Well, that project is now complete and stabilized, and it turns out that it was the first CLT apartment building ever built in NYC, which is quite an accomplishment.
On her blog, Joanne describes the project as being a "labor of love", and that certainly sounds right. But they are now also onto their next CLT apartment building at 122 Waverly Avenue (called
Well, that project is now complete and stabilized, and it turns out that it was the first CLT apartment building ever built in NYC, which is quite an accomplishment.
On her blog, Joanne describes the project as being a "labor of love", and that certainly sounds right. But they are now also onto their next CLT apartment building at 122 Waverly Avenue (called
Frame 122
).
This would suggest that whatever their development model is, it is working for them. My assumption is that they want to both make our cities more sustainable and own high-quality rental assets for the long-term (possibly forever).
If you'd like to see how 122 Waverly was assembled, here's a short video that Joanne recently posted on her blog:
The most expensive home in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood is currently under contract and is expected to close in the next few months (at least according to the WSJ). It is a 4,270 square-foot penthouse, with a 500 square-foot terrace, that occupies the full top floor of Olympia Dumbo.
The asking price / contract price is $17.5 million, which works out to be about USD 4,098 per square foot (or CAD 5,486 per square foot based on the exchange rate right now). Based on this price per pound, an equivalent 600 square foot suite would cost you about CAD $3.3 million.
The land was purchased in 2018 for about $98 million. I don't know what the total GFA of the building is, but it does have 76 residences, so that works out to about USD 1,289,473 per suite (or CAD 1,726,624 per suite), for the land cost alone.
This should give you an indication of what the end suite pricing would need to be to make this development feasible, and likely also speaks to its average suite size. New York City tends to build much bigger suites. Certainly compared to here in Toronto.
This would suggest that whatever their development model is, it is working for them. My assumption is that they want to both make our cities more sustainable and own high-quality rental assets for the long-term (possibly forever).
If you'd like to see how 122 Waverly was assembled, here's a short video that Joanne recently posted on her blog:
The most expensive home in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood is currently under contract and is expected to close in the next few months (at least according to the WSJ). It is a 4,270 square-foot penthouse, with a 500 square-foot terrace, that occupies the full top floor of Olympia Dumbo.
The asking price / contract price is $17.5 million, which works out to be about USD 4,098 per square foot (or CAD 5,486 per square foot based on the exchange rate right now). Based on this price per pound, an equivalent 600 square foot suite would cost you about CAD $3.3 million.
The land was purchased in 2018 for about $98 million. I don't know what the total GFA of the building is, but it does have 76 residences, so that works out to about USD 1,289,473 per suite (or CAD 1,726,624 per suite), for the land cost alone.
This should give you an indication of what the end suite pricing would need to be to make this development feasible, and likely also speaks to its average suite size. New York City tends to build much bigger suites. Certainly compared to here in Toronto.
I have always found structural engineering fascinating. Structures, along with physics, were some of my favorite classes from high school all the way to grad school. So even though I don't think my personality is ideally suited to engineering, if I were ever to become an engineer, I'm fairly certain that I would need to be a structural one.
For this project the big structural challenge was the large cantilevers that you see above in the tower on the left. As I understand it, there a number of ways to deal with this. One way would be to just design large transfer slabs and/or beams. But given the size of this tower, these would end up being very deep, and so you'd be really compromising the spaces where these structural transfers occur.
How they actually dealt with it is through sloping columns (which you can see in the above photo if you look closely). What these columns do is gradually transfer the loads across multiple floors in the building, until they reach structure that runs all the way down the tower.
At the same time, the spaces underneath the sloping columns are essentially "hung" from above. Meaning the columns are in tension, instead of being in compression, which is typically how columns work. The result is that you get some sloping columns in the suites. But I think that's kind of cool. If you're nerdy enough to care, it tells you how the structure of the building is working.
Obvious disclaimer: I am not a structural engineer. You probably want to consult one if you're looking to do a cantilevered tower with sloping columns.
I have always found structural engineering fascinating. Structures, along with physics, were some of my favorite classes from high school all the way to grad school. So even though I don't think my personality is ideally suited to engineering, if I were ever to become an engineer, I'm fairly certain that I would need to be a structural one.
For this project the big structural challenge was the large cantilevers that you see above in the tower on the left. As I understand it, there a number of ways to deal with this. One way would be to just design large transfer slabs and/or beams. But given the size of this tower, these would end up being very deep, and so you'd be really compromising the spaces where these structural transfers occur.
How they actually dealt with it is through sloping columns (which you can see in the above photo if you look closely). What these columns do is gradually transfer the loads across multiple floors in the building, until they reach structure that runs all the way down the tower.
At the same time, the spaces underneath the sloping columns are essentially "hung" from above. Meaning the columns are in tension, instead of being in compression, which is typically how columns work. The result is that you get some sloping columns in the suites. But I think that's kind of cool. If you're nerdy enough to care, it tells you how the structure of the building is working.
Obvious disclaimer: I am not a structural engineer. You probably want to consult one if you're looking to do a cantilevered tower with sloping columns.
