A smart, well-executed renovation job at the venerable Racquet Club on Ocean Drive has pushed sale prices dramatically higher at the 88-unit condominium complex.
“Homes sold prior to the renovation for $220 to $230 per square foot,” says Michael Thorpe, co-owner of Treasure Coast Sotheby’s International Realty. “Since the renovation, they are selling for $280 to $300 per square foot, and asking prices going forward are as high as $400 per square foot.”
The complex was built in the 1970s by Proctor Construction, according to Gene Ross of Elliott Merrill who manages the community. It is ideally located steps away from the Jaycee Park boardwalk and beach and a five-minute walk from Sexton Plaza in the heart of the village shopping and dining district. It has a nice array of amenities, including swimming pool, clubhouse, fitness room, covered parking and the three tennis courts that gave the complex its name. And residents say it is a friendly, well-managed community.
But until last fall, it suffered from a shabby out-of-place appearance that turned off buyers and kept prices, in Thorpe’s words, “sub-par.”
Much of the exterior was covered with dark, ragged wood shakes that made the 6-story buildings look more like a haunted New England resort than an upscale beach condominium in a wealthy Florida resort town.
“There were times realtors brought clients to look at property here and when they pulled up and saw the buildings they wouldn’t even get out of the car,” says Ross. “They didn’t want to see the inside because of how the outside looked.”
“I sold two units there two years ago,” says Jane Tupper Johnson, an agent with Alex MacWilliam Inc. “They were good sized units that had potential but a number of people passed on them because of the exterior. They said, sure we could put money in the inside and make them nice, but the way the outside looks doesn’t warrant it.”
Johnson eventually sold the two units but still faced an appearance headwind when she listed another unit in the complex last March for $300,000. “It was a terrific unit in building B, really nice, but no one was interested. When the renovation started in May, we took it off the market.”
When the renovation of building B was complete in October, Johnson relisted the property for $350,000 and sold it immediately for $340,000.
The $1.250,000 renovation got under way last spring and for most of the summer and fall the buildings were obscured by a fretwork of metal scaffolding as Dato construction refurbished the complex, wrapping up the job in early December, with some buildings finished earlier.
The exterior wall of the condominium buildings are poured concrete. The renovation consisted of stripping off the worn-out shingles and wooden balcony railings, removing wooden frames the shingled were nailed to, repairing concrete where rebar had rusted through and then replacing or resealing the rebar and stuccoing the exterior wall.
New metal railings and new turtle-friendly exterior lights were installed as well and the buildings were given a fresh coat of paint.
When all the scaffolding was done a crisp, clean, Meditereanean-looking set of buildings perfect for the Florida coast came into view.
“Residents say they are hearing compliments about the new look in restaurants, on the golf course, pretty much anyplace they go,” says Ross.
“The Racquet Club looks great now,” says Thorpe, “much more modern. It has gone from selling below the prevailing price of its peer group to above the prevailing price. Pre-beautification, units mostly sold in the $200,000’s. Now they are listed in the $400,000’s.
Prices in the community vary according to the size of the unit, the floor height and proximity to the ocean. Units include a 3,500-square-foot penthouse that takes up the entire top floor of Building A, seven 3-bedroom homes and 80 2-bedrooms.
Current list prices on 2-bedroom units range from $359,000 to $495,000.
Condo board president Bob Finn says the renovation was paid for by a special assessment that 80 percent of residents approved. Those residents are now reaping the rewards of a wise investment that added substantial value to their property and sharpened up the building-scape along Ocean Drive.
