On Thu, 12 May 2016 12:52:50 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 05/12/2016 11:23 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 12:12:08 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Thu, 12 May 2016 07:49:19 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:
On Thursday, May 12, 2016 at 10:38:11 AM UTC-4, wrote:
...

The power is served from the front side of the house and there is no
easy way to have the meter in the back. They are not going to run the
service lateral all the way around a row of homes and down through the
back yards just to hide a meter.

That would be my guess too. Question for the OP, are all the condos
done that way? Certainly no uniformity here in NJ and typically they
don't put them on the front. They are usually on a side where they
are still easily accessible but out of view. ...

Grouping the meters on one end is certainly an option but you would
also need have raceways for the SE conductors buried under the other
units before they were built. At a certain point, voltage drop will
become an issue if these SE conductors get very long. It is a lot
easier to run a straight shot to the unit from the street.

It depends on how the condos come together. In my case they were in
clusters of 16. Mine was at right angles to the one next to it.
That corner area between the two was where the meters and AC for
both units were placed, so there was no need to run anything further,
it worked out very nicely. The next door neighbors condo had the
next condo directly abut it, the one following that was at right
angles to it, etc. So the electric for those two was again in a
corner area.

They built a bunch here that each building has the SE on the end wall w/
all the meters; each pair of two had it on facing ends, of course.

It's all whether the contractor is willing to spend the $$ for the
aesthetics or is looking for the cheapest way out. Distance is easily
compensated for at the expense of some cable size perhaps but probably
not likely there, anyway; the service to the building has to be
sufficient for the whole complex irregardless and the distance within
the building from that distribution point is likely not an issue.

As for the routing, I didn't walk through these before they were
completed so not sure how the main runs were done but I'd suspect there
was room for a conduit trace in the space between floors designed in
from the git-go...

If these ran "through" the building in common areas, you need a
disconnect by the meter. If they run under the building, they can
still be service conductors, hot from the meter.
It gets more troubling if they are actually running through another
owners unit.
No builders is going to spend the extra money to deal with voltage
drop. The loophole in 310.15(B)(6) provides more voltage drop than
some people want, even with short service conductors. Condos and
townhouses may be the worst since a lot of them will go with the
minimum 100a panel and that can be fed with 4 gauge copper.