Sign of the times?

The city wants this sign down for whatever reason–perhaps it makes it look like downtown Elgin is in foreclosure, but Wellington developer Jim Rapier says he’s not taking the signs down.

The incentives on this project were never paid out:

City officials agreed to pay $26,000 per home as an incentive to build downtown, Rapier said.

But he never received the incentive, city spokeswoman Sue Olafson said, because he didn’t live up to his end of the development agreement.

“He had certain obligations, one of which was to pay the prevailing wage,” Olafson said. “We were disappointed he didn’t do that. The city didn’t renege.”

That’s not the way Rapier sees it.

He said the prevailing wage law changed during the development process and he wasn’t notified of the change when setting his construction budget.

He also said his construction costs went up, in part because the city didn’t move fast enough on the permit process.

As a result, Rapier said, he had to raise the prices on the homes — into the low to mid-$400,000s — and effectively price himself out the market. (Elgin Daily Herald 12/1/07)

Only 2 of the 8 units have sold.

As for Fountain Square:

To help attract prospective buyers during the housing downturn, the development’s sales team has been running advertisements with the Daily Herald offering six free months of living.

That means no mortgage payments, no taxes and no association fees — or about a $10,000 savings on the building’s lowest cost, a $230,000 unit, Curto said. (Elgin Daily Herald 11/10/07)

People started moving into Fountain Square in late October:

While some of the building’s tenants are local transplants, others are from such faraway locations as Nevada and Arizona. Another 20 or so closings at the property are scheduled in the next couple of weeks.

“We have two people moving in from Arizona and Nevada who are making this building their primary residence,” said Judy Grens, an account executive with RSC & Associates.

“Another person is moving in here from Nevada who will be living here part-time. It’s a mixture of people.”

Grens said 69 of the building’s 93 one- to three-bedroom units have sold. (Elgin Daily Herald 10/27/07)

A month ago, the number of units sold had risen to 71 or 72. In the Phase II, 20% of the units had been sold as of late October. The building will be constructed only if 50% of units sell.

Fountain Square has a new website. Well it may not be that new, but I just noticed it… Previously the site was simpler and more static. Now there’s more stuff, like this nice photo tour.

If you ever look at the ads on this site, you’ll notice that Fountain Square has been consistently advertising on Google’s AdWords network. I’m sure that has helped them to sell condos (to people as far away as Nevada and Arizona).

With Wellington, I remembered that they did not even put up a sign until construction was pretty much completed, which seems way too late in this industry. I think the most successful developers start marketing before the shovel even hits the ground. And in this day and age, advertising in Google seems like a good bet.

I notice that River Park Place also is not running ads in Google, and we haven’t heard from them, but I haven’t seen any evidence of a groundbreaking there either…

Filed under: downtown.
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