Construction costs are really high, renovations are really hard, and people know that.
The possibility of higher renovation costs could be a factor in the decision to buy an older apartment, brokers said.
Higher renovation costs can often be offset by the lower purchase price of the home, said Sarah Winchester, 37, a photographer near Boston.
The higher renovation rate reflects the upper limit of technical rather than economic feasibility.
In Norwalk, bids came in nearly $4 million over the budget set about two years ago on a $73 million high school renovation and addition project expected to be complete in the summer of 2006.
In Simsbury, where the town is about halfway through a $42 million high school renovation and addition project, initial bids came in during the spring of 2003 at about $4 million below the total amount the town estimated it would spend, said Richard E. Ostop, chairman of the Building Committee.
Mr. Beck, after all, is the art world gadfly who has been crusading against many high profile renovations for years, the man who just led the successful crusade against a renovation of a Leonardo da Vinci painting at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and a diplomat he is not.
It's an understatement to say it's a high-end renovation.
The high-end renovation incorporated many of the original architectural details, like the distinctive stone arches that span the ground floor.
At 18 Gramercy Park, a beyond-high-end renovation project featuring 4,000-square-foot 4,000-square-foot 4,000-square-foot model apartments were staged by a company called Clos-ette.
Another unit, a 500-square-foot one-bedroom featuring a "not-so-high-end renovation," had a view of an unlovely courtyard.
