Web sites lure buyers; sales offices to open
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Exclusive address in a blossoming downtown area.
Sweeping views of the State House and Providence River.
These are common features of three separate high-rise condominium projects under way in downtown Providence – “One Ten” on Westminster Street, “The Residences” at The Westin Providence and “Waterplace” at Waterplace Park.
Marketing the 425 high-rise units has begun in earnest with firms using billboards, cocktail parties, newspaper ads, Web sites and virtual tours to showcase their products. Sales offices open next month.
The Procaccianti Group, of Cranston, has started clearing a site at the corner of Francis and West Exchange streets to build an $80-million tower with 200 hotel rooms and up to 103 condos.
“Directing people to our Web site is the target of our marketing right now,” said Andrew Kiener, regional vice president of Chicago-based Garrison Partners Consulting, hired by Procaccianti to handle marketing and sales of the condos.
At the Web site for “The Residences,” online visitors encounter a series of images: a young man leaning over a chair where a woman lounges with a laptop; an older couple dressed up for an evening out and cuddling on a bed; and, among others, a man wearing a tuxedo and a wide smile. The images are accompanied by captioned phrases such as “Dynamic Life,” “Renewed Life” and “Life Cosmopolitan.”
All three of the downtown projects have Web sites for visitors to register for more information about the upscale condos.
Those who register on The Westin’s site will receive invitations to a Sept. 24 VIP reception at the hotel, where they can be the first to make an appointment to meet with a salesperson, Kiener said.
Eamon C. O’Marah – whose firm BlueChip Properties LLC, of Boston, has partnered with Providence’s Granoff Associates LLC to develop a 35-story condo tower at 110 Westminster St. – said the $90-million project’s Web site was launched prior to a Feb. 23 public unveiling of the firms’ plans. The site recorded 250 visitors within 48 hours of the event.
“What we do (with the Web site) is give people a sense of the style and the character of the project,” O’Marah said. The site has a computer-generated image of the towering structure inserted into an aerial photo of downtown.
The Web site for the 193-unit “Waterplace,” which broke ground in May, has a computer-generated rendering of the development’s 17-story and 19-story towers nestled beside the Providence River. The Boston-based developer of the project, Intercontinental Real Estate Corp., plans to upgrade the site next month with floor plans and details about available amenities, said Nicholas J. Iselin, director of development and construction at Intercontinental.
Units will sell in the $300,000 to $1 million range in the $100-million development.
Intercontinental – which hired Boston’s The Collaborative Companies to handle marketing and sales – had planned to run print ads in major publications in the Providence and Boston markets.
Procaccianti’s marketing strategy includes advertising “The Residences” in the same two cities, Kiener said.
O’Marah said advertising One Ten in newspapers was not in his playbook.
Something each developer has in common, however, is they plan to open sales offices in October.
On the second floor of The Westin, The Residences sales office has a plasma-screen TV on the wall that shows photos of eventual views from each unit. An entire wall of the office is occupied by a simulated window sill with an illuminated photo of the city. Also, model rooms in the office provide examples of available building materials and fixtures. The units are said to cost from $400,000 to $1 million.
“We want (buyers) to have as much information as possible so” purchasing a unit “is an easy decision for them,” said Kiener, during a recent tour of the office, which opens Oct. 1.
BlueChip plans to open a sales office – which also will have model rooms and simulated views from units at One Ten – on the ground floor of the nearby Turks Head Building. A sales office for “Waterplace” will open at the Union Station complex at 56 Exchange Terrace some time in October or November.
Though the sales offices haven’t yet opened, developers are already fielding calls from prospective buyers. Kiener said that, following a flurry of interest after a Sept. 8 groundbreaking reception at The Westin, his sales team took 10 reservations for units.
Condos in the One Ten tower, which has a total of 130 units ranging in price from $485,000 to $2.5 million, also are selling.
“We have sold a significant number of units throughout the building in a variety of price points and sizes,” said O’Marah, who declined to specify the exact number of sales. The buyers’ ages have ranged from 40 to 70. Many are from suburbs in Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts, he noted.
O’Marah attributed some of the sales to interest garnered during a July 23 WaterFire, where his firm sponsored a reception that drew about 200 people. Guests were treated to drinks, hors d’oeurves and a presentation of the project.
Iselin said his firm will begin selling units at Waterplace when its sales office opens.
All developers and sales consultants say they are confident that the upscale condos will all sell before the projects conclude (from 2007 to 2008), primarily because their product is unique in the market.
The units will also cost about $500 per square foot, compared to the approximately $1,000 per square foot charged for the same type of units in Boston, they say.
