The latest model of model home
Car owners regularly trade in last year's models for the latest ones. The same is true for owners of smartphones, and a host of other tech products.
Car owners regularly trade in last year's models for the latest ones.
The same is true for owners of smartphones, and a host of other tech products.
What about model homes? Do consumer tastes change as quickly when buying a new home or renting an apartment?
At Two Liberty Place, iStar Financial's senior vice president Cynthia Tucker has overseen efforts to create model condominium units that showcase what Philadelphia's high-end buyer is looking for in 2015.
Tucker is into details - from the choice of cabinetry by the Italian maker Snaidero to asking Rick Snyderman, co-owner with wife, Ruth, of the Snyderman Gallery in Old City, to furnish the models with work by Philadelphia artists, which he did with great enthusiasm.
What she has achieved, she said, is "something that is very warm and very cozy."
It's definitely not that 1990s office-building look that, over time, made Two Liberty enough of a tough sell that iStar - a $5.5 billion, publicly traded REIT based in New York City - ended up owning 73 units, much in the way it ended up with 10 Rittenhouse after foreclosing in 2011.
The 58-story, 1.2 million-square-foot Two Liberty at 50 S. 16th St. was completed in 1990 as a commercial building primarily.
The Residences at Two Liberty were carved from the upper floors in 2005 by American Capital Partners and the Falcone Group.
In 2012, iStar took title to the unsold units and raw space. It once considered turning Floors 48 through 57 into a boutique hotel, but eventually decided not to follow through with the plan.
Earlier this year, iStar partnered with Carl Dranoff to market and sell the remaining units.
Since February, 20 of the 73 units have been sold, said Marianne Harris, director of sales and marketing for Dranoff Properties, including the 57th floor, which is home to a single-floor unit.
Tucker hired Philadelphia architectural firm Cope Linder to develop plans not only for three models - one on the 54th-floor penthouse and two units on the 49th - but also for the remaining unfinished space and the South 16th Street lobby.
The lobby's new contemporary design will distinguish the Residences from the office complex.
"It has been a problem, telling one from the other," Tucker said.
"I interviewed other firms, but I believe employing a Philadelphia firm with Cope Linder's expertise was the right choice," Tucker said at a brokers' open house Sept. 16.
Cope Linder designed 1706 Rittenhouse Square Street, developer Tom Scannapieco's condominium high-rise.
1706 Rittenhouse accounted for more than 90 percent of the city's sales above $4 million between 2010 and late 2013, when the building sold out.
While 1706 Rittenhouse offered raw space, Tucker and Harris believe that most buyers want to see what they are buying, then pay for upgrades if they want them.
"It is difficult to visualize what raw space will look like when it is finished," Harris said, adding that, from her experience, "it is almost impossible to sell, especially to empty nesters who don't want to deal with construction."
In fact, while marketed as raw space for the last few years, even the three floors at the Rittenhouse Club at 10 Rittenhouse will likely be sold as finished space, although the plans are still being worked on.
Tentatively, though, the third floor will be one unit and the fourth and fifth floors combined as a single condominium.
What Two Liberty refers to as "Skyline" units are on Floors 48 through 53, while the penthouses are 54, 55, 56, and 57.
Cope Linder did two models on the 49th floor - one two-bedroom, the other three - and the one on the 54th floor.
The two Skylines are 1,040 and 1,763 square feet ($825,000 and $1.28 million, respectively) while 5401 is 2,662 square feet and $2.25 million, Harris said.
There are advantage to residential units starting out as offices, Tucker said.
"There's three feet of concrete between the floor of one unit and the ceiling of the one below," she said.
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