The scaffolding came down. Much of the interior renovation seems to have been completed. Psychologically, Parkside Avenue feels free. I asked Vince, the disturbed but sweet bearded guy who always hangs out sitting on a milk carton under the protection of the scaffold, what he thought. He said it was good. Unless it started raining.
3 comments:
Now that it's free to rock, how do you expect it to screw the bock?
how many commercial spaces are there going to be on the ground level? any word on what might go in there?
If you're new to the 205 Parkside saga and hotsheet hotel operator Moses Fried's plans for the building, you can start here with this post from 2010:
http://theqatparkside.blogspot.com/2010/10/its-official-were-fckd.html
The short-long story is: he was able to get permits to build an SRO building, individual studio apartments, which he will run as an extended-stay hotel. He and grandson David Tepper are under the impression that this will be a better business strategy than just renovating the apartments and leasing to commercial tenants, like most mixed-use zoned buildings would. The Q's suspicion is, however, that what he really hopes to do is lease the entire building to social services clients, who will pay top dollar (through government contracts) for special needs populations, just like he's done with two buildings on Woodruff. THAT is a fantastically lucrative business model - there's a building on my block for instance that's run as a "scattersite" homeless shelter. By playing the good Samaritan, a landlord can continue to do nothing to his building and rake in enormous profits. If Fried had a different history (i.e. not running drug-infested brothels), I'd probably be much more positive on the whole thing. At this point, all we can do is wait and watch.
Post a Comment