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Friday, September 19, 2014

The rent is too damn high

Urban playground for the wealthy
The South Market District is a $200 million mixed-use development that will take up four blocks in downtown New Orleans being developed by The Domain Companies. Pre-leasing recently started on the first phase, The Paramount, a $48.4 million building that will include 209 apartments and 22,000 square feet of retail space. The Paramount is set to open in November. Units will rent for between $1,460 for a one-bedroom apartment and $2,100 for a two-bedroom.
Building nice things for rich people downtown doesn't do anything to help bring down rents for the rest of us.  It just adds nice things for rich people downtown.  Which in turn leads to higher rents in neighborhoods adjacent to the nice things for rich people. Which then means, you have to move out of their way. 

I don't understand why people are OK with this. 

5 comments:

Steve said...

Just curious to know what your definition of "rich people" is. $100K a year? $200K a year? Thanks.

jeffrey said...

If you think $1460 a month sounds reasonable, you might be one.

Nolaresident said...

You could probably do a little research on, say, the median income in Nola and kind of figure it out yourself. You know, like this:

http://www.deptofnumbers.com/income/louisiana/new-orleans/

The current median household income for New orleans is $45,981. Real
median household income peaked in 2007 at $54,050 and is now $8,069
(14.93%) lower. From a post peak low of $45,024 in 2012, real median
household income for New orleans has now grown by $957 (2.13%).

If the median income for nola is around $44k, you ain't payin' $25k/yr for an apartment.

Fat Harry said...

Why do developers owe anything to anyone, other than what the market will bear?

Nolaresident said...

So what's the market they are developing for? It can't be for the folks with "average" or median incomes. See
San Francisco.