This is a major moment milestone, a word without emotional weight, doesn’t even cover it in the project’s life. It’s Third + Bond’s bat mitzvah or Quinceaños. She’s getting taller and a little awkward looking but pretty soon she’ll stop growing and start looking… finished.

This week we are topping off our first five buildings. If this project were a high rise, we’d tie an evergreen to the topmost beam and have t-shirts, a big lunch and maybe a couple of speeches to celebrate the occasion. A full-on topping off party seems, well, over the top for 4 stories plus mezzanine but the celebratory sentiment is no less.

Other moments toward which a developer looks for greater return than a mere business milestone are closing the deal, seeing the first rendering or model of the design, breaking ground, launching sales and marketing, getting C of O, closing the first unit, paying off the loan, and adjourning the first condo board meeting.

As developers, we have an appreciation for tangibility. A buyer isn’t an owner until the contract has closed. A design isn’t finished until the building is complete. We like bricks-and-mortar. If we didn’t, then we’d probably be in a different line of work. There are a lot of ways to make a living and be in real estate construction loans, end loans, bonds, law, marketing, policy, zoning and permitting, on and on. To be a successful developer, it helps to appreciate the built environment itself. And to be a successful urban developer, you have to be keen on neighborhoods and the transformations neighborhoods take over time. These are things that help you understand and anticipate trends, objections and opportunities. And just as importantly, these are things that keep you excited about your job.

Just looking at the vacant lots that framed the old industrial building that used to be the site and seeing the homes now rising above the construction fence gives us a good feeling. The fruits of our labor are becoming more apparent every day. Becoming more and more real.

Inside Third & Bond: Weeks 1-81 [Brownstoner]

From our lawyers: This is not an offering. No offering can be made until an offering plan is filed with the Department of Law of the State of New York.”