Which brings us to the lofts. Maybe the only thing that will cause the city to stop this downtown insanity is the influx of people living downtown. These new lofts aren't cheap. And the new downtown residents have money. They aren't going to stand for this cowtown crap every weekend.
And that brings up another peeve. There is a weekly independent "newspaper" in this town: The Weekly Alibi. It had a reputation in the past of not caring whether its readers lived or died...as witnessed by all the tobacco advertising it used to carry. Now it has moved from Nob Hill to downtown: party central.
One would hope that an independent paper would say something about the idiocy of the 52 weekends of hell-raising bar scenes and barricades...but no. This rag has found a niche, and it will probably bemoan lofts and "yuppies" if they threaten to sanitize the chaos. "Alibi" is right.
3 comments:
Margret, Splendid! Great Pictures!
As a downtown loft resident, I'm increasingly convinced that the demand for more lofts downtown is much less than developers and investors have lead us to believe.
While the cheaper Albuquerque High
rental lofts are almost always rented out, the more $1200+/month ones are much easier to come by. The ones that were for sale are still not entirely sold 3 years later, and somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 of the ones that have been sold were bought as investment properties by heights residents who have no intention of ever living downtown. When I lived in the AHS lofts I encountered this investment class loft buyer every single day.
The Gold street lofts are awesome to look at. Unfortunately they start at $250K for the smallest ones in the least desirable spots, and come unfinished. This means that the buyer has to spend another $10-$30K on the floors, buying and installing appliances, and other costs to make them dwellable. My understanding is that at least 2/3 of those that have been sold are also bought as investment properties.
The bank "lofts" at Central and 3rd are a laughing stock. They're not lofts at all; they're just condos with Loft price tags. The original version of this project was an abject failure which resulted in the investors/developers losing their rights to the building.
The fact is, the people who can afford these properties are generally people who have no desire to live downtown. They're buying these properties in hopes of renting them out, but in my opinion the number of people who 1) Have the money to pay the high rents that are asked, 2) Want to live downtown, and 3) Are willing to forgo the financial benefits of simply buying a house in another cool neighborhood like Ridgecrest or the newly gentrifying neighborhood just south of the Albuquerque High lofts is vanishlingly small.
Of course, oversupply and underdemand will inevitably lead to lower rent or selling prices of these downtown properties, which would be great for us (me), but will probably leave a lot of rich people who live in gated communities quite angry.
Developers have failed to discover who owns DOWNTOWN! The Good Shepherd Center, The Albuquerque Rescue Mission and other non-profits that draw hundreds of the homeless for FREE BREAKFAST, LUNCH AND DINER to DOWNTOWN Albuquerque.
Soon the Banque Lofts will be another vacant, lofty project (Gold Lofts) that failed to meet their expectations. Why? 100's of New Mexicos best cared for down and outers.
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