thrice all american: Condos on the Pierce County Parade of Homes, June 2006

Condos on the Pierce County Parade of Homes, June 2006

· Posted Monday June 12, 2006 by jamie

We went out to check out a few of the open condos showing at the Pierce County Parade of Homes this last weekend. These have already been hashed out a bit on both Exit133 and KevinFreitas.net, so I won’t go into any great detail, but I will share my thoughts…

The Bridge
We were pretty impressed here, all in all. There were two units open for viewing. The larger of the two was pretty neat, with multiple porch areas and a fun section of “spiral staircase to nowhere”. On the other hand, I was kind of disappointed that the old terrazo floors were covered up with “lyptus” plank flooring. The smaller unit thankfully did not contain the floor upgrade, and would be a good size for a couple with possibly a home office. No private balcony on this unit though…

The Vintage Y
I really wanted to like this place more than I did. There were 5 units total on display, 4 large units on floors 3-6, and then an additional smaller unit on floor 4. The views got better as we climbed the stairs, but all in all unit 301 was the coolest with its tall ceilings, arched front window, and swing-open casement windows that let in some serious fresh air. I liked the facades of the kitchen cabinets (simple but elegant), but was disappointed to see that the actual cabinets were made of the white-laminated pressed board. And the biggest disappointment for me was the overuse of carpet. I guess you could switch that out, but I found it to be a letdown.

Triangle Townhomes
This may have been my favorite of the bunch. Maybe I’m just a sucker for green building, but the reclaimed wood, Marmoleum, solar chimney, etc., just got to me. Lots of stairs, which might make it hard to have older guests… The rooftop balconies were cool. The biggest “huh?” for me was the way the subway tile was done in the bathrooms, rotated 90 degrees from the usual horizonal arrangement. I don’t see them to be worth the price, but I could see this being a fun place to live.

We thought about heading to City Steps on Yakima, but had much to do, so called it a day…

All in all, I guess I’m not a condo person, given the price point to get into any of these versus the sort of house you could get for that price, even with the prices of today versus when we bought our house in 2001. (And it’s a lot easier to imagine spending $500k+ to live above the water than one of these places.) If I were to do a condo, I’d be more interested in a less finished space that I could design myself: choosing where to keep the old flooring, where the kitchen goes, etc.

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