A tale of two 120,000sf 4-story apartment projects LEFT: "Affordable" in Bay Area suburbs - $1000/Net SF (not including land) RIGHT: Market Rate in Philadelphia suburbs - $400/Net SF (including land + developer profits) - ThreadSky

bobbyfijan.bsky.social • 26 days ago

A tale of two 120,000sf 4-story apartment projects

LEFT: "Affordable" in Bay Area suburbs - $1000/Net SF (not including land)
RIGHT: Market Rate in Philadelphia suburbs - $400/Net SF (including land + developer profits)

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Comments

scandinavian101.bsky.social•26 days ago

my god SF, there are some apartments growing on your parking garage

annepaulson.bsky.social•26 days ago

A developer in Campbell CA (Silicon Valley) spoke in front of their Planning Commission last night, saying that his new apartment projects would cost $900/SF (not including land). So $1000/SF is high but not so out of line. It's very expensive here.

bsamuels72.bsky.social•25 days ago

AH cost likely includes developer profits too, just called a developer fee & based on % of total development cost. (A few other smaller line items in soft costs as well). To get financing & entitlements for 100% AH everyone has to get a cut. IZ units can be built — & subsidized —at lower cost.

nicksattele.bsky.social•26 days ago

How much parking is in the Philly one?

bobbyfijan.bsky.social•25 days ago

Same amount of parking. The garage on the right is 2 levels, including 1 underground

youdontpost.bsky.social•26 days ago

is it because the california one is 70% parking garage?

pushtheneedle.bsky.social•26 days ago

Is it just cost of land and entitlement or is it mostly labor?

samalcorn.bsky.social•26 days ago

This report gets to a lot of the reasons for housing construction costs in California, at least in comparison to Texas and Colorado: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA3700/RRA3743-1/RAND_RRA3743-1.pdf

pushtheneedle.bsky.social•26 days ago

Well damn. Great report. 30x the muni cost per unit and taking 2 years longer to entitle will do it

samalcorn.bsky.social•26 days ago

TLDR is everything causes the costs in CA to be so much higher than elsewhere in the US. Labor, materials, entitlement, permitting delays, energy codes, inspections, et c, et c. Name a part of the construction process, and it adds cost.

annepaulson.bsky.social•26 days ago

The labor requirement for all-affordable projects also costs money.

annepaulson.bsky.social•26 days ago

The $1000/SF is without land costs.

stephenjacobsmith.com•26 days ago

Now I wanna know what policies or practices contributed to those different crane decisions…

bobbyfijan.bsky.social•26 days ago

next few projects i'm doing will all use a light crane. So I'll need to get much more well versed on the topic. I'll let you know what I find out

stephenjacobsmith.com•26 days ago

Things to look out for to report back to me if you’d please:
- Differential regulatory treatment of tower vs. mobile cranes
- Differential insurance treatment
- Differential union labor requirements
- Mentions do onerous negotiations with neighbors over swinging the boom on a tower crane

laterbacon.bsky.social•26 days ago

That building on the left is just a parking garage wearing an apartment building mask

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