Matt777 wrote:I love how some of the activists think new housing being built = housing prices go up. They have no understanding of supply and demand. This development doesn't destroy any housing, it's 100% net add.
R1070 wrote:Is that the Congress/Welborn site?
TNWE wrote:Matt777 wrote:I love how some of the activists think new housing being built = housing prices go up. They have no understanding of supply and demand. This development doesn't destroy any housing, it's 100% net add.
Apartment rents aren't that closely coupled to supply and demand, though. Sure, if there are thousands of net new units coming on the market every month with little absorption, overall rents will drop. But 250-ish new "luxury" units is not enough to make a meaningful dent in occupancy rates - it's more likely to push the whole neighborhood upmarket and set a new "price to beat," turning a formerly $800/month apartment into a $1000/month apartment because there's a luxury highrise around the corner leasing for at least double that. And that's before rising land values/tax assessments push landlords of non-luxury units to sell or redevelop their property as "luxury" mid/high rises.
Matt777 wrote:TNWE wrote:Matt777 wrote:I love how some of the activists think new housing being built = housing prices go up. They have no understanding of supply and demand. This development doesn't destroy any housing, it's 100% net add.
Apartment rents aren't that closely coupled to supply and demand, though. Sure, if there are thousands of net new units coming on the market every month with little absorption, overall rents will drop. But 250-ish new "luxury" units is not enough to make a meaningful dent in occupancy rates - it's more likely to push the whole neighborhood upmarket and set a new "price to beat," turning a formerly $800/month apartment into a $1000/month apartment because there's a luxury highrise around the corner leasing for at least double that. And that's before rising land values/tax assessments push landlords of non-luxury units to sell or redevelop their property as "luxury" mid/high rises.
This tower is not going to raise the rent of the older stock in Oak Lawn.... there's just no way. Some people will move out of their older Oak Lawn apartments into this one and the other new ones going up, and as older units sit on the market longer they will lower rents to get them leased instead of letting them sit empty. With real estate/apartment software these days, prices are VERY dynamic and are more tied to supply and demand in the area than ever. If all these new apartment buildings around Uptown/Oak Lawn hadn't gone up, and all these jobs still moved into the area, then the apartments that existed would have gone up in price even more dramatically. New apartments themselves don't create the demand, jobs do, and with more supply the market is able to respond to the increased demand better and upward price pressure is decreased. Yes, prices in the area have increased in recent years but that is due to more demand, not more supply, nor the quality of the new supply.
If/when the economy slows down and new jobs in the area decrease, all this new apartment stock will have an even bigger downward price pressure effect.
Will this building have a huge dent individually on rents in the area, no, but the theory from NIMBYS that new housing units in their area = their rents will be jacked up is absurd.
You've clearly never lived in a nice, but older and "non-luxury" apartment for years with small, if any annual increases in rent, only to have a new "luxury" complex go up around the corner and find out at your next lease renewal that your rent is suddenly going up by $2-300 a month.
TNWE wrote:Matt777 wrote:TNWE wrote:
Apartment rents aren't that closely coupled to supply and demand, though. Sure, if there are thousands of net new units coming on the market every month with little absorption, overall rents will drop. But 250-ish new "luxury" units is not enough to make a meaningful dent in occupancy rates - it's more likely to push the whole neighborhood upmarket and set a new "price to beat," turning a formerly $800/month apartment into a $1000/month apartment because there's a luxury highrise around the corner leasing for at least double that. And that's before rising land values/tax assessments push landlords of non-luxury units to sell or redevelop their property as "luxury" mid/high rises.
This tower is not going to raise the rent of the older stock in Oak Lawn.... there's just no way. Some people will move out of their older Oak Lawn apartments into this one and the other new ones going up, and as older units sit on the market longer they will lower rents to get them leased instead of letting them sit empty. With real estate/apartment software these days, prices are VERY dynamic and are more tied to supply and demand in the area than ever. If all these new apartment buildings around Uptown/Oak Lawn hadn't gone up, and all these jobs still moved into the area, then the apartments that existed would have gone up in price even more dramatically. New apartments themselves don't create the demand, jobs do, and with more supply the market is able to respond to the increased demand better and upward price pressure is decreased. Yes, prices in the area have increased in recent years but that is due to more demand, not more supply, nor the quality of the new supply.
