urbanMSP

"Because it looks over the lake and is historical and classy." I thought David was asking why someone would pay that much to live in Elan, not the Beach Club.

He was. Then the subject changed per usual with these conversations.. I don't know why I keep commenting on them

20141115_151115 by fotoapparatic, on Flickr

I took a pic of the townhomes on the way to the happy hour the other day. There is a lot going on with the outside but I'd be curious to see the inside. I like the walk-up design.

Elan west block townhouses 1-22-15 by bapster2006, on Flickr

I saw that photo! In person! On a tiny phone screen!

They're no Brooklyn brownstones or SF painted ladies, but they're about as close as we're going to get in 2015 America. I'll take it. The bigger downer to me is that units like this are tough to build unless they're part of a larger project - assembling 4-6 lots of SFHs is tough enough, and I'm guessing it just doesn't pencil out to get a very small net increase in units.

^Brownstones they definitely are not, but they're still relatively handsome, and I imagine with some landscaping they'll look quite nice.

On the second one in from the right, there seem to be 2 little steps off to the left. Where do those go?

Emergency exit from parking below?

Maybe, my understanding was that each of these had individual two stall garages which would be at ground level.

EDIT: according to the floor plans, that seems to be correct.

http://www.elanuptown.com/floorplans-phase2

FYI, you have to click on the Townhome plans on the bottomn right, I almost missed it and was very confused as to why I was looking at a Studio plan.

They're no Brooklyn brownstones or SF painted ladies, but they're about as close as we're going to get in 2015 America. I'll take it. The bigger downer to me is that units like this are tough to build unless they're part of a larger project - assembling 4-6 lots of SFHs is tough enough, and I'm guessing it just doesn't pencil out to get a very small net increase in units.

I feel the same way and wondered the same thing. They do have projects like these in places like Chicago that are mostly infill and they look alright. I don't know what it takes to make something like that work on a much smaller scale.

On the second one in from the right, there seem to be 2 little steps off to the left. Where do those go?

If these are anything like my parents place in Chicago, those are part of a "gangway" or whatever they're called where you can store ur garbage and recyclables in a spot that can be accessed by waste removal. In my parents example they lived on the ground level of a multi-unit brownstone, and that area was shared amongst all three tenants on that side of the building to store trash and also access the back of the building in their case. They also didn't have an alley or anywhere in front to store garbage due to the layout of the building, which took up 99% of the developable plot of land.

My guess is that trash will go behind the units where's there a lot of asphalt for cars.

They're no Brooklyn brownstones or SF painted ladies, but they're about as close as we're going to get in 2015 America. I'll take it.

Much better than what could be: http://www.seattlepi.com/realestate/art ... to-6372457

Amazing, just goes to show that there's no law that can't be followed to the letter without totally ignoring the spirit of it.

I came across this double blog post a while back on why Seattle's townhouses look so terrible" http://seattleurbanism.blogspot.com/200 ... round.html
http://seattleurbanism.blogspot.com/200 ... oblem.html

Doesn't necessarily address the problems discussed in that, but it explains how we get such terrible looking stuff taking advantage of loopholes (which says to me the demand is greater than what the code allows which is why they go for the extra space).

I thought developers max out their parcels moreso to cover the fixed and variable overhead costs of the development, such as land and labor, respectfully.

This one is pretty bad: http://lh6.ggpht.com/_vLzN7pzTSgQ/SspH5 ... owner5.jpg

^For some reason, that immediately made me think of the house in that "Up" movie.

http://hookedonhouses.net/wp-content/up ... -fence.jpg