Escala’s Club Cielo Now Escala’s Amenities
February 8, 2010 by Stroupe Group
Filed under ESCALA
We had the pleasure to speak with one Bob Rennie of Rennie Marketing. Rennie marketing has sold over $1 billion dollars worth of condos each year for the last eight years and counting. We spoke to Bob today concerning ESCALA. Mr Rennie and the ESCALA partnership have been busy working on the revamped project and I was privileged to be updated on where they currently are.
Club Cielo is no longer! Let’s call the 25,000 sq/ft spa, gym, and wine cave… amenities. There are a few influencing factors in play. First, the public found the HOD too high. Second, there is a belief that an owner in the condos should not pay for services not personally used. Third, and what I think is the most important, lenders had difficulty in funding buyers. Club Cielo allowed membership from outside the building. This issue to the lenders was an ownership in the HOA without an actually ownership in the building (condo unit). No more outside ownership.
The new arrangement now will be a la cart. If an owner wants a massage, give a call to Columbia Hospitality and they will send someone over and meet you in the spa. Simple and efficient. This will be a user-based system. All of the amenities are physically there, but not staffed full time. So, if you want a banquet, give a call and everything will be set up for you. Without the staff, HOD will be much more inline with the new economy. So far the HOD’s have been reduced from $0.79/sq. ft. to $0.58. The goal is to get to $0.55.
The question that is on everyone’s mind are “what are the new prices?”. Well, not yet. What I understand is that the new prices are still being ironed out and I hope to have them by the 19th. Not a definite date, but priority update subscribers at EscalaTower.com will be the first to find out.
After the prices are determined, the current 67ish buyers will be contacted first. I would assume that many will like the new prices. Obviously, many will still not close. It has been a long time for some of these buyers and life changes as years go by. The questions that I do not know yet are if the buyers will be allowed to move into other units and the big questions of earnest money to buyers that do not wish to close. Personally, I hope ESCALA makes the decision to create good will in the city and creates a positive movement. ENSO went to their buyers in contract and treated them properly. Look how well that project is going.
Escala’s new team is proving to be much more transparent and many of our interested buyers have a revitalized excitement for the project. In fact, Escala is turning out to be a good example of what it feels like to take a long deep breath of fresh air. Regardess of you like or dislike of the project, I think we can all agree that the success of ESCALA would be beneficial to the whole community.
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Great post. I also hope for a successful transition for the project. I think they are off to a great start. There are still plenty of rumors flying around however. I hope the new team takes a pro-active approach to being more transparent. It will ultimately benefit everyone.
Great update. The 0.79/sq ft was a big drawback for one of our clients earlier. It was a disjointed sales process with the club included. Looking forward to the new pricing.
As much as I like the development, their timing is terrible. Projects like Enso and 1521 have grabbed a lot of the buyers who might have been considering Escala over the past year. I don’t think there are enough high end condo buyers in Seattle to fill the building in a reasonable period of time.
Look at Olive 8, which is generally less expensive than Escala and is still 75% unsold a year after opening, averaging a couple of sales a month.
Of course, it all depends on how deep Escala cut prices. If they get down to Gallery type pricing in the $400 per sf range then perhaps I will be proved wrong.