My first slab that looks like a thing, comes from my beast of a project called Park Lane. You'll be seeing more slabs from Park Lane in the future. Here's a quick rundown of the project.The Ala Moana Shopping Mall just off Waikiki is one of the most profitable malls in the world. You may have been there. With all the tourists coming in, they need a place to spend their money, and this paradisiacal mall is the perfect place.
But they've got this ugly, albeit necessary, 3 story parking garage that completely surrounds their lucrative mall. They look at that, and think, "What a crying shame. This beautiful view of the ocean is going to waste." Then they look at their customers and notice they're particularly successful with rich Chinese tourists - and holy shit - they're rich.
Then they get this bright idea, "Hey, let's build a 6 story ultra luxury condo on top of our parking garage that faces the ocean. Then we'll market them to these rich Chinese people as home bases while they shop. I bet we could charge a lot of money for them."
That's how Park Lane came to be, and that's what pays my bills. And in case you're interested, they'll take anyone's money. You don't HAVE to be from China to buy one.
It was during one of these tough lulls that I unexpectedly got an excited tap on my should from my pod-mate Farshad (awesome guy). In his silky Iranian accent he exclaims "Trace, your slab looks like the big blue monster from Monsters Inc.!" He was totally right and we had a good chuckle about it, as did everyone I showed. And afterward I was never bored designing that slab. With that in perspective, I think their asking price of $21,000,000 is totally justified. You could live on Sully's face!
