Mezzo

There has been a buzz lately about an infill loft project called MEZZO located on 12th Street just north of Osborn. It's a Will Bruder designed community (he is one of the partners in the project along with Kevin O'Neill and The Construction Zone) and it looks great.

MEZZO is a gated, ten by three story residence community combining unexpected colors and materials to come up with a fresh urban look. Bruder took roof angles and flipped them vertically for interior partitions to arrive at something fun and different. He used corian in the kitchen! Yuck right? Wrong. The corian is one half inch thick with no bull nose so it looks sleek and contemporary...very nice. There are irregularly sized windows in odd places to add light and randomness to the interior spaces. Other interior amenities include wall to wall picture windows, natural wood or stone floors, stainless appliances coupled with European cabinets, private terraces, and in some cases semi private back yards. The floor plans are all 2 bedrooms plus a den and 2.5 bathrooms with 1525 square feet.

Instead of building an expensive and eco-wasteful pool the developer developed a "community garden" with each home owner having his or her own "box." The HOA will bring in a professional "organic" friendly gardener once a month to check on and teach the MEZZONITES how to grow their own veggies or whatever.

Prices originally started in the low $700,000 range but now are about $400,000. At the lower prices they do make sense. HOA fees are expected to be $140 per month which may actually be true in light of there not being a pool.