The Avenue

[mshook]

We were walking through the new place yesterday and my girlfriend looked up at the ceiling and wanted to know if that was plywood or if it was cement painted to look like plywood. She's right the ceiling looks like Gray Plywood with wood knots and everything. You can see that the must have used plywood for the forms and not metal. Is this a normal practice. Can the ceiling be fixed or smoothed out at least.

[Miesian Corners]

Concrete towers are much much different than wood apartments, so I highly doubt there will be many sound complaints at Ave, but it is possible. I have lived in a concrete construction condo/apartment tower before and never heard any neighbors until they renovated the one above us and pulled out the jackhammer.

[atlrvr]

I was previously renting a place that had concrete between floors, but metal studs/drywall between units. It was never a big issue. Only one person on our floor was loud, (2 doors down) but we rarely heard them, and then, usually only when they had parties and their door was open. The unit between us probably heard more than we did, but overall, it should be fine. Something with loud bass probably shouldn't be sitting (or mounted to) a common wall with another unit, and preferable should be against the exterior wall.

With the concrete floors, we never heard anyone above us. We do know, but it's wood floors in a building from 1890, so it wasn't unexpected.

[avenue15]

From what I understand it is due to the limited availability of using a single law firm for the closings, schedules of staff for the walkthroughs, and scheduling of the freight elevator.

There has been an issue with Novare rescheduling dates and not contacting tenants with the new dates. If you are a future tenant you will want to make sure you stay on top of Novare.

Apparently walkthroughs are not going well at all and are holding up the process. People are showing up for their walkthrough and the units are not finished. Some walls have not been skimmed, corners cut, etc.

The ceilings have been a huge point of contention for many of the tenants. The resemble nothing of the exposed concrete ceilings of Cotton Mills and others who have done the same. I have seen several, and in my opinion they look absolutely horrible. I personally am going to request they be addressed by Novare. I will most likely have mine dry-walled and am going to ask that Novare help with the cost.

Please know that I am not trying to be negative - I am very excited about moving in. The common areas are unreal and the building is gorgeous. Just wanted folks to know what to expect so they are suprised.

I am not happy with my ceilings at all,I agree it looks absolutely horrible. I was wondering if you managed to reach a solution with the builders or elsewhere. I love the aprtment, even the exposed concrete beams look good, but the ceiling is depressing

[motopeepers]

I feel your pain.

I ended up settling with Novare to contribute $500 for the ceilings. I would encourage anyone else in the closing process to ask for the same.

I am using the Painting Pros here in Charlotte to redo my ceilings. They will grind the ceilings down, apply a layer of stucco, and then apply a skim coat to smooth the ceilings before painting them white. When finished they will look like a traditional ceiling. Total cost was $2800 and this included the ceilings, painting the entire unit, and removing the entry way desk.

I will be happy to show off the work when completed (Unit #3008.) Based on the process so far I would recommend them. Contact info below - please tell Mark I sent you his way if you end up speaking with them.

Mark Baker

The Painting Pros

704.424.5555 ext.112

[Charlotteman]

I feel your pain.

I ended up settling with Novare to contribute $500 for the ceilings. I would encourage anyone else in the closing process to ask for the same.

I am using the Painting Pros here in Charlotte to redo my ceilings. They will grind the ceilings down, apply a layer of stucco, and then apply a skim coat to smooth the ceilings before painting them white. When finished they will look like a traditional ceiling. Total cost was $2800 and this included the ceilings, painting the entire unit, and removing the entry way desk.

[motopeepers]

For those who have not seen the ceilings, I have attached a couple of pictures.

[avenue15]

For those who have not seen the ceilings, I have attached a couple of pictures.

[avenue15]

I feel your pain.

I ended up settling with Novare to contribute $500 for the ceilings. I would encourage anyone else in the closing process to ask for the same.

I am using the Painting Pros here in Charlotte to redo my ceilings. They will grind the ceilings down, apply a layer of stucco, and then apply a skim coat to smooth the ceilings before painting them white. When finished they will look like a traditional ceiling. Total cost was $2800 and this included the ceilings, painting the entire unit, and removing the entry way desk.

I will be happy to show off the work when completed (Unit #3008.) Based on the process so far I would recommend them. Contact info below - please tell Mark I sent you his way if you end up speaking with them.

Mark Baker

The Painting Pros

704.424.5555 ext.112

[Xss]

Those ceilings are simply horrible, I can't understand how they dare to sell units with ceilings like those. For me that is a "job not finished": if I was living there I would ask Novare to do something about it without me paying a cent for it...But I guess it won't work.

[Charlotte_native]

You also have the option of staining them or using other finish techniques that are done for concrete floors. Acid washes, etc. I'm not saying it would fit for everyone, but it would look MUCH better than what is there. These wouldn't look so bad with at least some type of finish. I love the industrial look, but this isn't really what most have in mind. It doesn't really match the finish (new) of the rest of the condo. I have two friends moving in Avenue -- one is staining his ceiling, the other painting it. They didn't want a traditional ceiling, but not a raw concrete ceiling that looks like petrified plywood either.

[sleightofhand]

Those ceilings are simply horrible, I can't understand how they dare to sell units with ceilings like those. For me that is a "job not finished": if I was living there I would ask Novare to do something about it without me paying a cent for it...But I guess it won't work.

