Luxury real-estate developers in urban settings are designing properties to appeal to families by adding new kid-friendly amenities. With many young families now staying in the city to raise children instead of moving to the suburbs, these wealthy urban dwellers are looking for buildings that have programs and amenities that suit their children.
MarketWatch editor Catey Hill writes:
These amenities include everything from a “kid concierge” who organizes your child’s activities for you, to indoor mini soccer fields and “staff apartments” for au pairs and housekeepers to IMAX theaters and 3D gaming rooms. “Buildings are in an arms race to compete to appeal to kids,” says Leonard Steinberg of Compass Realty in New York City.
Here are some of the more over-the-top amenities buildings are dangling in front of parents to get them to pay top dollar for their apartments:
Indoor soccer pitch, basketball court and trampoline room
At 130 William — a Manhattan building designed by Sir David Adjaye, one of Time magazine’s most influential people of 2017 — there is a trampoline room, a mini soccer field and a mini basketball court, in addition to a play area. Two-bedroom units start at just under $2 million. You can snag a studio for around $800,000.
IMAX theater and 3D gaming rooms
Tricked-out media rooms are all the rage in luxury buildings, says Mermelstein. Often they include high-end 3D gaming consoles, massive TVs and even giant Lego bricks. At Jade Signature in Miami — designed by Pritzker Prize–winning Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron with penthouse units costing $33 million— kids can play on a massive “smart board,” which is an interactive whiteboard, and, at 130 William, there’s even an IMAX theater.
Heated kiddie pools
At both 70 Vestry and One Hundred Barclay in Manhattan, the adults get one swimming pool and the kids another. At One Hundred Barclay — where available units start at upwards of $3 million — the adults can use the 82-foot, two-lane lap pool, while the kids get a 330-square-foot pool that’s “made for first lessons or just splashing around.” Steinberg says that when buildings have separate pools like this they often even keep the water temperatures different — slightly cooler in the adult pool, warmer in the kid pool.
Au pair apartments
At 432 Park Avenue in Manhattan, you might spend $20 million to $80 millionon your own apartment, which is undoubtedly big enough to house your child’s au pair. Many units span 4,000 square feet or more. But the building also sells separate apartments — only available to people who already own a place in the building — that are for residents’ staff, like a nanny or au pair, to live in.
