I'm going to air on the side of blind faith here. I don't know if anybody has ever seen a graph or chart of the financing deal for the Book Cadillac.....It WAS probably the most complicated real estate financing deal in history.

If it's going to happen, Ferchill is the guy who is going to make it happen. If Ferchill says it is going to happen, well it's probably going to happen.

$135-$200 ft is in the range of what it costs to build high end homes, maybe higher. Should be able to make the building top notch with that kind of dough.

Reading this article also give me some closure about the Lafayette coming down, it doesn't appear to be justifiable.


Quote Originally Posted by PQZ View Post
IIRC, the Book Tower is distinct from the Book Building. It is my understanding that Ferchill is looking at the Building and not the Tower.

Doing math backwards an $87,000,000 renovation at $125 a foot [[just about the cost of the Kales per foot) clocks it in at 696,000 square feet for just the Book Building. That doesn't seem right for the Building and the Tower - [which is listed as 171,000 square feet] . Cranking it up to $200 a foot [slightly lower than BC per foot pricing] takes the entire complex to 435,000 square feet which seems more likely. Going from that assumption, and please if any building nerds have accurate square footage counts for the Building and the Tower separately, please post them...we can make some very broad assumptions.

The Book Cadillac with its significant facade damage and severe distress clocked in at $180 million for north of 700,000 square feet [[the orginal building plus the addition). Its hard for me to believe a smaller building in much better condition would cost $180 million to $270 million. The $87 million probably right in the ball park +/- 15%. Its certainly not off by a factor of 2 or 3. What isn't discussed is if that figure includes a parking deck. If this deal goes forward, look for the DDA to footing the bill on a deck to support it.

The cost side I am not worried about as being artificially low. The revenue side would have to be considered nothing but ridiculously optimistic. It would need to be rental and is there market to absorb that many more units? Kales was pulling about $1.20 per foot per month in rent at a 87-90% occupancy pre-crash. I think its hard to make those numbers work well enough to service debt and equity returns, especially in a very very tight credit market. Presume a 50% LTV for now, thats a looooong way to go to find $43.5 million in equity and tax credits.