Enlarge Damian Dovarganes/AP

The increase in housing starts, along with rising builder confidence and stronger job growth, is a hopeful sign that the home market may be starting to recover.

The increase in housing starts, along with rising builder confidence and stronger job growth, is a hopeful sign that the home market may be starting to recover.

U.S. builders began work on more homes last month, evidence that the battered housing market is slowly healing.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that builders broke ground at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 717,000 homes in April from March. That's 2.6 percent more than March's total, which was revised higher. Construction rose for both single-family homes and apartments.

Building permits, a gauge of future construction, fell last month from a 3 year high to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 715,000. But that was because of a 23 percent drop in the volatile apartment category. Permits for single-family homes rose almost 2 percent.

Even with the gains, the rate of construction and the level of permits requested remain roughly half the pace considered healthy. But the increase, along with rising builder confidence and stronger job growth, is a hopeful sign that the home market may finally be starting to recover nearly five years after the housing bubble burst.

Builders have grown more confident since last fall, in part because more people have expressed interest in buying a home. In May, builder optimism rose to the highest level in five years, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index.

Seasonally adjusted annual rate, in thousands

Homebuilders reported improving sales and higher traffic from prospective buyers, the survey showed. A gauge measuring confidence in sales over the next six months also rose to 34 from 31.

View original post here:
Housing Construction Up 2.6 Percent In April

After years of planning and organization, developers are poised to move forward with construction of Camellia Park Apartment Homes on the land known as Camellia Commons on the south side of Boll Weevil Circle.

Developer Bill Ware attended the May 15 Enterprise City Council meeting to update councilmembers on the project that is more than five years in the making.

Camellia Commons originally broke ground in 2008, however the downward economy slowed building projects on the site that at the time was expecting a full retail center within seven years.

In a 2009 interview, Enterprise Mayor Boswell said Enterprise is "poised to take advantage of the upswing when it curves."

The presentation regarding the impending construction of Camellia Park is a promising sign that the economy is indeed on the upswing.

Boswell said this project will add to the quality of life for residents in Enterprise and would hopefully help accelerate the development of other retailers on the Camellia Commons property.

Camellia Park is a large gated apartment complex planned between Bellwood Road and Highway 167 South. It is the first of six phases planned for the Camellia Commons area.

The area, Ware said, is the "growth corridor" for continued growth in Enterprise.

"We're happy and excited about being a part of that growth," he said.

The $13 million project will sit on 16.88 acres of land and include 11 residential buildings with one, two and three bedroom apartments, for a total of 144 apartments.

Read the original:
Construction of Camellia Park planned by end of year

Todd Maisel/New York Daily News

A construction worker plunged 40 several stories from a scaffolding on a building under construction at 450 Broome St. in Manhattan Thursday afternoon.

A Brooklyn construction worker packing up to head home from his first day on the job was killed Thursday in a two-story fall from scaffolding on a Manhattan building family and coworkers said.

Adrian Zamora, 32, was alone on the scaffolding - not wearing a harness - on the Mercer St. side of 450 Broome St. in SoHo when he plummeted 40 feet onto a sidewalk shed around 5 p.m., colleague Emerson Bicalho said.

The workers were restoring the facade of the 11-story luxury loft apartment building.

We were cleaning up to go home, Bicalho, 35, of Newark said. He fell on his head. ... He was bleeding from the nose and mouth.

The paramedics were pumping his chest. He wasnt responding, the shaken-up coworker said.

Hes a nice guy. Hes a real joker. He was a working guy just trying to make some money to keep his family good.

An EMT source at the scene said the man suffered massive head trauma and went into cardiac arrest.

Zamora, an immigrant from Mexico who lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children, died at Bellevue Hospital, his family and police said.

See original here:
Construction worker dies in Manhattan fall

Since the housing meltdown, more South Floridians are renting a place to live because the financial reality is that they cant buy.

A lot of other people simply prefer to rent.

The two groups are spawning a fundamental shift in housing and a fledgling boom in the construction of new apartments for the first time in years. It is a national trend that is crystallizing in South Florida with rental apartment projects in the works in cities ranging from Plantation and Davie to Doral and Coral Gables.

Rentals will be in demand for a while. The pendulum has swung, said Mahesh Pattabhiraman, chief lending officer for Miami-based Apollo Bank, which this month made a land-acquisition loan to Miamis Adler Group, a major commercial developer that plans to build two 20-story rental apartment towers near the west end of 79th Street Causeway in a joint venture with ECI Group of Atlanta.

A lot of people with bad credit wont qualify to buy a home. And because of the crisis, some people are not convinced its the right time to buy, added Pattabhiraman.

Like Adler, other major South Florida developers with specialties in areas such as luxury condominiums and industrial parks are refocusing on rental apartments to capitalize on the strong demand and the availability of financing.

Everybody is jumping on the bandwagon, said Armando Codina, a prominent Miami developer of industrial parks and commercial projects who has turned his attention in a big way to rental apartments, with projects in various stages from Doral to Davie. The fundamentals are right. This is not a trendy thing, said Codina.

