Monday Morning Condo Blogging, vol. 6: The Tuesday Morning Edition

• 05 October 2004
• condo

Ah, at last: the stars have aligned, the cables are plugged in, and my schedule has a free moment in it, allowing for a brief return to the subject of my obsession, real estate.

To begin, I’ll give you a few quick shots of the building as it appeared about two weeks ago; the scaffolding had gone up, preparatory to the addition of the building’s outer skin:

Here are two more images that may give you the sense that, yes, in fact, the scaffolding does go all the way around the building:

What you may notice at this point is that the place has begun to develop windows, meaning actual glass panes where mere holes used to be:

So I wandered around and admired my new windows for a bit, but the sun was going down, and I was hungry, so I headed for home. But on the way, I thought I’d take a few shots of what passes for the neighborhood, at this point.

I say “what passes for the neighborhood” because the whole area where the condo is going in is in the process of being redeveloped into what will be henceforth known as the Village Expansion. The Village is a lovely area on the east side of Indian Hill Boulevard with odd little mom-and-pop shops and restaurants that are usually not terrible. It’s nice, and quaint, but notably lacking some key amenities. Like a bookstore (caveat here: there’s one great used bookstore, but nothing with recent releases, and I’m all about the recent releases). Or a movie theater. Or, say, a cool place for me to live.

But voilà: the Village Expansion, on the west side of Indian Hill. You know it’s an expansion, because the rocks tell you so:

No, really. They do.

The “last packing house” referred to on the plaque is still referred to as the Citrus Packing House. It’s still standing, though in a bit of disrepair; the plan, apparently, is to renovate it into a mixed-use space combining artists’ lofts and shop/gallery features. I’m mighty curious what that’s going to wind up looking like, because this is what it looks like now:

Through the trees, you can spot a smidge of the first building in my complex. I’m in the fifth building, about a block and a half down.

R. and I passed back by the place on Sunday, and were amazed by the progress: the building’s outer skin has begun going up, and so the place was coated in what appeared to me to be tar paper and chicken wire, in preparation for stuccoing, which is supposed to begin imminently.

We also managed to get inside the building, and inside our very unit, because of a somewhat complex story about the rear balcony looking like it was much smaller than it was supposed to be, a story about nervous new homeowners in which neither of us comes off terribly well, so I’m just going to leave that part out. But the interior of the place is looking pretty nifty, if a bit filled with big stacks of wallboard at the moment.

Of course, I didn’t bring my camera with me, because I AM AN IDIOT. But having gotten in once, I assume that I’ll be able to do so again. Next up: interiors. Come hell or high water.

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