Posted by Leonard Steinberg on December 3rd, 2013

Many buildings being developed in the luxury Manhattan real estate market these days would not be complete without a host of very impressive amenities, including swimming pools, gyms, garages, playrooms, etc, etc. This makes it difficult sometimes for smaller buildings to compete. While many of these amenities do indeed make life easier and more enjoyable for their inhabitants, they are only viable if they are well executed, truly usable, and in buildings large enough to absorb their maintenance costs.

Often some of the best ‘amenities’ are not very glamorous: I live in a smaller building and one of my favorite amenities is the fact that all HVAC maintenance is taken care of by the building and included in our common charges. We also have a good, well equipped gym, including a spinning room. Another less glamorous, but wonderful amenity has been installed at 150 Charles Street, the most successful new building of 2013:  all the terraces, including the private terraces, are maintained by the building. Each owner pays a small monthly fee, but that fee is far lower than the cost if you were doing this independently, and the convenience for many has no price.

Small buildings can have many amenities….next door. A garage, gym, cafe, swimming pool, is often found in the neighborhood or directly on the block. We will be launching 560 West 24th Street soon. Because its only an 8-unit building it cannot justify a host of amenities: A garage is directly next door though, so one of the most desirable of all amenities is as accessible if this were a much larger building with parking contained within the building. Maybe the next ‘construction item’ is a ‘neighborhood country club’ that combines all the amazing building amenities for all in the neighborhood to buy into? There are city clubs that do this already, and maybe we need more?

Maybe larger buildings will consider creating ‘city clubs’ out of their amenity programs so others in the neighborhood can buy membership, thus off-setting the costs for the owners in the building? As monthly carrying costs become more of a concern, I see a new trend….