More for the South Bay bubble scrapbook - Village on Oak

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was an extremely light day for shopping, as far as I could tell - hardly any traffic! That included the Torrance Farmers' Market at Charles Wilson Park. And we were running a bit later than usual. Anyway I thought I'd snap the progress of the multi-unit condo project called The Village on Oak. I've blogged about it before.

According to Standard Pacific Homes, there are three projects being built there. The Village on Laurel looks like it will be done last. Acacia and Bayberry are in progress.

I wish these home builders would offer a little more about the design and architecture of these places on their websites. I am not an architecture expert by any means. Standard Pacific Homes says nothing about style on its website. From the back, these townhomes vaguely remind me of the council houses of Great Britain because of the way they are packed together, though they have more style to them - what do you call it - pseudo Cape Cod? Colonial? Even though I sort of like the earthy tones of Fusion, within limits, I definitely prefer the style here.

We drove in past the entrance sign toward this structure here and encountered a security guard sitting in a car who said "Sorry, we're not open until 10!" I asked if it was OK if I took a few pictures and he said sure. This structure is the entrance to a community swimming pool.

I think the building here is part of Acacia. Prices are apparently from the mid-$500,000's. Too bad the lighting is so bad.

This looks like a Bayberry structure. Prices are from the high-$600,000's.

Here are some views of construction, from the Farmers' Market:

I pray it will never happen, but if I were faced with a choice of having to live at Fusion or in Village on Oak, I would pick Village, even though this location would add another 45 minutes to my already terrible work commute. It's big saving grace for me would be its proximity to the Farmers' Market, where we get probably 2/3rds of our food. If parents were faced with this choice, I would think the Torrance school district would be more desirable compared to the Hawthorne district.

Standard Pacific Homes also has some high density projects going on in Playa Vista and Marina Del Rey. I think I've caught a glimpse of some new houses overlooking some bluffs, visible from Lincoln Boulevard. Maybe that is the SP high end home project in Westchester.

It'll be interesting to see how the market holds up for the high-density housing, and how it holds up for the more upscale homes.

My poor significant other, who is normally a pure Libertarian, looked at the links for some of these Standard Pacific projects and then started ranting and raving about "market failure" and how the free market has no vision for what lies ahead. I have to agree with him. There is nothing green about these houses. The project in Marina Del Rey looks like the residents will be living in office suites, not homes. No solar power.

Our consumption problems have lead to energy supply problems and geopolitical problems and the average American home consumer seems relatively unconcerned.