Kiwanis Steps in the Greenway’s Path
Kiwanis becomes the latest player in the greenway debate with their plan to purchase a lot that Margaret Wong describes as “an important part of the greenway that we envision.” The organization’s current building is inadequate, they say, a claim that we might be better able to evaluate if we had ever arisen early enough on a Saturday to go to Kiwanis. Are greenway opponents going to start being characterized as “in the pocket of the Kiwanis lobby”?
Kiwanis’ chair spoke at Monday’s hearing on their desire to use part of 415 W. Washington. I liked what I heard.
posted by Murph on June 15th, 2005 at 3:04 pmThe only thing this blog needs, is the sound of tiny violins playing sad songs, to accompany all the whining about how expensive Ann Arbor is.
Stop crying. No amount of downtown development is ever going to lower your rent..
posted by Anonymous on June 15th, 2005 at 3:46 pm…because demand for apartments in Ann Arbor is infinite?
posted by Anna on June 15th, 2005 at 4:07 pmKiwanis performs an important function downtown of running the only remaining department store open on Saturdays downtown - it’s worth a trip either to pick up or to drop off.
posted by Edward Vielmetti on June 15th, 2005 at 4:19 pmKiwanis is the bomb, no doubt. (Do the kids still say that?) Sharing space? Huh? Kiwanis is jam-packed with their stuff all week; how are they supposed to rent their space out? Also, it would be an EXTREME waste of space and land to have Kiwanis in a one-floor building on Washington, used for 3 hours a week.
Unless they’re talking about BUILDING a multi-story structure and using an UPPER floor for their sales, renting everything else out, they’re sounding kind of nutty.
posted by Dale on June 15th, 2005 at 5:21 pmNo, but because any new development that takes place downtown will cater to the $650k+ condo crowd, not the $650/month 1br crowd. And creating higher supply for the high-priced condo crowd isn’t going to lessen demand for the low-priced apt crowd, as they’re not fighting over the same space — the condo crowd will buy there instead of buying in Polo Fields or Tanglewood (or Birmingham, etc), while the low-priced apt crowd is stuck here with forty five thousand other students all still looking to be within walking distance of campus.
posted by Anonymous on June 15th, 2005 at 5:27 pmExcept that people who know something about this–it is a whole discipline by now–explain that, counter-intuitively but definitively, more density in town, even high-income residences, lowers rents way down the scale. In our case it’s more likely to keep them from skyrocketing, although they have gone down this year as you know. I agree that if Kiwanis wants more space it should be part of a larger, mixed-use project.
posted by buzz on June 15th, 2005 at 7:47 pmThey’ve bribed me with their kindly service and cheap sweaters on many occasions. I wish they’d extend their hours and bribe me some more!
posted by Dan Faichney on June 15th, 2005 at 7:51 pmOh, I heart Kiwanis. I have so many memories of trips taken after collapsing from alcohol only 4 or 5 hours prior. The roommate putting on ghetto rap because in some twisted way, it helped with the hangover. The people rushing the doors on sale-day. The stacks of 25 cent 1960s ish binders I buy up before each semester. The record section simply filled with classical and Barbra Streisand selections. The 25 cent spoons my roommate this year bought ’cause all of ours mysteriously disappeared.
If Kiwanis is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.
posted by Jen on June 15th, 2005 at 9:20 pmI’m moving up to the yupscale side of things since I’m now part of the $660/month 1 br crowd! I’m developing a taste for artisanal cheeses…
posted by Dave on June 15th, 2005 at 10:57 pmI thought the idea was that Kiwanis would occupy the first floor of the city’s old building on Washington Street, with artist lofts or something on the 2nd floor.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on June 16th, 2005 at 8:16 am3 hours of ground floor activity a week? yay.
posted by Dale on June 16th, 2005 at 9:28 amHowever, I will acknowledge that, if there were some intense use on their current site, I could accept it.
posted by Dale on June 16th, 2005 at 9:51 amI’ve still never been to Kiwanis due to their completely asinine hours of operation, as much as I enjoy purchasing used goods.
posted by Brandon on June 16th, 2005 at 11:31 amI don’t think the hours are asinine — Saturday morning, for most of the world, is an open and unscheduled time that can be devoted to volunteering, taking used stuff into them, or shopping there. I’d say it’s the EXTREMELY LATE risers who are out of step, not Kiwanis.
posted by Dale on June 16th, 2005 at 11:49 amYeah, it gives you the same feeling you get from going to early services at church– a slight sense of superiority over those that sleep in combined with optimism about the rest of the day. Or something.
posted by personality on June 16th, 2005 at 12:15 pmWow, going rent is over $650/m now? I was still under the impression that $500/m per room was the going rate downtown (at least for the “stuff as many bodies as you can into an old West Side/Burns Park house” approach to renting). I thought vacancy rates in the mid-teens wouldn’t support that type of rent. Is it time for me to break down and get my “No Money Down Real Estate Investing Kit” now?