If/when the economy slows down and new jobs in the area decrease, all this new apartment stock will have an even bigger downward price pressure effect.
Will this building have a huge dent individually on rents in the area, no, but the theory from NIMBYS that new housing units in their area = their rents will be jacked up is absurd.
You've clearly never lived in a nice, but older and "non-luxury" apartment for years with small, if any annual increases in rent, only to have a new "luxury" complex go up around the corner and find out at your next lease renewal that your rent is suddenly going up by $2-300 a month. I asked the leasing office if they were high and said I could move to a much nicer unit around the corner for not much more, they basically said "go for it." All they wanted to do was turn over their current residents so they could get into each unit and renovate it up to a "luxury" standard and charge accordingly, and if someone didn't want to move out, they were stuck paying luxury rents for a decidedly non-luxury apartment.
I didn't need stainless steel appliances or granite counters- I was much more concerned with living downtown and not paying much more than $1000/month, but Dallas' version of "Urban Development" means everything that isn't Public housing must be faux "luxury" and historic building apartment conversions are Ultra luxury. Maybe if there were still modest, comfortable, safe apartments or low-amenity condo buildings downtown, your average middle-class office worker would consider living in the urban core. As it is, it's a choice between living out in the burbs where rent is within 30% of income, or living way beyond one's means downtown because the "luxury" rental units there will eat up half their paycheck at minimum.
New developments may look pretty and nominally add housing stock to the market, but they send a signal to every other landlord in the neighborhood that the "market rent" has shifted higher (not lower). Rents at existing units either go up a little to price in the newfound "appeal" of the area, or go WAY higher to all but force the current renters out so they can remodel or sell to a developer who will build another tower with far higher average rents.
Matt777 wrote:I recently moved into a 1970s townhouse in Oak Lawn behind the gay bars, so actually I have a very applicable experience to share. I had my eye on this unit due to its attached garage and renovations. It was listed, sat on the market, dropped in price, dropped in price again, and I got it for around $200/mo less than the original list price with very attractive move-in terms. There's an identical unit sitting on the market now at the same price I paid and will likely drop even more. When there's so many newer buildings to compete with, the older buildings have to renovate and price attractively. My price per square foot is an insanely good deal for the area and seems to be steady to dropping.
And again, the whole point is that supply does not create demand. It's the other way around. Circumstantially, prices of Oak Lawn apartments have gone up in the past 10 years but that is driven by DEMAND not SUPPLY. If this new tower was taking out 500 affordable older units to add in 300 new luxury units, that would be a different story, but it's 100% net add. The "rent is too damn high" warriors on the various Dallas facebook groups need to cool it on this one.
Cbdallas wrote:Dallas and DFW are vastly different than they were 10 years ago. Increases have gone up across the board in ALL areas due to the ongoing boom and in migration that has occurred. I would love to see even more towers and more luxury going into the entire core of Dallas as that would mean that it is a hot and exciting place desirable for people who want to live in an urban city and as a counter point to the burbs and surrounding cities. I would love to see towers from the balcony of my townhome in Oak Lawn.
cowboyeagle05 wrote:Two examples right here Starbucks at Congress focused primarily on Drive-Thru customers fly's through approvals and this new tower near Eatzi's will get fought tooth and nail as the bringer of all evil to Oak Lawn.
cowboyeagle05 wrote:Two examples right here Starbucks at Congress focused primarily on Drive-Thru customers fly's through approvals and this new tower near Eatzi's will get fought tooth and nail as the bringer of all evil to Oak Lawn.
Matt777 wrote:Nobody here is advocating for prices to go higher. If we do not build the new housing, keep supply at the same level, prices will increase IE San Francisco. Prices do not increase much because of granite counters or fancy pools. They increase because the market can bear those prices due to high demand..... this is basic real estate you guys..... supply does not create demand (Farmer's Market is a bad example because that was an area with zero housing until a decade ago, opposite of Oak Lawn that has had lots of multifamily stock for many many decades).
If you want higher prices, keep protesting new development. San Francisco NIMBYS are very, very good at this. I heard it's cheap to live there just like Oak Lawn in 2002. NOT.
eburress wrote:"Pennsylvania-based homebuilder Toll Brothers has started construction on the 22-story residential high-rise on Congress Avenue between Turtle Creek and Oak Lawn Avenue.