On Wednesday, Codina announced his Coral Gables-based CC Residential has formed a partnership with AREA Property Partners, a New York real estate investment giant, to develop rental apartment projects in South Florida. The alliance includes two projects in which Codina has already broken ground: a 352-unit project renamed The Signature at Doral, at Doral Boulevard (NW 41st Street) and the Homestead Extension of Floridas Turnpike, and a 350-apartment project on Davie Road between SW 29th Street and SW 31st Street, renamed The Signature at Davie.

AREAs CEO for North America, Richard Mack, said his firms recent success in acquiring a troubled condo project and turning it into an apartment complex on the Miami River called Terrazas River Park Village reinforced his view that the time is right for multifamily rental development. It led us to conclude that rents are going to continue to rise and demand is going to continue to rise in a way to sustain new development, Mack said.

Fueling the demand is the dearth of professionally managed apartment buildings in the wake of the condo-conversion mania of the last decade. Many multifamily rental apartments in the region were snapped up by developers, converted into condos and sold for quick profits.

See the original post here:
Rental, sweet rental: Shift toward apartment living spurs new construction

Posted:Today Updated: 10:28 AM A 94-unit apartment building, a 26-unit condominium complex and a multi-use building beside the Hampton Inn are proposed.

By Tom Bell tbell@mainetoday.com Staff Writer

The India Street neighborhood is poised for a building boom that was supposed to happen years ago but was stalled by the recession, although some of the projects are not at the same level of opulence that was once envisioned for the area.

click image to enlarge

The 94-unit apartment building proposed for the Portland site formerly occupied by the Village Cafe is creating controversy because of its height: 74 feet in an area zoned for 45-foot height limits.

click image to enlarge

This is the Middle Street view of the mixed-use building proposed for the former Jordan's Meats site.

Three significant development projects are in the works, each with varying levels of support from the neighborhood. The projects are:

a 94-unit apartment building on the former site of the Village Cafe;

a 26-unit condominium project on Franklin Street; and

Continued here:
Developers try again in India Street neighborhood

CHARLEROI, Pa.

Ten people escaped a burning apartment building in Washington County early Thursday morning thanks to alert neighbors.

Investigators said the blaze started in a building on Washington Avenue in Charleroi around 1:30 a.m.

Derrick Blakey told Channel 11s Vince Sims that he could see the flames coming from the structure and ran to alert the people inside.

Blakey said he threw bricks through the windows of the building trying to wake up the people inside.

Witnesses said they saw two babies dropped out of second floor windows and caught by neighbors on the ground.

I said, Listen. Drop your kids down to me, Ill catch them. Im not going to let your kids fall, Blakey said. So he dropped the kids down to me and I walked them around the corner.

Robert Wright, 26, also told Sims he assisted in the rescue.

There were three trash cans here and I picked up two of them and started throwing them at the windows and door. I also threw little rocks from the construction workers and thats when they woke up, Wright said.

Investigators said they questioned Wright as a suspect because he recently complained about mold in the apartment that made his daughter sick.

View post:
Neighbors help 10 people escape burning Washington County apartment building

KNOXVILLE Carelessly discarded smoking material apparently ignited a weekend blaze that displaced 35 people from their apartment building, fire investigators concluded.

No one was injured in the 9:27 a.m. Sunday fire at Bell Walker's Crossing, 8301 Block House Way, but flames rendered the 24 units in the building uninhabitable.

Firefighters arrived at the three-story building to find flames on second- and third-floor balconies that were climbing into the attic area.

Firefighters initially thought the fire had started on the third floor because that's where flames were most intense. Fire investigators, however, determined the flames began on the second-floor balcony of apartment 121, according to Knoxville Fire Department spokesman Capt. D.J. Corcoran.

"The fire then extended to the balcony directly above, and then into the attic area," Corcoran said. He was unaware if the person responsible for the fire was in the apartment when flames erupted.

Investigators have labeled the blaze as accidental.

As firefighters tried to douse the flames, a part of the third floor collapsed because of the construction, fire damage and water collecting in the structure.

The Knoxville chapter of the American Red Cross is helping some of the displaced residents.

More details as they develop online and in Tuesday's News Sentinel.

Read more:
Smoking blamed for West Knoxville apartment blaze

Rezoning of property at 100 E. 12th St. from commercial to residential is all right with the Rolla Planning and Zoning Commission.

Tuesday afternoon, the commission met and voted to recommend the Rolla City Council approve the rezoning requested by Roger and Nassreen Rome, who lives at 12601 Cardinal Point Rd., and want to construct an apartment house at the 12th Street site, which is near Missouri S&T.

There was no opposition to the proposal at the public hearing held during the commission meeting, and the Community Development department staff recommends the rezoning be approved without condition.

Community Development Director John Petersen told the commission the current zoning is C-1 (neighborhood business district), although the use of the property is residential, for a single-family, four-bedroom house sits on the 13,547-square-foot (.31 acre) lot.

Located on the south side of 12th Street between Oak and Elm streets, the property is in a neighborhood of apartments. S&T also owns property nearby and uses it for parking and storage.

