ON THE COVER
Once a carriage house, 37 Clark St. now houses condos.
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“The feeling you get when you walk into an old building and you see all these incredible details, it is a palpable feeling,” said Elizabeth Jojo, the Executive Vice President of Redburn Development Partners, a real estate developer responsible for the Kenmore Apartments and “The Knick” in downtown Albany, along with a host of other apartment projects throughout the Capital Region.
“It’s like the history can speak to you through the details through gorgeous old decorative moldings or original terrazzo floors that have been painstakingly refinished,” Jojo said. “The building has a soul and it speaks to its residents through those bits and pieces that remain.”
In the fourth quarter of 2020, there were 186 total condominium properties for sale in the region, according to figures from the Greater Capital Association of Realtors. That is a slight uptick from the same quarter in 2019, when there were 178 units available.
Fewer developers take on condominium projects because they have less return on investment, various developers and city planning committee members said. They also come with a whole host of additional timeconsuming demands, like gaining approval from the Attorney Generals Office, and taxes are more onerous, compared to apartments or singlefamily homes. The challenges are similar when renovating any older building. Often times there is less flexibility for the building's buyer, real estate agents said, but typically that is understood before a deal is brokered.
“The upside of the charm is that you get a little bit of a challenge,” said Dona Federico from Sotheby’s International Realty. “You can’t put in an elevator either, but for the most part you take it all in before you make the decision.”
And for the developers, there is always the ability to get help to pay off those unexpected expenses. Getting the building listed on the National Register of Historic Places, working with the State Historic Preservation Office, and the National Park Services
are options that will get developers tax credits.
“Often time when dealing with a historic building you are going to encounter costs that you wouldn’t normally encounter when building from the ground up,” said Jojo. “Almost every time it would be impossible to complete the project without the support from the state and the federal government.”
The community also benefits from vacant or boarded up buildings being rebuilt and filled with life. Redburn brought more than 300 residents to
downtown Albany, Jojo said. “There is a huge effect that bringing residents into a downtown can have.”
“It is an incredible positive to be able to maintain buildings that have a tie to the history of the city, especially when they are being used as living spaces, but also on the first floor there are viable businesses,” said Chris Leonard, Schenectady’s city historian, about complexes located at 105 Clinton St. which used to be the Union
Labor Temple, the Foster Building at 508 State St., and the Seneca Building on Jay St. in Schenectady. “In cities, that sort of multiuse building is incredibly valuable, to maintain facades and signage from the old day is fantastic.”
“They are unique,” said Joan Taub from Berkshire Hathway Home Services, about the condo at 37 Clark St. in Saratoga Springs. “You can’t buy back history.”