First Coyotes, Now Toll Brothers: New York City’s Exurbanization Is Nearly Complete

Toll Brothers, widely blamed for creating “McMansions,” have five projects currently underway in New York City:

Toll Brothers is perhaps the best-known builder of luxury homes in the country, having honed the art of upper-middle-class living into the science of large-scale suburban development. But now the company is entering the New York City real estate market, with five sites in various stages of development from the East Village to the Gowanus Canal neighborhood in Brooklyn.

. . .

Some real estate specialists say that Toll Brothers is moving into the New York market for two reasons. The obvious one is purely a growth opportunity. But the other is that the company’s traditional market — single-family suburban development — is being curtailed both by local ordinances designed to limit growth and by a lack of premium buildable land.

In recent months the company has also encountered problems related to broader market trends; Toll Brothers announced in February that the company was experiencing increased cancellations of new home orders, and that new contracts fell by 21 percent compared with the previous year.

Backstory: “Chasing Ground,” New York Times Magazine, October 16, 2005.