The applicant submitted a rezoning petition and letter describing the proposed development which would permit the construction of a five-unit apartment building in addition to the existing single-family structure, Petersen told the commission in a memorandum. R-3 (multi-family district) zoning is required to allow the multi-family development as proposed and to permit multiple structures on a lot.

Petersen said the rezoning would not negatively affect the neighborhood, is consistent with the 2020 Comprehensive Plan Update and would not adversely affect traffic flow. Utilities are adequate and there is room for the 12 paved, off-street parking spaces that will be required.

Commissioners present for the meeting were Monte Shields, Russel Schmidt, Greg Sawyer, Robert Anderson and Dennis Bennett.

Read more from the original source:
Rezoning would allow apartment building

Anywhere. He could be anywhere.

Around the corner of the apartment building where they live. Across the street at the construction site where he works. At the nearby bar where he sometimes goes for a beer. She looks around, nervous. What if he sees her?

But she cant wait. Not anymore. She tightens her grip on the baby stroller and heads off into the night.

She has a plan: make it three blocks, to the shelter for women and children. Borrow someones cell phone, call 911. She tried to dial the number back at the apartment, but he yanked the phone out of her hands and broke it to pieces.

She zooms the stroller down the sidewalk of South Othello Street, heading west toward Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, a busy intersection in a diverse, yet gentrifying, south Seattle neighborhood. On her right, an abandoned lot and taco truck, on her left, an unfinished luxury apartment complex. By this time of evening, heading on midnight, hardly a car drives by; the light rail station sits empty. Shes all alone.

Except for her son. Their son. Tomorrow hell turn seven months old. About 90 minutes ago, shortly after the yelling and screaming drew her neighbors into the hallway, the child cried while she splashed water on her face in the bathroom of Apartment 21. Now he sits in his stroller, bundled up in a blue, fuzzy snowsuit.

In a rush, she forgot to grab her own coat. Not that she minds. She barely feels the chilly spring air rushing over the red mark on her throat.

But she can feel her right cheek throb. In the bathroom mirror, she saw the knot, the swelling, the purplish-maroon hematoma that formed under her eye. But its weird. Because when he hit her, she couldnt really feel it. It was like she lost consciousness Did she? Did she black out?

Outside, she hustles the stroller down the sidewalk. Streetlights cast an orange halogen glow, throw shadows that pile up under bushes, shadows large enough to hide a grown man. If only she knew where he went when he left the apartment.

Nearly 16 months ago when she met him, back in Idaho, she had wanted to change her life. Hed told her the same. They would do it, together. But things got in the way. The poverty, the drug use, the drinking, the yelling, the fighting, the fists, the fear all of it clouded their vision. All of it weighed on their lives.

View post:
The Gravity of Abuse: On a south Seattle street, a tale of domestic violence unfolds

The Lofts at Farmers Market is fully constructed and occupied, but legal woes continue for the five-story, 58-unit luxury apartment building developed using city money.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has found "the appearance of both folly and favoritism" in the city's decision to allow a building contractor to withdraw its $7.33 million construction bid and then alter it upward it after the contract was already awarded.

The appeals court sided with Rochon Corp., a construction contractor that made a bid for the project, and against the city of St. Paul in a lawsuit. Rochon maintains the city violated its own bidding procedure when it awarded a construction contract to Shaw-Lundquist, the company that completed the $8 million building in February. Three appeals court judges have agreed.

The decision, filed Monday, May 7, effectively orders the city to sever its contract with Shaw-Lundquist, but it gives little to no indication of how to do that. The building is already complete.

"What effect this ruling has on the project is unclear," Jeffrey Wieland, an attorney with Fabyanske, Westra, Hart and Thomson P.A., the Minneapolis law firm representing Rochon, wrote in an email Monday. "Tenants have started moving into the building, but there may be progress payments and retainage still outstanding for Shaw- Lundquist and its subcontractors. That money cannot be paid on a void contract. More litigation on this project is possible."

Joe Campbell, a spokesman

In a later email, Campbell added: "Projects like the Lofts at Farmers Market are a key component to enhancing vibrancy in the city."

The ruling is the latest curveball for a project that has had its share of struggles. The city acted as developer of the Lofts project, which overlooks the Lowertown farmers market, after a previous developer and construction team parted ways and dropped the project.

The city put out a request for bids in November 2010. Shaw-Lundquist won the contract with a bid of $7.33 million. The contractor quickly realized it had underestimated costs by $619,000 and told the city it had to withdraw from the contract. Instead, the city invited Shaw-Lundquist to rejoin the project and allowed it to add $89,000 on top of the $619,000, for a total contract of $8.04 million.

The city attorney's office pointed out that after the revisions, Shaw-Lundquist's bid was still lower than those of its competitors. Doran Construction bid $8.29 million, the Sand Companies bid $8.39 million and the Rochon Corp. bid $8.72 million. Other bidders, Stahl Construction Co. and Morcon Construction Co., bid even higher sums.

See original here:
St. Paul: Appeals court rules against city in downtown lofts bid