The Windows in the back (at least one set) are up. They look awesome.
I am thoughroughly impressed by their sales staff. Finalized my upgrades and was really surprised at the extreme patience shown by their reps through the various changes I made in the last 2 weeks.
bsharmastl wrote:The Ventana will have the Electric cart that Jacob Development groups was using. They are donating it to the Association once the buildiung is turned over. DISCLAIMER...This is what was said by their sales staff and I have no way to confirm it. I do not doubt their current intention of doing this.
Just curious what the electric cart is used for and what benefit does it add?
Jan now? Oh well. I was really hoping to have New Years there.
The electric cart is a 4-5 seater, which will be presented to the association. It will be up to us to determine the usage. We can either have it as a "rent as you use" vehicle, with the charges going towards maintenance, or can have an honour system of usage, with the maintenance coming out of the monthly fee. The most common usage would be to drop people off to games, work, etc.
bsharmastl wrote:The electric cart is a 4-5 seater, which will be presented to the association. It will be up to us to determine the usage. We can either have it as a "rent as you use" vehicle, with the charges going towards maintenance, or can have an honour system of usage, with the maintenance coming out of the monthly fee. The most common usage would be to drop people off to games, work, etc.
Just reading this post I thought - what a great idea! The only other development I've heard of employing this "car-share" program is the Syndicate. Why don't more loft associations DT do this? I could easily go from two to one car if we had this type of arrangement in our building. Perhaps a topic for our next condo meeting . . .
^I assume this vehicle is street legal? Does it have a license plate and tags? It is an interesting concept and I'll be interested to see how the Ventana sets this up and how practical it really is.
I was given a ride in it by Jill to the ballpark a couple of months back (and it is then she told me what Jacob's plans were). It did have a license plate number, but that is all I know. No clue about personal prop tax, what kind of license, etc.
I think an electric cart for share is a great idea too.
This gem car sounds like it might be a cool concept esp. as DT's population continues to increase. I'll be interested to see how many more of these are prominent in the area in the future.
I was downtown to meet some friends to watch the Cards game Sat. at Flannery's. It was choke full of people (watching the college football games more than the Cards game). Happy to see that the sports bars are doing good, and that big crowds are at least turning up for weekends.
Does anyone have any idea how the weekdays life is downtown nowadays? Just curious. Most of us on this list should be calling downtown "home" soon.
bsharmastl wrote:I was downtown to meet some friends to watch the Cards game Sat. at Flannery's. It was choke full of people (watching the college football games more than the Cards game). Happy to see that the sports bars are doing good, and that big crowds are at least turning up for weekends.
Does anyone have any idea how the weekdays life is downtown nowadays? Just curious. Most of us on this list should be calling downtown "home" soon.
What is the schedule for first closings at The Ventana?
It is December right now. Hope they can hand it over before New Year's. I am not sure if they are going to hand over all units at on go, or from the 9th floor down.
Glad to see the progress they have made. I actually looked at my unit on the 6th floor. Walls are up, and now it looks like a loft. The doorway is HUGE. Windows are beautiful.
Second floor is back on sale. Wonder how this will affect the completion, not to mention the monthly dues.
Does anyone know how the monthly dues process works with half the building occupied? Does everybody pitch in double, or do the builders, owning the rest of the dwellings, pay an equal amount?
Standard practice is for the builders to pay dues on unsold units. They "own" the units and therefor must pay the dues. They also get votes in the HOA with respect to the units they "own" However...check your contract...
Urban Elitist wrote:Standard practice is for the builders to pay dues on unsold units. They "own" the units and therefor must pay the dues. They also get votes in the HOA with respect to the units they "own" However...check your contract...
Thank for the info. I did not see any explanation in the contract, so hope that the standard defintion takes over.
I don't think that the associaion agreement has been drawn up yet either. Hopefully we will see that soon.
ChrisInDownTown wrote:What happened to the office tenant, for whom Jacob had created the mess in the first place?
I was told that the tenant signed up with someone else.
I have seen the other buildings that were offering lofts at a cheaper rate. They do not have half of the stuff (sound proofing, customizations, etc) that Jacob has tried to do. I for one, am impressed with their progress.
That said, I still feel the pinch, seeing that we close in 5 months.
After reading this thread I decided to take a look at the floor plans and I must say I was very impressed with the E and I units. Considering you would have to settle for the 2nd Floor to purchase either unit, I guess a lot of other people would agree.
I wonder if it makes sales harder when certain units are very popular and don't command a special premium. Does it make it harder to buy one of the other units? For example, I was surprised that the higher floors did not command more a premium.
When we purchase apartments normally this isn't so much of an issue because we dont' get to see the floorplans of every other unit in the building. We know some are higher and some are bigger and some have more windows, but we rarely know exactly what's inside. But with new construction we can judge each apartment against all the others.
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On a separate note, do any of you plan to rent your apartments once you close? Does the building have rules about that?
There was a premium for higher floors. I bought mine on the 6th floor, cause my floor plan on the 8th was 10K higher. Now I think 8th would have been SO much better
I am sure that the other units are harder to sell than the popular ones, but I think as the building comes closer to fruition, they should sell fast.
Personally, as long as I do not have to foot the bill for the HOA fees for the unsold units, it does not matter how much of the building is occupied on day 1.
^ My mistake regarding the premiums. Earlier on in this thread it sounded like they were only charging 1-2k more for each floor higher which I thought was a bargain. At 5k a floor that sounds more on the mark.
And while not having the building full as of day one may not make much of a difference to you in the short-term, I would think it would beneficial for resale purposes if the building was sold out. I mean, if you put your apartment up for sale and 20 other units in the building are available, I can't imagine it won't affect your selling price.
All that said, the building looks very impressive and as it nears completion you have to imagine more and more units will sell.
There are probably a lot of people out there who just aren't capable of buying something until they see it finished and know what it is they are getting. Ironically, I kind of prefer pre-construction since it gives you an opportunity to customize the unit to your liking. If you want to turn your loft into a maze and put up walls everywhere, damn it, you can do it!
I was looking at the area surrounding The Ventana on Google Earth and 1 block east and 1/2 block north I see two planes. At first I thought they were flying but now they look like they are attached to something in the parking lot. I also see what appears to be a school bus falling off a building. I swear I'm not on crack right now.
The building is between Washington and Delmar and not quite two blocks west of 14th.
Before I came upon the UFO, I was thinking how cool all these new buildings will look once the earth maps are updated. Thinking of all the roof top swimming pools, you don't see many in the area right now.
