Commercial Grade

By Tyler King, Resident Hipster

Here at Miller Cicero, LLC we offer valuation services involving a wide swath of property types.  Furthermore, our services are often requested for a wide range of reasons.  Litigation, refinancing, asset management, the list is about as long as my arm.  During the last building boom, we did a lot of work involving new construction.  New construction is always an exciting venture because it involves lots and lots of different people.  When you look at the soft cost budget for a project you have architects, engineers, lawyers, consultants, and, about 14 items down, you have the appraiser.  All of these people are working together to create a brand new building.  This new building will forever (or at least into the foreseeable future) alter the landscape of the surrounding area.  Where before there was an underutilized site, there will now be apartments or offices, with people living and working inside of them.  I don’t want to get all existential on you, but it is like a total happening.

Any new building will greatly influence the surrounding area.  Often, these influences are what all the fuss is about when a new building is purposed.  Neighbors are concerned about context, aesthetic and density, among other things.  However, besides the long-term impacts the construction process itself will also have an immediate and substantial affect on the surrounding area.  When a building is built, during demolition and foundation work  a lot of earth that was previously lying still is moved around.  Also, older neighboring buildings which had begun to lean a bit on adjacent structures lose that comforting shoulder after demolition.

I was on an inspection today in Williamsburg and snapped a few photos of a development site across the way.  Looks like the building next door to the big hole in the ground lost its friend and its shoulder to lean on.  Cracks can be seen all up and down the western portion of the building.  Shoring has been put up, presumably after the fact, to prevent further damage but it looks to me like that corner is about to take a swim in the mud pit next door.  If I owned that building, I would open a burger shop and exclusively serve “lean” beef.