As an aside, the Polo Fields isn’t the uniformly upscale and expensive McMansion sub that you might think it is. There are at least four different levels of McMansions there, and the lowest level is not really upscale at all. Think slightly bigger than Hometown Village and Country French Estates, but with a brick facade. Now Tanglewoods is truly nice, with large lots and good spacing, as well as more varied architecture, not at all like Walnut Ridge (another Toll Brothers special).
posted by JCP2 on June 16th, 2005 at 4:27 pmThat’s $650/mo for a 1 bedroom apartment, I think… those of us sharing a house downtown can still clock-in under $400, luckily.
posted by Brandon on June 16th, 2005 at 4:31 pmThat’s with six in a house originally built for 4.
posted by Dale on June 16th, 2005 at 9:35 pmHmmm. Tsk tsk, Dale. Are you within the zoning code with six people?
posted by Murph. on June 16th, 2005 at 11:44 pmGotta be. There are now six bedrooms, but one was originally the parlor and another used to be the dining room.
posted by Dale on June 17th, 2005 at 12:22 amDale
Is your landlord super nice or are you in some sort of really good setup or something? Presuming that everybody is paying the same rent there, the close to $4000 per month is the equivalent of a $525,000 30 year fixed-rate mortgage at current rates. And that’s before the tax break. Is the property you’re living in really worth that much money?
posted by JCP2 on June 17th, 2005 at 7:29 amHe’s not; we lucked into a good setup (relatively speaking). It’s worth what we’re paying now, though if rent raises continue at this last year’s pace, it won’t be.
posted by Dale on June 17th, 2005 at 7:46 amLet me qualify “worth what we’re paying now” by offering the background statement that is context for pretty much every discussion of Ann Arbor rents:
It is worth what we’re paying only in the context of the Ann Arbor situation and that I am attending UofM. For any other city in Michigan and ALMOST every other similar city in the country — 100-200k pop, not immediately proximate to a large, thriving city, not bound by significant geographical features — what I am getting now would be overpriced. For the amenities available (number, variety, size, quality), we are not getting our money’s worth, in my estimation.
posted by Dale on June 17th, 2005 at 9:23 amBut we have a hella sweet porch.
posted by Brandon on June 17th, 2005 at 11:20 amUm, isn’t $400 times six more like $2,400 than $4,000? Where does the $4,000/month figure come from?
Usually, the sign of a housing bubble is that rents are astonishingly LOW compared to the alleged purchase price, because the latter contains a speculative value which is subject to sudden evaporation.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on June 17th, 2005 at 12:11 pmYeah, I’m in a small one-bedroom apartment and $660/month, relatively speaking, is a good deal for downtown, especially since it includes heat and water and I have off-street parking. Presumably many people do better living in a multi-bedroom house, but I wanted my own place.
posted by Dave on June 17th, 2005 at 1:53 pmI thought the $650 was for a house split into apartments with six people, not a single unit by itself (hence $4000). Or maybe I got Dale and Dave mixed up;). $2400/m is still a mortgage in close to $400,000.
posted by JCP2 on June 17th, 2005 at 8:22 pmThe house was bought for 250,000 with a 50k down payment and a 200k mortgage a bit more than a year ago. The 50k was taken from equity in other houses the landlord owned.
It was previously owner-occupied, so the school taxes jumped up when it was turned into a rental. Its State Equalized Value jumped 10,500 this year over last, meaning roughly a 21k appreciation, though I’m not sure if that was an annual assessment or if it was just because it was reassessed because of the sale. From prices I have seen on realtor signs and in the News, that is about typical for the area (and about 50-75k more than in comparable cities in MI).
(All of this info should be available at the County Clerk/Register of Deeds for all the properties you all live in. I urge you to go check it out.)
posted by Dale on June 17th, 2005 at 11:14 pm