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.

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?

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.

Expo 62 unit 407 is actually located on effectively the 3rd floor, which provides sound and dalmatian absorbing concrete construction beneath. At only 454 square feet, this unit is much smaller than the unit I was purchasing at Gallery. However, this unit includes a 150 square foot terrace, with excellent and virtually guaranteed views of the Space Needle and Pacific Science Museum arches for all time. With the seemingly endless new condo construction in Seattle’s lower queen anne and belltown neighborhoods, the only view I am interested in investing in is one that could never be obstructed. There is barely enough room for my condo home theater, but it will definitely fit while taking advantage of the flexible acoustic environment that this unit in particular offers.

I should also point out that I only began actively searching for new construction condos again after Gallery decided to split all of their awesome 2-story Sky Loft plans into 1-story 600 square foot open one bedroom plans. I feel that this will negatively affect the value and potential appreciation of open one bedroom units in less desirable sections of the building. This design change also dramatically increased the number of units in the building, and while the amenities at Gallery are superior, I would prefer to share them with a few dozen $650k+ Sky Loft residents rather than twice as many $375k open one bedroom residents. Ultimately, the luxury proposition of Gallery has been sacrificed for the profitability of the development, and as a result I am no longer willing to pay the luxury concrete and steel premium.

I love the Piet Mondrian windows (reminds me of a vacation in Den Haag, NL)

You’ll notice that the Expo 62 model is encased in glass, thwarting the evil Theresa-monster’s plans to demolish the building using floorplan handouts. The Gallery model was not so lucky…

Mosler Lofts 1 bedrooms were way overpriced for open 1 bedroom floorplans, which we don’t really like. Expo 62 seems much more reasonable, as long as the floorplans have proper bedrooms.