The 270-unit apartment tower replaces a block of older townhouses on the block, which is behind the Mansion on Turtle Creek Hotel."
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... n-district
TNWE wrote:Matt777 wrote:Nobody here is advocating for prices to go higher. If we do not build the new housing, keep supply at the same level, prices will increase IE San Francisco. Prices do not increase much because of granite counters or fancy pools. They increase because the market can bear those prices due to high demand..... this is basic real estate you guys..... supply does not create demand (Farmer's Market is a bad example because that was an area with zero housing until a decade ago, opposite of Oak Lawn that has had lots of multifamily stock for many many decades).
If you want higher prices, keep protesting new development. San Francisco NIMBYS are very, very good at this. I heard it's cheap to live there just like Oak Lawn in 2002. NOT.
The most basic tenet of economics is 'ceteris paribus' - all other things being equal. If the market is made up of 10 identical houses, and you build 10 more identical houses while keeping demand the same, yes, prices will go down. But that is not the case here- all of the new houses are being built with features and amenities that make them more desirable and therefore fetch higher rents. Real estate has so many irrational and confounding factors at play that it's foolish to try to explain it with a freshman econ supply and demand curve. People have emotional attachments to certain neighborhoods, or an irrational hatred of white appliances, or any of a thousand other opinions & preferences that make real estate far from a perfect, ideal market.
"Prices do not increase much because of granite counters or fancy pools." Then why are developers only building apartments with granite counters and fancy pools? If prices are what they are primarily because of demand, why are all these developers spending extra on finishes? All the people griping about the cookie-cutter stick-frame donut apartments claim that developers build them as cheaply as possible to maximize their profit, but if that were the case, why do they all have these luxury finishes? Are we now to believe that developers are installing stainless steel appliances and poolside cabanas out of the goodness of their hearts and not because they made a deliberate choice to target a wealthier segment of the market that values those amenities?
I never said that there shouldn't be new development, just that it it's laughable to claim that more supply equals lower rents when all of the new supply is being targeted at a higher price point, and almost always spurs a wave of gentrification that drives out existing renters with higher prices (See: Bishop Arts).
Matt777 wrote:I didn't see this post until now, but you obviously are missing the point.... still. New supply in itself does not raise prices! I know you refuse to believe that but whatever.... your San Fran model of don't build anything new because it will raise prices is not working.
Matt777 wrote:TNWE wrote:The most basic tenet of economics is 'ceteris paribus' - all other things being equal. If the market is made up of 10 identical houses, and you build 10 more identical houses while keeping demand the same, yes, prices will go down. But that is not the case here- all of the new houses are being built with features and amenities that make them more desirable and therefore fetch higher rents. Real estate has so many irrational and confounding factors at play that it's foolish to try to explain it with a freshman econ supply and demand curve. People have emotional attachments to certain neighborhoods, or an irrational hatred of white appliances, or any of a thousand other opinions & preferences that make real estate far from a perfect, ideal market.
"Prices do not increase much because of granite counters or fancy pools." Then why are developers only building apartments with granite counters and fancy pools? If prices are what they are primarily because of demand, why are all these developers spending extra on finishes? All the people griping about the cookie-cutter stick-frame donut apartments claim that developers build them as cheaply as possible to maximize their profit, but if that were the case, why do they all have these luxury finishes? Are we now to believe that developers are installing stainless steel appliances and poolside cabanas out of the goodness of their hearts and not because they made a deliberate choice to target a wealthier segment of the market that values those amenities?
I never said that there shouldn't be new development, just that it it's laughable to claim that more supply equals lower rents when all of the new supply is being targeted at a higher price point, and almost always spurs a wave of gentrification that drives out existing renters with higher prices (See: Bishop Arts).
I didn't see this post until now, but you obviously are missing the point.... still. New supply in itself does not raise prices! I know you refuse to believe that but whatever.... your San Fran model of don't build anything new because it will raise prices is not working.
