NYC Residential Development Design Suffers From Blandness: Compass Execs

If you build it, they will buy it.

This was one of the key points made at a panel discussion this week on the current nature of New York City residential development hosted by residential brokerage hegemon Compass at the new Bergen Brooklyn development at 323 Bergen Street in Boerum Hill.

While certain styles and motifs tend to take hold as regional developers embrace proven high-selling approaches in their design of new product, this tactic often restrains creativity and innovation in the built environment.

Dan Parker, co-head of Compass Development Marketing Group, noted that while he consults the company’s extensive research in development considerations, that research has its limits.

“Research is a very complicated thing in new development because it’s not just about what sold. It’s also about, did you build it?” said Parker. “If you don’t build it, then there’s not going to be a data point that said you sold it. So sometimes people get a little stuck in what sold, and we just keep building that over and over again.”

Parker said he often hears that the development community can be too restricted and conservative in its ambition for how vast and elaborate new housing can be to attract buyers in today’s market.

“I keep hearing from agents that we’re not giving enough credit to buyers — that they actually want something bigger,” said Parker. “There are buyers at price points we haven’t seen before, and developers are not necessarily building for those price points.”

Compass broker Alexa Lambert noted that the problem is often exacerbated by experienced brokers who take on the rigid standards of past sales, foregoing any element of risk around the fine line between giving people what they say they want and offering something new that buyers might find alluring but wouldn’t have known to seek out otherwise.

“If you have something successful, then everybody wants you to keep doing the same thing because that’s what the neighborhood wants,” Lambert said. “But sometimes that’s what the neighborhood wants because that’s all they’re getting. That’s the only option they have.

“Sometimes you have to be a tiny bit brave,” she added. “Not too brave, because we’re building things for people that we don’t know who they are, so we can’t go crazy and be super brave. But we can be a little bit brave and do something we think people will like. We have to have a bit of imagination.”

As an example, Lambert told of a friend from Greenwich, Conn., who moved from New York to California, and decorated her new home in a very Greenwich style, a stark departure from everything else on the local market. When it came time to sell the property, rather than finding the unique design a turn-off for buyers, she had lines 20-people deep because they also enjoyed that style and couldn’t find it anywhere else in California.

At one point, the discussion turned to differences in design considerations between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Parker noted that the extensive and consistent level of research done on what potential buyers are looking for from market to market begins with listening to their feedback.    

“When you’re working with buyers, you really have to listen — otherwise you’re just going to waste people’s time,” said Parker. “At 6 every day, the [agents] on every single building we represent send a report containing all the notes from every appointment, every buyer visit. So I get to read all of this feedback every day and really ingest it.”

This is the beginning of the process, Parker said, toward understanding what sort of development will appeal to potential buyers.

The developers of Bergen Brooklyn sought to give the complex its own sense of uniqueness, this one focused on the natural environment. 

Parker praised developer Avdoo, led by Shlomi Avdoo, on building a multifaceted team with complementary strengths, including Mexican architect Frida Escobedo, interior design firm Workstead, the master planning/landscaping firm DXA Studio and landscaper Patrick Cullina.

“Shlomi got really adventurous around creating design teams and collaborative teams,” said Parker. “So, many developers, the second you start saying there should be a separate interior designer from the architect, respond like, ‘Oh, that’s way too complicated.’ So being a little bit courageous and putting together a larger team to actually get something that has this different sensibility to it is really exciting for buyers, not creating more sameness.” 

Parker believes that too many developments, especially throughout Brooklyn, feature repetitive design motifs, and that this approach “does not drive urgency amongst buyers” as much as creating something truly unique.

“[A building should offer] the only opportunity to get something that’s right here — it’s not also down the street,” said Parker. 

According to the development’s website, the 105 luxury condos at Bergen Brooklyn were “composed with handmade geometric modules,” which, when combined with the project’s abundant green space, imbue it with a grounded, natural presence, making it a domestic refuge in the midst of overwhelming urbanity. The development is over 80 percent sold, and two remaining penthouses — a four-bedroom and a five-bedroom — are selling for $5.5 million and $5.85 million, respectively.  

The project also offers fitness, yoga, boxing, steam and sauna rooms, a music room, several art spaces, a roof deck and more.

While the developers sought a tranquility that they think is unique for Brooklyn, the panelists portrayed this adventurousness as often eluding industry veterans, who can get too acclimated to the latest, most prevalent trends in architecture and design.

“Many times in new development, and resales too, some brand-new broker will bring a client who was working with two other brokers, and the more seasoned brokers had a more rigid idea of where they should take this buyer or what it should be, and the new broker makes the $25 million deal, because they’re not so constrained by what it should be,” said Lambert.

While the individual aspects of a development may be impressive, Lambert noted that a broker’s job is to make the whole seem greater than the sum of the parts, crafting a story that sums up why buyers need to live in a particular spread.  

Along these lines, Lambert made the crucial observation that luxury real estate is aspirational, and that successful brokers and developers needed to keep this in mind to get a new project off the ground.

“What makes a development project successful is if people come see it and think, ‘My life will be better if I live here,’” said Lambert. “What we all do is storytelling, and we do even more of that with new development. In terms of amenities, you have to paint a picture for people of what their life will be like living in this building.”

In this, Lambert noted that brokers need to make their presentation equal to the gravity of the potential purchase for the buyer. Moving to a new and grander home is, in a sense, redefining one’s life. From development through the sales and marketing process, those designing and selling new developments need to show the buyer how their development will make residents’ lives better.

“You’re giving them the possibility of a new and better life full of more fun,” said Lambert. “That’s really one of the defining things — where you can show people where they’re going to connect with their family and friends, and what you’re giving them that they don’t have in the apartment they live in now.”

Larry Getlen can be reached at lgetlen@commercialobserver.com.