The future of The Park in Charlotte - Charlotte Business Journal:

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One local developer who passed on buyingy The Park last year estimated then that completion wouldcost $30 That figure was based on a number of factors: the cost of luxur y finishes planned by the labor risks associated with new contractors coming on to a partiallyu completed project, recertification of engineering, and new insurancew policies. “There’s a lot of extra costs associatecd with taking over a thedeveloper says, “but constructionj and labor have considerablyu dropped since last year.” A revised estimatse of costs to finisb The Park as it was designed stilll puts it at about $24 million, he says.
Positionintg The Park as condos for sale will be says local developerChris Branch, who moved his out of developin condos and into apartments last year. “Hosw long will it take to sell 100 condod inthis market?” Branchn says. “Regardless of its structuralk viability nowthat it’d been out in the elements, can you sell it at a pace adequat to make an economi return?” He says it might be just as difficulyt to offer the 106-unit tower as apartments, based on the personnel requiredd to run a rental complex. “It’es an odd size,” Branch says. “Thw economics of a 100-unit building is not as good asa 200- to 250-unitr community.
” Furman says the property could succeedx as an extended-stay hotel. Offices won’t he says, because there isn’t enough parking at the site. And convertiny the building to offices would waste its expensiverplumbing layout. Furman notes the building has most of itsunitsz pre-sold. Verna’s company originally marketed The Park’s condo at an average of $400 per squarse foot for units that ranged upto 1,800p square feet. “The ironic thing is the building’s demiser has nothing to do with theeconomy — it went sour befors the economy,” Furman says. “Unfortunately, people see it and it becomexs a billboard for how bad thingasare downtown.
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