I was recently introduced to the work of Brenda Case Scheer – specifically a journal article she wrote called The Anatomy of Sprawl. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys geeking out about cities, this is for you. (Thank you Oliver.)

What she does in the article is break down the various components / layers of a city according to the rate in which they change. Her “spatio-temporal urban hierarchy” includes: site (slowest rate of change), superstructure, infill, buildings, and objects (fastest rate of change).

The way to think about this is that the bottom layers of a city – the paths and roads we have chosen to establish – are incredibly persistent. They don’t change all that often.

On the other hand, buildings do change. Old ones get demolished. New ones get built. There’s a cycle. They too probably feel pretty persistent in many cases, but in comparison to our roads, they change far more frequently.

The reason why all of this has bearing is because the paths we choose to carve out at the very beginning will ultimately dictate the kind of city that gets built and rebuilt over time.

The rectangular grid of Manhattan was planned out in 1811. Central Park was missing from this original plan, but it did establish the street network and ownership lots that are now so central to the identity of New York City. That was a 200+ year decision.

It seems to have worked out just fine for New York. But what if you’re in a position where the existing street network is viewed as failing and/or inappropriate for the future success of the city? 

Well that’s where things get interesting. Now you need to dig down to some of those base layers and work on changing the (frequently) unchangeable. 

Bjarke Ingels’ West 57th Street project in New York (developed by The Durst Organization) has just started renting apartments (March 1). 

Since I’m in the rental business, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at the rents – though I tend to obsess over all buildings and not just rental ones.

Firstly, the project has a total of 709 apartments and 178 different unit types because of the architectural variations in the building. Of these units, 142 of them (20%) have been designated as affordable and were offered up via a lottery to people who fall within certain incomes ranges. 

Here are the affordable rents via 6sqft.com:

I don’t know the exact numbers, but Curbed New York speculated – based on what was seen at other buildings on the west side – that the total number of applicants for these 142 units may have reached over 100,000!

For the market-rate units, the average monthly rents are as follows (via Curbed NY):

• Studio: $2,770
  

• One-bedroom: $3,880
  

• Two-bedroom: $6,500
  

• Three-bedroom: $11,000
  

• Four-bedroom: $16,500
  

I wasn’t able to find average unit sizes (to calculate per square foot rents), but I estimate the overall average unit size to be around 1,000 square feet. 

940,000 sf (total gross floor area) - 45,000 sf of retail x 0.80 efficiency (lower than average because of the shape of the building) / 709 units = approximately 1,000 sf of rentable area per unit. That’s just my rough guess based on what I could find online.

Based on the Curbed comment section though, there are certainly some smaller units:

If anyone has any additional figures, please share them in the comments below. I think there are a few subscribers to this blog who are involved in the project.

Image from via57west.com

Whenever you’re starting to feel like real estate prices in your city are getting out of hand, just turn your attention to New York. It’ll make you feel better.

The New York Times published an interactive overview of the Manhattan real estate market today. It was spurred on by the fact that the average residential sale price in Manhattan just hit $1.7 million (a new record) and that there’s a growing number of 8-figure apartments being bought up.

Last year half a dozen apartments sold for more than $50 million in the One57 tower at 157 West 57th Street. (The New York Times calls this building the “undisputed center of Manhattan residential extravagance.”)

Here’s one of their diagrams showing the number of residential sales over $10 million in 2009 and then in 2015:

And here’s another one of their diagrams showing the bottom and top 10% of the current market:

It’s interesting to see the clustering in certain areas and also the lack of clustering at the high end around the top of Central Park.