A model apartment at the Yard, wih art and furniture for saleA model apartment at the Yard, with art and furniture for sale
New York City home-seekers are used to model apartments staged with generic, if tasteful, furniture.
Not so at Long Island City’s the Yard, a new 83-unit condo. Potential buyers who visit the building’s model apartments find galleries full of eclectic pieces like Amy Ruppel’s oval portraits of extinct birds, which have words like “moron” scrawled across them.
The Yard’s model apartments were decorated by We-Are-Familia, an international collective of over 50 artists, including local photographer Sam Contis and Brooklyn-based furniture designer Nightwood. Almost all of the art, chinaware, lighting — even a handful of dresses — is for sale, in what is essentially a pop-up shop. Walk-ins are welcome, and interested customers are handed a price sheet for the furnishings.
The Yard isn’t the first development to try this model apartment/pop-up shop approach. In 2008, the Battery Park City condo Riverhouse hired Vivavi, a green furniture company, to furnish and sell pieces in their model units.
Lately, however, some developers are more willing to try out this unconventional tactic. The tough market helped convince the Yard’s developer, Chess Builders, to give it a shot, said Eric Benaim, CEO and president of Modern Spaces, which handles sales at the Yard. He’s also working on putting a pop-up shop/gallery in model apartments at the Industry, another new building marketed by Modern Spaces.
“In weaker markets, [developers] look for something that will bring people in,” said Benaim. “You do whatever you can to get people in the building. Even if we sell one apartment because someone came in to see the models, it’s worth it.”
Benaim credits the unique staging at the Yard (and its opening-night party/gallery opening) with an increase in foot traffic, and even sales: He expects the Yard to be sold out around the end of the year.
The We-Are-Familia pieces will soon be removed from the Yard, and another model apartment/pop-up store will be set up, this time by local firm Juan Sierra Furnishings.
These model apartment/pop-up hybrids can save developers money. Chess Builders pays the designers a fee to display their wares at the Yard, but it is significantly cheaper than the cost of furnishing and decorating a run-of-the-mill model apartment, Benaim said.
For retailers, “it’s about exposure,” said Jennifer Garcia, founder of We-Are-Familia. “We’re reaching a whole new audience [that is] a little bit older and a little bit more upscale. People buying $1 million apartments are not who our clients have traditionally been.”