade war stories about their Herculean task:
Nearly a third of its 40 units were bought within weeks of its debut in 2005—and then sales stalled. Not one apartment has been resold in five years. (A sponsor unit is just now in contract.) Six have been on the market for months. Four have been marked down, from 6 to 17 percent, and nearly all are asking about the same price or below what they first fetched. A tenth-floor two-bedroom closed in 2006 for $2.469 million; today, it’s listed at $1.895 million and has been since September. Yikes! But fear not, because they have a plan!
The Tower o' Garbage is a "psychological barrier," one broker said, even if the garage will just be for parking and service and won't actually process trash. So how do they get buyers to break through that barrier? Easy, just show 'em the darn thing! Brokers are learning to love the despised neighborhood intruder, "arming themselves with renderings" and pitching the building as an aesthetic upgrade to the parking lot that's currently on the West Street (between Spring and Canal streets) site. At least someone was taking notes when a DSNY commissioner said the garage would "add value" to Hudson Square! But will buyers drink the Kool Aid? Depends: Was it made from powder harvested from discarded packets that fell off a garbage truck?
· Garbage In, Garbage Out [NYM]
· Tower O' Garbage coverage [Curbed]
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