The new, fairly cheap granite and stainless finishes of the cookie cutter apartments are to attract new renters but do not themselves raise the market. You can find very affordable new apartments in far flung suburbs and smaller TX markets like San Marcos that have the same finishes and they're much cheaper than the apartments in Dallas. Why? Because of supply and demand, gasp! Those smaller cities have tons of cheap easy land and can meet demand much easier with supply, keeping prices down. As land in urban Dallas has gotten pricier and in higher demand, the demand for apartments takes longer and is harder to meet, therefore prices go up.
Gosh I don't even know why I'm debating with someone who seriously thinks the answer to more affordable apartments is to not build any more of them.....
TNWE wrote:Matt777 wrote:TNWE wrote:The most basic tenet of economics is 'ceteris paribus' - all other things being equal. If the market is made up of 10 identical houses, and you build 10 more identical houses while keeping demand the same, yes, prices will go down. But that is not the case here- all of the new houses are being built with features and amenities that make them more desirable and therefore fetch higher rents. Real estate has so many irrational and confounding factors at play that it's foolish to try to explain it with a freshman econ supply and demand curve. People have emotional attachments to certain neighborhoods, or an irrational hatred of white appliances, or any of a thousand other opinions & preferences that make real estate far from a perfect, ideal market.
"Prices do not increase much because of granite counters or fancy pools." Then why are developers only building apartments with granite counters and fancy pools? If prices are what they are primarily because of demand, why are all these developers spending extra on finishes? All the people griping about the cookie-cutter stick-frame donut apartments claim that developers build them as cheaply as possible to maximize their profit, but if that were the case, why do they all have these luxury finishes? Are we now to believe that developers are installing stainless steel appliances and poolside cabanas out of the goodness of their hearts and not because they made a deliberate choice to target a wealthier segment of the market that values those amenities?
I never said that there shouldn't be new development, just that it it's laughable to claim that more supply equals lower rents when all of the new supply is being targeted at a higher price point, and almost always spurs a wave of gentrification that drives out existing renters with higher prices (See: Bishop Arts).
I didn't see this post until now, but you obviously are missing the point.... still. New supply in itself does not raise prices! I know you refuse to believe that but whatever.... your San Fran model of don't build anything new because it will raise prices is not working.
The new, fairly cheap granite and stainless finishes of the cookie cutter apartments are to attract new renters but do not themselves raise the market. You can find very affordable new apartments in far flung suburbs and smaller TX markets like San Marcos that have the same finishes and they're much cheaper than the apartments in Dallas. Why? Because of supply and demand, gasp! Those smaller cities have tons of cheap easy land and can meet demand much easier with supply, keeping prices down. As land in urban Dallas has gotten pricier and in higher demand, the demand for apartments takes longer and is harder to meet, therefore prices go up.
Gosh I don't even know why I'm debating with someone who seriously thinks the answer to more affordable apartments is to not build any more of them.....
I never said "don't build any more apartments" but you apparently can't read or comprehend basic English.I'm trying to get you to recognize the gentrifying effect of high-rise development, and the fact that this tower will all but completely price out current oak lawn residents. Sure, average rents for the larger Metroplex may go down because of the additional supply, but the median rents won't be in the Urban Core- they'll be in far-flung parts of Dallas County at best (more likely in Collin/Denton Counties). If you don't think that's something to discuss or engage with, then just be honest and say "I, Matt777 hate people poorer than me, because they get in the way of my playing pretend that I live in a Real City with lots of tall buildings and a subway" instead of being deliberately obtuse and regurgitating banal Urbanist talking points.
You and eburress claim that any increase in rents is a short-term, localized effect and what Really Matters is the aggregate supply in the Dallas rental market, but something tells me you two wouldn't want to be told it's For the Greater Good when new development prices you out of your current housing and you suddenly have to move out to Pleasant Grove in search of housing you can afford. The only reason there's so much new development in San Marcos is because it's become a de facto exurb of Austin for all of the service and retail industry employees that have been priced out by the same sort of high socio-economic status people who would lease in this proposed Eatzi's tower. Why are you glad that the people least able to afford a long commute in heavy traffic are being priced out of the central city? Shouldn't addressing that impact be more important than satisfying a few anonymous forum posters who just shout "BUILD MORE HOUSING" like a broken record? Do you have a solution besides overbuilding high-end apartment towers to the point that any minor economic blip (say, tariffs leading to layoffs in certain key industries) turns into a full-fledged recession as residential developers go into default when they can no longer lease their new buildings at anywhere near what they'd need to cover their financing cost?
