Starting Wednesday, a first look at One Riverside's luxury condos

Six months after he announced the project and one month before its scheduled groundbreaking, developer Carl Dranoff begins taking reservations Wednesday for the 82 luxury condos he is building at One Riverside, at 25th and Locust Streets.

Real estate agents will get their first look at what is being offered at the 22-story high-rise overlooking the Schuylkill, where prices will range from $685,000 for a one-bedroom unit to $6 million for the 4,200-square-foot bi-level penthouse with elevator.

One Riverside and developer Tom Scannapieco's 500 Walnut, also scheduled for groundbreaking this month, will be the first two luxury high-rise condominium buildings begun in Philadelphia since 2007, when the real estate downturn took hold here. Prices at 500 Walnut will range from $2.5 million to $16 million.

Real estate agents say the two buildings will fill a huge demand for new construction among buyers at the market's highest end, who are once again shedding large suburban houses and Center City townhouses as they recover equity lost in the downturn.

Dranoff said he already has a list of 200 prospects for his condos. Until enough of One Riverside is built to accommodate a model, buyers and agents will tour a sales office at Dranoff's Locust on the Park across 25th Street from the site.

Based on his experience marketing and selling out One Rittenhouse Square at 18th and Walnut Streets for lender iStar Financial, Dranoff said, the 1,000-square-foot units that satisfied buyers of new construction before the housing boom went bust are just not enough for today.

"The largest units at 10 Rittenhouse sold the fastest," he said, calling that building "a laboratory for us."

"As the city and its lifestyle have grown more attractive, instead of a small condo in the city and a house in Florida or the Shore, these buyers want bigger units downtown," he said.

Many suburbanites coming from big houses settled for smaller units at 10 Rittenhouse, then bought their neighbors' condos and expanded, which the design of One Riverside easily accommodates, Dranoff said. Few condos built during the boom had four bedrooms, but that is no longer the case, he noted.

Center City condo-sales numbers for 2014 illustrate the trend, said Kevin Gillen, chief economist at Meyers Research and senior research fellow at Drexel University's Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation.

Of the 104 $1 million-plus units sold in Center City in 2014, "25 percent to 35 percent were blanket-sale blowouts in which a buyer bought two adjacent units for the sale price," Gillen said.

Allan Domb, of Allan Domb Real Estate, who has been selling condos in Center City for more than three decades, tracked the square footage of three-bedroom condos since the first ones appeared here. In the 1960s, he said, a three-bedroom unit at the Dorchester was 1,500 square feet, but by the 1990s with the Rittenhouse the 2,500 mark had been reached.

"Today, we see 2,500 to 5,000 square feet," Domb said. "The reason is baby boomers want bigger spaces as they leave their larger suburban homes."

And not just indoor space - outdoor space too, said Joanne Davidow, vice president of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach Realtors and manager of its Rittenhouse Hotel office.

"I think buyers have different needs, and a lot depends on their price point," said Davidow, who has been selling in Center City since 1980.

"This is not a one-size-fits-all situation," she said. Wish lists include balconies and great views, as well as parking, a new building in a good location, high ceilings, and a specific number of bedrooms.

In response, Dranoff's team, led by marketing director Marianne Harris, fine-tuned the amenities of the Cecil Baker-designed One Riverside with more outdoor space at ground level and balconies.

The outdoor space "means that having a 2,500-square-foot unit is equal to a 4,000-square-foot suburban home," he said.

The condos will be finished units, not raw space, with the number of floor plans increased from 10 to 17, Dranoff said. Buyers with their own designers "delay delivery," he noted.

Units on the third through ninth floors are expected to be ready for occupancy at the end of 2016.

aheavens@phillynews.com

215-854-2472 @alheavens