Financial ruin is your friend

Remember the battle against the developer who bought 185 Ocean and planned to turn it into condos? Well, look now, and don't smirk: the place is once again for sale.

Notice how the above Corcoran ad shows picture of a house that no longer exists. Of course, having a pile of rubble sit vacant is scarcely worth celebrating — and now that the house is gone the only possible buyer for the lot is bound to be a developer with similar plans. But we'll try to pretend this is good news.

(Thanks to Matt Power)

Comments

[Ocean Ave Resident]

Whew! 2.5 million!

I guess that means we're going to see construction walls blocking half of the sidewalk and homeless people camping out in front for quite awhile...

If only 185 could go back to the beautiful house it used to be.

[Bob Marvin]

Hard to pretend as the economic downturn, rather than neighborhood preservation efforts, are probably the cause. Nevertheless, I must confess to a degree of schadenfreude at the developer's well-deserved plight.

At the very least this development [and the state of the economy] will provide time to work on further preservation and re-zoning efforts.

[Charles Star]

I'm not so sure, Bob. If the foundation is already poured (and the listing indicates that it is) I think that stops the clock on preservation and zoning rules.

[Bob Marvin]

You're right (I think) that zoning changes would probably be too late for 185, but the object lesson of this developer loosing his shirt might have some effect.

[carrie]

There was a story in the NYT City section last weekend about how economic downturns are great for historic preservationists. Here's the link.