Meeting William Justen at 1521
Last Thursday I went to a New Home Council Meeting that was hosted by 1521.
There I had the opportunity to listen to William Justen who gave a short talk about 1521. Here are my notes:
- They’re 60% closed (w/several dozen pending and 30 or so available)
- 10% of the sold homes have kids living in them
- The units are double the average size of condo units
- There will be an encore project when the economy recovers
- There was some heckling from Leslie Williams
- They allow dogs
- Larger units mean less square footage is taken up by corridors
- Every unit has a view of the water
- He choose Blaine Weber to design it since Blaine has lived condos while most architects haven’t lived in multi-family housing since they left college.
He also talked a lot about building a strong community and all they’ve done to foster that. One of the things he attributes to their strong community is that the residents share a lot of common interests, likely because there isn’t a lot of income diversity; they’re all filthy rich. He said the group does have age diversification. In order to build community they started an ACT Theater + dinner night. They started this before they moved in and it continues to go strong with more than 20 folks out on a recent Wednesday night.
I also had the opportunity to chat with William one on one. I hadn’t realized he was involved with 1111 E Pike. The “more affordable” version of 1521 :P. We chatted about the variety of places he’s lived downtown and his favorite restaurants; it was great to talk to someone as passionate about downtown living as I am. And I wish I had toured his Market Place Tower penthouse when I had the chance (recently sold for $9 million). His Seaboard penthouse is currently on the market for $2.3 mil.
If anyone needs to blog it’s William. Have you seen his “desk notes”? I recently got desk note #17. It’s an opus.
