The Olympic Sculpture Park’s Eagle is admired by a Snowman on the 2008 Winter Solstice.
Archive for 2008
Winter Arrives at the Olympic Sculpture Park
Sunday, December 21st, 2008Expo 62 Condos Converted to Axis Apartments
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
Expo 62′s branding was widely criticized by many in the Seattle real estate community, but at least the brand was distinctive. Prometheus Real Estate Group, the apartment developer who acquired Expo 62 from Intracorp, has rebranded the development as Axis Apartments.
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Has renting in downtown Seattle become more expensive than owning? Or perhaps Axis Apartments is highly ambitious? I purchased a condo at Parc Belltown in March, and I pay less per month to own a comparable unit than it now costs to rent at Axis Apartments.
| Axis Apartments Floorplans | Beds | Baths | Monthly Rent |
| 0 Bed 1 Bath | Studio | 1 | $1175-$1425 |
| 1 Bed 1 Bath | 1 | 1 | $1450-$1996 |
| 1X1 Plus Den | 1 | 1 | $1555-$2310 |
| Live/Work Lofts | 1 | 1.5 | $1785-$3520 |
| 2 Beds 2 Baths | 2 | 2 | $2145-$2900 |
| Penthouse | 2 | 2 | $2870-$3980 |
The most interesting floorplans are the two-story townhouse style live/work lofts with direct sidewalk access. These units have become increasingly popular and typically sell for $400-600k as condos, but I’m not aware of any that are available for rent in traditional apartment communities like Axis. Where else can you rent a two-level live/work loft in an apartment building near downtown Seattle?
Gallery Belltown Closing Schedule
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008Gallery Belltown announced their newest closing scheduled tonight at a private buyers event at the Space Needle. Floors 1-5 are now scheduled to close in August, with floors 6-9 following in September, and floors 10-13 set to close by the end of October.
Construction is moving along now with the exterior of Gallery nearly complete. Part of me really wishes I had bought at Gallery rather than the Parc, but the 30% price jump for a similar unit was just too much to bear. Once complete, Gallery will likely be the best looking building in Belltown other than Mosler Lofts, which was also architected by Mithun.
Urchin 6 Web Analytics Software from Google
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
Urchin 6 was officially released today at ad:tech San Francisco. Urchin 6 marks the first update to the Urchin analytics platform since Urchin Software Corporation was acquired by Google in April 2005. Since Urchin’s acquisition, Google has transformed the Urchin On Demand hosted service into the immensely popular (and free!) Google Analytics. This success was lost on many of the most demanding Urchin users who require data privacy, collection of personally identifiable information, historical profile data reprocessing, or analytics for firewalled intranet sites — all of which require functionality that Google Analytics could never deliver by its very nature.
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Urchin 6 is offered in a one-size-fits-all licensing configuration. A one-time licensing fee of $2,995 USD buys you an Urchin license which includes free upgrades to any future 6.x releases. If you purchased an Urchin 5 license, every dollar you spent on Urchin 5 licensing will be applied as a discount against the $2,995 USD Urchin 6 license. Every Urchin 6 license includes:
- 1,000 Profiles
- Campaign Tracking
- Ecommerce Tracking
- Unlimited Log Sources
Urchin 6 is available exclusively through Google’s network of Urchin Software Authorized Consultants. Whether you are new to Urchin, or have been waiting for Urchin 6 for years, I would love to talk with you about how Urchin can change the way you think about analytics. Please contact me at POP with any and all questions you may have about Urchin 6. As Urchin Software Authorized Consultants, we provide superior technical and performance marketing consulting.
Expo 62 Condos Sold into Apartments
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008With only 17 of 114 units sold, condo developer Intracorp bailed out of its Expo 62 development at 2nd and John St. in Lower Queen Anne. The project is now expected to be completed in summer 2008 as luxury apartments.
There has been much debate within the Seattle real estate community about the underlying cause of this projects failure. Most people pin the blame on the disconnected and bizarre marketing creative or simply the overall decline of market conditions. I was personally vested in Expo 62 as a buyer. I’ve spent the last year continuously researching this building and I feel I can offer a more specific point of failure within the marketing strategy itself.
Expo 62′s unit inventory was released in phases. Initially, only 30 units were offered for pre-sale, most of which were among the least desirable in the building. The 27 condo units selected were not representative of the building as a whole, while the 3 live/work lofts were representative and successful with 2/3 selling immediately. The 27 initial condo units were on lower floors, and did not include the more expensive floorplans available in the building. On numerous occasions in the sales center, visitors were confused about why they couldn’t buy the unit they wanted and simply walked out frustrated. During this “phase 1″ of pre-sales between March and July of 2007, 13/30 available units were sold. This indicates that during the final 6 months, only 4 additional units were sold.
As soon as the market slowed and the rain began, this strategy completely backfired and saw Intracorp making a last ditch attempt to attract interest by updating the Expo62.com website to show all units as available, even the units that were pre-sold at the time. The moral of the story is that no matter what industry you do business in, if your marketing strategy doesn’t allow your sales staff to sell people what they want – when they want it… the competition will.