hotshoe

I don't think buyers are showing up any more to down "high octane" drinks prior to making $500k plus condo investments. That sounds so 2005.

Does Novare have any tenants for the office space yet ?

There was a series of good articles in the WSJ today under the Property Report section. One titled "Buckhead Bust" predicts that this submarket may have 2 years of condo inventory to absorb and possibly a multiple of that in the class a office market when the towers underway are completed.

Did Luxe ever start ? It looks like a great project but the website seems a little dated given the last press update was almost a year ago. I'm also curious about the status of Trump's project. I had heard it was going to be two residential towers but that sales and financing were slow so they replaced one of the residential towers with a hotel but the hotel talk was just what I heard from bankers and architects. Anybody know anything more official that they can share ?

While in Atlanta a few weeks ago on business I was blown away by all the new towers under construction in Buckhead. Atlanta has had a long history of constructing beautiful office towers and several nice condos but 5 or 6 years ago there seemed to be a move toward cheap cookie cutter condo towers. FWIW, I really liked Novare and Wood Partners first project, Metropolis and I even thought Eclipse in Buckhead was kind of cool and unique in it's own way. But Spire, Realm and all the copycat Twelve projects are really not very attractive to me. Similar versions of these towers (some almost indistinguishable from Spire) have now popped up all over the southeast. Personally, I hope this fad of architecture has run its course so we can ge back to towers being designed more thoughtfully relative to their surroundings. Again, Buckhead seems to be well on it's way with Mansion and some of the others now being built. I am curious though how sales in these ultra luxury towers are holding up under what has become a tough housing market. Can anyone shed some light or direct me to an article or publication that has summarized all this ?

^ BofA and Wachovia just announced prospective layoffs and the worst write-downs/earnings reports they've ever had. Isn't this probably "big and drastic" in a negative way to the extent that these two firms are the primary drivers of the downtown Charlotte office market ?

From what I gather Novare has had major fallout in terms of buyers defaulting on contracts in other markets so I would expect them to be quite cautious about starting Twelve until they are sure that Cataylst is off to a good start as it relates to sales. As it stands I doubt they consider themselves completely out of the woods on Avenue. And of course, if they struggle getting Avenue closed out that will probably lead to a sluggish start on Catalyst. Again, if Avenue has significant inventory available between Novare's units and those of flippers it will be likely to put pressure on Cataylst. And that would, of course, would put even more pressure on sales/pricing for Twelve. A few months ago the CBJ suggested there ws 28 or 29 months of condo inventory on the market. This conclusion might be debatable but I think the extent to which the market absorbs Trademark and Avenue will speak volumes about how much more condo inventory will be successfully absorbed in the next 9 to 18 months. If the developers of these projects take back too many units and this inventory combined with that of investors looking to flip is significant I think we'll be likely to see some extended softness in the downtown condo market. On the other hand, if most of these units get swallowed up by folks that immediately turn on the lights then I think we'll know that we're at least unlikely to see problems until the next wave of big project closings/completions.

Thanks. I did some digging on my own their websites below and it seemed like Viridian and Encore are very cookie cutter versions of what Novare has done all over the place. Did Giaratanna really have much control over the development process or did he just share some ownership ? He seems to have partnered with other experienced developers on most everything on his website. The scope of Signature is as ambitious as almost any in the country right now. Assuming Novare isn't involved with it what does Giaratanna have on his resume without co-developers that would suggest he's capable of pulling such a big project off on his own ? I don't intend the questions to necessarily be critical I'm just curious about his background in light of all the questions about how viable this project really is ? http://www.giarratana.com http://www.novaregroup.com/

Sorry, I thought Novare had developed the Veridian and the other project in Nashville that is similar to the Avenue here in Charlotte. Am I mistaken ?

That might need to be 2012. A friend of mine in Nashville's Brassfield & Gorrie office who has seen the construction drawings told me they think it will take 4 years to build it as designed. He said this was one of the reasons they declined to price the project. The developer waqs apparently wanting them to do it in 3.

Anyone know the status of sales in the condo tower ?

^ To my point in the first paragragh above, I think these are the logical outcomes from the banks hardest hit by this credit mess. Let's hope we don't start hearing about cuts like this from BOA and Wachovia. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071126/citigroup.html Sorry this is somewhat off-topic but I think it's responsive to some of the earlier questions and discussion on this thread.

I'm not very active in Atlanta but I thought some of you might be interested in this article since it mentions the Trump Atlanta project. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1195178673...;s_Most_Popular

I am hearing that to be the case in some markets but I wouln't expect to see much af that in Charlotte given the new supply already in the pipeline. I think Charlotte is like 3rd in the country behind only NYC and San Fran with over 3 million SF under construction. Obviously, most of this has been driven by the banks and the firms serving them. But given the billion dollar write-offs we keep reading about and the uncertainty about more one has to wonder whether all the new space is still as needed as it was before all the credit problems surfaced only a few months ago. Also, last Friday this article ran in the WSJ about Trump's condo projects running into problems. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1195178673...;s_Most_Popular There was quite a bit of discussion about how important it is for him to disclose the exact nature of his involvment (license or controlling equity owner). The article quotes some peeved buyers who say that this role wasn't fully disclosed on the front end when they were putting donw deposits. Trump now says he couldn't be expected to solve solvable construction problems when he was only selling his name. My take on the article and the state of the market is that there will be far fewer license deals in Trumps future and he seems to have his hands full with the big projects he has control over. This article seems consistent with what I'm hearing about low expectations for new projects in 2008.

I regularly deal with bankers and some developers that are active with large projects throughout the southeast. Here is what I am hearing lately: 2008 is basically going to be a year of caution for most of the major players with most if not all large ambitious projects cancelled or at least shelved where that is posible. There seems to be a consensus that it's now time to move from condos to either the sidelines or to student housing or apartments in markets where these projects can be successful. Of course, some developers like Trump don't have those other disciplines in their shop so I'm told that the most likely thing to see out of them will be little or nothing in 2008 as everyones waits for the dust to settle on the economy as well as the seperate but interrelated credit and housing markets. Of course, this is a general outlook for the overall southeast market (not FL) so there are certainly exceptons to be made and varying degrees to how this projection will relate to different markets. However, I'm told that the "2nd tier markets are different (better) than the coast" argument is losing steam as evidence of softness is now showing up just about everywhere. The credit crunch seems to be mostly to blame for this. Despite this outlook my personal view is that we're still going to see some starts here and there but it sounds like most in the development and banking community are not chomping at the bit to surf what some think might be the last wave for a while in this business. FWIW, the last lender I talked to thought Novare deftly caught the "last wave" with Avenue and was quite puzzled about the prudence of starting Catylist. Of course, he's a banker not a developer and may be looking at things too conservatively. In any event, I thought those perspectives were relevant to some of the discussion on this thread.