Friday, December 22, 2006

Sales Office or Affordable Housing Wing?

8 down, 21 to go

I'mnotsayin has been watching Toll Brothers' Northside Piers take shape at the foot of North 5th Street in Williamsburg since the good old days when the waste transfer station was demolished, and through the Golden Age of Pile Driving (for four months we awoke reliably to the 7 am tremors).

Recently we noticed a curious development: the big Texas double-wide style trailer at the rear of the site - which we'd assumed was the contractor's on-site office - was given a huge wall of glass facing the development. When the plastic tarps came off the installation, they revealed halogen track lighting, retail-style glass doors, and curiously, a row of potted evergreen shrubs.

It could be that the Toll Brothers have hired a metrosexual general contractor for the project, but our bet is that they're planning an on-site sales office. Sure, going to the corner office at North 6th and Bedford to peruse a mocked-up kitchen and bath is fine for prospective North 8 buyers. But for Northside Piers customers, its clearly all about the view. And what better way to sell the view is by having them schlepp down to Kent Avenue, dodge cranes and cement mixers, and feel the brisk January breezes coming off the East River themselves.

Of course, the trailer could also be part of the promised "affordable housing" to be included in the project to allow the overheight development...

Closeups of the sales office by day and night here.