CHILD-FRIENDLY CO-OPS, P.2

There are 85 children among the 166 units, and 80 percent of them under the age of six, so "it gets tremendous use," she says. "We have sofas, we have some large Rubbermaid toys, a dollhouse, and basketball hoops." The building also has a playroom committee that disseminates the rules of usage – chief among them, clean up your own mess.

Anticipating a family boom in Chelsea back in the late 1990s, Rockrose, the developer of The Chelsea Mercantile condominium, on Seventh Avenue at 24th Street, built enormous units and included washers and dryers in all that building's apartments except studios, and built a playroom replete with murals, slides, a jungle gym and toys. When the condo opened in 2000, the units were sold mostly to single people, recalls Fionn Campbell, a member of the original sales team. "Now I will say the majority of people who live in the building have families."

There are two things a building needs to be attractive to families, says Gil Neary, president of the Chelsea-based real estate brokerage DG Neary Realty. The first is washers and dryers in the apartment. The second is space in the apartments for children — and optimally, a playroom.

Adapted from the November 2010 issue of Habitat. For complete articles from issues going back to 2002, join our Archive >>