[dubone]

It almost seems like they could have gotten away with it had they used a different type of form rather than plywood. I now see the problem, as it is just goofy to have concrete look like plywood. But if they had used a less recognizable texture, it might have been fine for most people. People could choose to paint or not paint at their discretion, just like the walls. But with that texture, you're sort of left needing to do something more drastic.

All in all, if helps to make them more affordable, it is reasonable that they cut out some stuff, but I hope they choose less obvious things in the other upcoming projects.

[715nchurch]

What do the HOA fees look like for the Trademark and The Avenue. I realize the Avenue seems to have nicer amenities but are the HOA fees alot higher than the Trademark?

[ontap]

What do the HOA fees look like for the Trademark and The Avenue. I realize the Avenue seems to have nicer amenities but are the HOA fees alot higher than the Trademark?

[C_C_Planner]

Just as you suspected, the fees are higher at Avenue. Here's an example from the MLS.

Avenue

1 bed/1 bath, 776 sq ft, $235/mo

2 bed/2 bath, 1271 sq ft, $384/mo

Trademark

1 bed/1 bath, 784 sq ft, $145/mo

2 bed/2 bath, 1350 sq ft, $245/mo

More amenities = Higher HOA fees

[Appetite for Construction]

I feel your pain.

I ended up settling with Novare to contribute $500 for the ceilings. I would encourage anyone else in the closing process to ask for the same.

I am using the Painting Pros here in Charlotte to redo my ceilings. They will grind the ceilings down, apply a layer of stucco, and then apply a skim coat to smooth the ceilings before painting them white. When finished they will look like a traditional ceiling. Total cost was $2800 and this included the ceilings, painting the entire unit, and removing the entry way desk.

I will be happy to show off the work when completed (Unit #3008.) Based on the process so far I would recommend them. Contact info below - please tell Mark I sent you his way if you end up speaking with them.

Mark Baker

The Painting Pros

704.424.5555 ext.112

[motopeepers]

Motopeepers, we're on the 18th floor and would definitely like to see the work when finished. We got the $500 credit also, as we were not very pleased with the finished look. Is Mark finished with his work?

[HopHead]

I noticed in today's Observer that there were 16 units sold at Avenue from Dec 11-17. That sounds like a lot of movement to me. What's the status of the units at Avenue? Have they all been sold? Were these possibly just ones that were flipped? Is this something typical for a condo building the size of Avenue?

[sleightofhand]

Just the other week they had somewhere between 10-15 units for sale by developer and the prices were reduced. I'm sure they're just trying to get rid of the last ones and move on to Catalyst.

I picked up a Charlotte EYE yesterday and counted 35 units in the Avenue for sale! Add that to the 10 or so for sale by developer and you've got 40 to 50 for sale.

Is that too many? I don't know.

[atlrvr]

^ about 12% of the total....this is probably ok....a little high, I think usually 10% or less is preferable, but given the newness, I don't think this would scare buyers away like it would if it was an established building.

[Flowers]

i live in nashville but i'm a big fan of charlotte and and consider it one of only a few southern cities doing so many good things at the public and private level for the built environment. congratulations on all the success you've had to date. seeing the avenue thread discussion i thought i might be able to add some color to the discussion. might be apples and oranges but here goes anyway:

viridian, novare's first project in nashville had about 300 units and opened about 15 months ago. it had sold out but about 80 units immediately went on the market as re-sales. i presume these were mostly being sold by investor buyers. the first few units sold for a whopping $400/sf but sales soon slowed and have more recently been fetching in the $300-320/sf range, usually with lots of incentives (furnishings/prepaid hoa fees, etc.) thrown in. after 15 months only about 45 units have resold (about 3 per month) and there are still 45-50 on the market with the trend being falling prices.

novare is about to open its second project here called encore. it's the same soft loft cousin of the viridian, avenue, spire model they've done where most everything is cookie cutter concrete with either blue or green glass. the encore still had about 60 of its 330 units for sale last time i checked and there is ample speculation here that lots of early viridian investors jumped on the early $325/sf sales a year ago when viridian "appeared" to be reselling for over $400/sf. many here are anxiously waiting to see how many encore buyers will close and move in given the small 3% deposits novare req'd. obviously, novare's remaining encore stock and any investor units reselling will be competing with the very weary viridian buyers who have still been unable to sell.

all this will make for an interesting spring here in nashville but i thought some of this history might be interesting to a few of your recent avenue posts about resales.

thanks for the opportunity to share the info.

flowers

[prowl]

I noticed in today's Observer that there were 16 units sold at Avenue from Dec 11-17. That sounds like a lot of movement to me. What's the status of the units at Avenue? Have they all been sold? Were these possibly just ones that were flipped? Is this something typical for a condo building the size of Avenue?

[Charlotte_native]

I do not recall the exact number of units Novare was reselling, but there could not have been more than 8 being resold by Novare.

[Flowers]

Currently in the MLS there are 40 active listings and 20 other units under contract but not closed. Of those it appears that only 5 of the 40 active are being listed by the developer, the rest are flips. Of those under contract 19 of the 20 are developer sales, only one flip unit is in that list -- the rest are developer sales.