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April 25, 2007
'Either-Or' Apartment Projects
Reality Times
By Lew Sichelman
It doesn't rank as "doing a Ratner," but this article has another member of the Ratner family speaking frankly about market forces:
"We're not smart enough to figure out what the market will be next year, let alone four years from now," said Ronald Ratner, who heads Forest City's residential division, which builds mainly urban properties with as many as 6,000 units.
The article explains how developers are waiting before declaring whether or not the units they are building will be condos or apartments:
With the glut of unsold condominiums on the market, and the extended period it takes to win approvals and develop multi-family projects, more and more builders are waiting until the last possible moment to declare their properties a rental or a condo.
In most places, it's legal to go through the approval process without informing the zoning board which way the property will turn out.
NoLandGrab: In Brooklyn, Bruce Ratner has hedged his bets with Atlantic Yards by submitting two versions of the master plan. In the "Commercial Mixed-Use Variation" more than one-million square feet of residential space would be office space instead.
Posted by lumi at April 25, 2007 11:30 PM