I joined this forum because I was interested in keeping abreast of what's going on development-wise in the DFW area and found a lot of helpful posters with expertise and knowledge to share (muncien, dfwcre8ive, and northsouth come to mind). Unfortunately, I also found it populated with a bunch of aggressively self-interested megalomaniacs who think their personal friendships with a handful of like-minded local politicians (elected or otherwise) gives them the credibility or authority to dictate what Should and Should Not be built in Dallas. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but claiming your opinion as a factual truth because DMag or some other garbage publication agrees with you is arrogance of the highest order. Welcome to my ignore list.
Unfortunately, I also found it populated with a bunch of aggressively self-interested megalomaniacs who think their personal friendships with a handful of like-minded local politicians (elected or otherwise) gives them the credibility or authority to dictate what Should and Should Not be built in Dallas. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but claiming your opinion as a factual truth because DMag or some other garbage publication agrees with you is arrogance of the highest order. Welcome to my ignore list.
TNWE wrote:I never said that there shouldn't be new development, just that it it's laughable to claim that more supply equals lower rents when all of the new supply is being targeted at a higher price point, and almost always spurs a wave of gentrification that drives out existing renters with higher prices (See: Bishop Arts).
TNWE wrote: I'm trying to get you to recognize the gentrifying effect of high-rise development, and the fact that this tower will all but completely price out current oak lawn residents. Sure, average rents for the larger Metroplex may go down because of the additional supply, but the median rents won't be in the Urban Core- they'll be in far-flung parts of Dallas County at best (more likely in Collin/Denton Counties).
TNWE wrote:The only reason there's so much new development in San Marcos is because it's become a de facto exurb of Austin for all of the service and retail industry employees that have been priced out by the same sort of high socio-economic status people who would lease in this proposed Eatzi's tower. Why are you glad that the people least able to afford a long commute in heavy traffic are being priced out of the central city? Shouldn't addressing that impact be more important than satisfying a few anonymous forum posters who just shout "BUILD MORE HOUSING" like a broken record? Do you have a solution besides overbuilding high-end apartment towers to the point that any minor economic blip (say, tariffs leading to layoffs in certain key industries) turns into a full-fledged recession as residential developers go into default when they can no longer lease their new buildings at anywhere near what they'd need to cover their financing cost?
TNWE wrote:I joined this forum because I was interested in keeping abreast of what's going on development-wise in the DFW area and found a lot of helpful posters with expertise and knowledge to share (muncien, dfwcre8ive, and northsouth come to mind). Unfortunately, I also found it populated with a bunch of aggressively self-interested megalomaniacs who think their personal friendships with a handful of like-minded local politicians (elected or otherwise) gives them the credibility or authority to dictate what Should and Should Not be built in Dallas. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but claiming your opinion as a factual truth because DMag or some other garbage publication agrees with you is arrogance of the highest order. Welcome to my ignore list.
TNWE wrote:I never said "don't build any more apartments" but you apparently can't read or comprehend basic English.![]()
TNWE wrote:"I, Matt777 hate people poorer than me, because they get in the way of my playing pretend that I live in a Real City with lots of tall buildings and a subway" instead of being deliberately obtuse and regurgitating banal Urbanist talking points.
Alpaca_Obsessor wrote:You criticize us for arrogance, and yet your the one using the most aggressive language on hereTNWE wrote:I never said "don't build any more apartments" but you apparently can't read or comprehend basic English.
TNWE wrote:"I, Matt777 hate people poorer than me, because they get in the way of my playing pretend that I live in a Real City with lots of tall buildings and a subway" instead of being deliberately obtuse and regurgitating banal Urbanist talking points.
If your argument is strong enough, you shouldn't have to resort to the sorts of statements above. It's just childish
TNWE wrote:Alpaca_Obsessor wrote:You criticize us for arrogance, and yet your the one using the most aggressive language on hereTNWE wrote:I never said "don't build any more apartments" but you apparently can't read or comprehend basic English.
TNWE wrote:"I, Matt777 hate people poorer than me, because they get in the way of my playing pretend that I live in a Real City with lots of tall buildings and a subway" instead of being deliberately obtuse and regurgitating banal Urbanist talking points.
