Hard to Sell Basement Units? Don't Build Them.

Hard to Sell Basement Units? Don’t Build Them.

by Lydia DePillis April 4th, 2011September 28th, 2020

There are many things to like about the Redstone, a new condo building in Park View. The lipstick-red coloring and corrugated metal walls are stand in striking contrast to the traditional brick rowhomes of Warder Street, and from the modernist interior, large picture windows provide a strangely conflicting view out onto the surrounding neighborhood.

But perhaps the most savvy move the developer/architect made in designing the building was choosing to simply not build a bad unit. Usually, the basement suites—with windows open to the street, and bad natural light—are the hardest and the last to sell. Instead, the Redstone is built with a bike room and storage on the first floor, and three floors above it with an overhang that makes the whole building look levitated off the ground. And every condo in it is now eminently sellable.

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