Combination of two 2BR units vertically

Always tough to think through a combination without seeing floorplans, but on the face of it:
1) for 2,400 sq. feet you'll probably want Central Air, which is another six-figure cost, if your co-op even allows it;
2) 4 BRs plus an office sounds like a lot of private space. I'm not sure that you're putting enough public space into this unit. For example you mention "enlarged living area" but you don't mention a dining room. Unless you plan to die in this apartment, think about who you're going to want to re-sell to, and what layouts they might want. You might want to look at layouts for eight-room apartments (or, since this is a duplex, houses) to get a sense of what other people demand. My guess is that you'd want fewer bedrooms and more transitional spaces -- think a playroom or a library or two living spaces, one focused around a TV and one not.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Thanks a lot for this thoughtful response. I really like the idea of multiple living spaces, I hadn't fully thought about that.

Right now our living room is an L-shape, wrapping around the kitchen. The dimensions are 30x13 + 8x12.

I can't find the floorplan, but after googling--looks like this but more square and with a longer living area. http://media.halstead.com/floorplans/2242760-FP.gif

Any more thoughts appreciated of course. Thanks again

I toyed with the idea of combining my apartment with the one below me when it went on the market. What scared me away were two things:

1. I need only one kitchen. Turning the "other" kitchen into a "dry" space (probably a giant walk-in closet) that's still under a "wet" space worried me a bit (even though it was MY wet space above it).

2. The oversized maintenance. While not a problem for me, would be a huge drawback to potential buyers down the road.

> Hi - We are in a co-op and may have an opportunity to combine our 2BR/2BA about 1,200K sq ft with the unit directly below (same layout).

Not a bad problem to have. Are you in the 1%, and if so, did you vote for Obama?

mdp1234, some thoughts-
1. The combined maintenance is really not that steep at all. $4,000/2,400 sft = $1.67/ft. That is reasonable (if not low) by today's standards in most of Manhattan (I don't think you said exactly where this is...?)
2. The challenge in making the financial math work is the staircase. This will eat up a lot of usable space on both floors. This 2,400 sft combination would likely not feel as big as a 2,400 apartment on a single floor. So does this project (with reno costs) make more sense than buying the same sized place in an original layout?
3. That said, if you really like the building, and want to expand in it, and you think you will enjoy the project and the ability to design to your own standards, then this could make a lot of sense. Agree with frontporch's comments that a 3BR with a significantly bigger living/dining space may be the way to go here, rather than the 4BR layout.
4. Hard to predict if creating this duplex will be a good investment that would create value at resale relative to the market. Would not count on this.

Thanks for all the comments!!

What is the ball park cost of a convenience stairwell anyway? I assume there is probably a huge range, but is this like a 10-30K type thing or a 50-100k?

"but is this like a 10-30K type thing or a 50-100k?"

Definitely more towards the latter -- I'd say even considerably more than this estimate (at least to do something really nice/special -- if it's just a small spiral staircase joining the two units and that's it, well, that's a different story).

:)

I appreciate NYCMAtt's about the "dry space" below a "wet space" - rather than a spiral staircase could you build a staircase that started near the kitchen on the upper floor and descended down and landed below the upstair's kitchen?
I've never liked spiral staircases.

It's hard to say without looking at a floor plan. I also do not care for spiral staircases, but they really are the most square footage-friendly in smaller apartments.

we did a horizontal combination in 2008 (joined two studios) and then did a vertical combination in 2012 (purchased another studio downstairs to turn it into a master suite).

without doubt the vertical was harder because of the layout (a 4 story brownstone in BH with a central stair case) because of the public stair construction we needed to run a "wall to wall" metal beam support, at one stage we were looking at a crane etc then our contractor found an engineer who was able to design a "split beam" with brackets etc but for a while there we weren't sure if we could continue with our original design and where going to have to do a spiral staircase (which is would never never ever do, it sucks and would have compromised the whole design).

The only advice I have for you is think about utlising the space under the stairs, it can gain you a ton of extra space, we put a 2 person walk in shower under one side and storage under the other leg.

If you are guessing at costs and don't have any idea....stop it now. Get yourself 3 or 4 contractor visits and get them to ballpark it. its the only way.

Also your comments about change of occupancy...you don't need it, chat to an architect and get them to give you a fixed quote for design. As for board approval, if its all internal.....not much they can say, we presented rough sketches and said subject to dob this is what we have planned, moved forward based on this.