If your argument is strong enough, you shouldn't have to resort to the sorts of statements above. It's just childish
If people are going to misrepresent what I'm saying, I'm going to call them out. My point was never that building new housing is wrong or bad, but the echo chamber on here keeps attacking me for an argument I never made. Matt777 talked about getting a great deal on a renovated place in Oak Lawn (without mentioning actual numbers, as is his right), and then ridiculed people who were (rightly) concerned about getting priced out of that same neighborhood as NIMBYs. I don't expect anyone on here to disclose what they pay in rent, but more often than not, saying a neighborhood is a "deal" means it's on the rise in terms of desirability, and the rents are lagging that desirability improvement rather than leading it. No one says they're getting a deal when they save $100/month by moving to a declining neighborhood.
Saying that adding more housing stock of any kind lowers all rents (or restrains rent increases) in the aggregate may be true from a macroeconomic perspective, but when all of the new stock prices out the lower-income service workers who staff the shops that yuppies patronize, you're making them much worse off as they now have longer commutes into the core. Chicago may be fine with that development trend because they have a much more comprehensive transit system that can bring lots of people into the city core to sustain the services that high-rise dwelling yuppies need. Dallas does not have that sort of transit system, and the expense to build the sort of system (ROW acquisition, tunneling, staff, etc) is easily in the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars. Even if we started tomorrow, it would take decades to build things out.
So, we're saying its unequivocally good to turn the city core into a yuppie playground right now when the transit improvements to sustain it are a decade behind at best, so all of the people who operate the stores, restaurants, and other services that yuppies need to make an area "vibrant" and desirable are consigned to driving or inneffective transit to get to their jobs every day.
I can only assume that the crowd claiming there's zero downside to building exclusively high-end housing in the core has completely internalized the popular caricature of all single-occupant car commuters as overpaid, Trump-voting, corporate executive suburbanites who bash gays for fun on the weekends. If those people every actually sat in rush hour traffic on 635/75/DNT and looked at the drivers of the cars on either side of them, they'd see a very different picture. Even the people who blame Dallas' ineffective transit on DART for having to serve "the suburbs" ignore the fact that Dallas is itself a sprawling mess, with most of the land area taken up by detached single-family residential.
So yeah, I get a little bristly when I see post after post claiming that Dallas could be Chicago or New York if only they'd "Build Housing" or "Tear down 345" or "Build a subway" when there are historical and structural differences that make those formulaic Urbanist one-liner "solutions" not applicable to Dallas. Things are a little more complicated than that.
clubtokyo wrote:Can anyone explain why Dallas pride won’t be in oak lawn this year?? I always thought that was the best thing about Dallas pride. Fair park seems weird.
Cord1936 wrote:
Quote from article:
StreetLights went back to the movie theater’s archive (housed in the Dallas Public Library) for inspiration from the original 1931 theater. Now the Oak Lawn Avenue façade looks like an update on that original theater – complete with sign and marquee. It creates a visual connection to the Melrose Hotel. It also begins to heal the wound this parcel has represented to the neighborhood since the theater was torn down in 1985.
Article: https://candysdirt.com/2019/06/05/oak-lawn-committee-sees-improvement-from-streetlights-eatzis-adjacent-proposal/?utm_source=Candy+Evans+-+All+Subscribers&utm_campaign=b7d8bc9638-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bd2a6dc536-b7d8bc9638-16460437
Tucy wrote:So, are floors 2-6 now parking, instead of apartments?
As you can see, the first seven floors have given way to that new/old façade. It replaces the original plan’s rather plain-Jane streetscape and creates a destination. What also happened was that the Oak Lawn Avenue-facing units on those redesigned floors went away. The enabled them to rejigger the parking, resulting in a 25-foot (or two-story) drop in the height of the parking podium. It’s a great start, but at seven stories, it’s still too tall of a visual brick when not looking straight-on at the building.
But it’s only been a month and not everything has been addressed – yet. In my book, there are four things that still need working out. First, the already-mentioned 7-story garage. Second, the skin of the building above the new façade still needs help. Third, the orientation of the parking lot entry from Eatzi’s needs to be aligned with the road. And fourth, a bit more explanation on traffic flow for deliveries, moving vans, etc.
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