A city design commission granted final approval Wednesday for a proposed five-story apartment building, although a university planning official said it conflicts with future campus expansion plans.

The proposed 14-unit apartment complex would be located at 202 and 206 N. Brooks St. near UW-Madisons Educational Sciences building and would target student renters.

UW-Madison Facilities Planning and Management Director Gary Brown said the area should be used for academic and research facilities as outlined in the Campus Master Plan, which is a construction planning guide for the university.

In addition, Brown said the design violated guidelines which call for the building to be set at least 10 feet from the street.

Brown also said the university continues to oppose the project because it does not follow the neighborhood plan.

Despite the universitys disapproval, commission members decided the Campus Master Plan includes planning guidelines rather than strict rules for future construction projects.

The commission decided to grant final approval of the project at Wednesdays meeting and said the design would be consistent with other buildings in the neighborhood.

Being this close in vicinity to the campus, I feel like this would be a great project for students, said Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8. I see it fitting into context with the development of the neighborhood its in.

At the same meeting, developers introduced plans for a 65-unit apartment building with a design complimentary to Union South at 1323 W. Dayton St.

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City officials approve Brooks Street apartment proposal

Construction of a $55-million apartment building at Annapolis Towne Centre will start next week, but the prospect of congested parking lots has some businesses wary.

To cope with construction, workers will reconfigure the Riva Road median so motorists can turn left into the parking lot in front of Gordon Biersch. An additional security guard will be hired to work 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at that entrance to help with parking. On Thursday, a free valet stand also will be set up.

Weve done these things proactively, Greenberg Gibbons President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Fitzpatrick said.

We want (the tenants) to be successful, Fitzpatrick aid. We take this as a positive for the Towne Centre. There will be some transition while were going through construction, but at the end of the day, weve demonstrated being good operators and that we know how to manage first-class retail property.

Tenants have mixed feelings about the addition of the apartments, which are expected to be two- and three-bedroom units with rents as high as $1,600. An online petition has been launched in opposition, because Annapolis does not need further development, crowding our streets, and cluttering our skyline, according to the document at Change.org.

The planning for this addition has been going on for some time. In 2010, the Baltimore County developer announced that it wanted to increase the propertys residential units by as many as 225 apartments. The developments Mariner Bay community has 208 apartments, while Parole-based Sturbridge Homes built 150 condominiums in the GrandView building.

There is also concern that more development will make parking even tighter on the Riva Road side of the property. Pei Wei Asian Diner and Qdoba Mexican Grill will also open at that end of the property.

Its going to be a complete nightmare that is going to dramatically affect all of us, said a tenant who does not want to be identified. Mariner Bay Apartments has been in the upper 90 percent occupancy for a very long time. Theyll make a lot more money off of this building than they will off of our building.

But some said there will be a long-term payoff to the work.

Its going to hurt us for traffic on that side, when you try to get out on the Riva Road side, said Lisa Gilmore, manager of Lucy, an active wear store in the development. Itll add more construction (and) traffic, but in the long run itll bring more people.

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Annapolis Towne Centre to add 208 apartments

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Apartment building ‘stacked’ in city

Housing starts edged down in February, but economists found optimism in the new construction data as permits increased. (William Thomas Cain / Getty Images)

March 20, 2012, 11:50 a.m.

Economists brushed off a decline in new residential construction starts last month and instead looked at an increase in permits issued for houses and apartment buildings as a positive indicator that the real estate market is on the mend.

Housing starts fell 1.1% from the prior month to hit a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 698,000, the Commerce Department reported. That was a 34.7% surge from February last year.

Starts were down 5.9% from the prior month in the West and 12.3% in the Northeast. They were up 1.5% in the South and 3.0% in the Midwest.

Building permits told a different story, up 5.1% above the revised January rate and 34.3% above February last year. Economists looked at the increase in permits as a sign that the economy was improving.

In a note, economist Patrick Newport of IHS Global Insight said, This report is one of the more encouraging new construction reports we have seen in the last four years.

He said apartment building is picking up across the U.S., and that home-building was on the rise in the South, which accounts for about half of single-family home construction. Even while starts were down last month, they were at their third-highest level since October 2008, he noted.

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Investors flip over Highland Park

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Economists optimistic on new construction numbers

Enlarge Paul Sakuma/AP

The housing market still has a long way to go before a full recovery is under way. The current pace of construction is barely half the rate considered healthy.

The housing market still has a long way to go before a full recovery is under way. The current pace of construction is barely half the rate considered healthy.

U.S. builders started work on slightly fewer homes in February. But they began laying the ground work for a turnaround later this year by requesting the most building permits in any month since October 2008.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that builders broke ground on a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 698,000 homes last month. That's down 1.1 percent from January's revised level of 706,000, also the highest since October 2008.

Building permits, a gauge of future construction, jumped 5.1 percent last month to 717,000. Two-thirds are for single-family homes, which are critical to a housing recovery.

It can take up to 12 months for a builder to obtain a permit and construct a single-family home.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said he expects further gains over the next few months, based on a measure of builder confidence that has increased in five of the past six months.

"Housing will add to growth all year, and beyond," Shepherdson said.

Seasonally adjusted annual rate, in thousands

Read more:
Home Construction Slows, But Building Plans Surge

ELKO The permitting of two new buildings in the Rabbit Brush Run apartment complex helped boost the City of Elkos February fees for building permits up roughly six and a half times what they were a year ago $283,887 compared with $44,505 in February 2011.

The two buildings amounted to a total of 14 permits issued, at $2.2 million in valuation, according to figures released by the City of Elkos building department.

The residential is whats helping us at this time, said Building Official Ted Schnoor.

The number of permits issued in February was 146 nearly double the 75 permits issued during the same month last year.

The 146 permits had a valuation of $4.1 million, compared with 75 permits with a total valuation of $1 million in February 2011.

Single-family dwellings amounted to $1.4 million in permit valuations, and $81,627 in permit fees for the city.

Fifty-six permits were issued for the construction of eight new homes. Five new houses in Brookwood Estates were permitted, as well as three in the Spanish Gardens II subdivision.

The residential growth is not expected to slow down anytime soon, as Schnoor estimates March will end with similar results.

The trend is continuing. ... It looks like were going to be issuing quite a few residential permits.

With a higher than average number of applications coming through, there is at least a six-week wait on permits.

Read the original here:
Going Up ...More buildings at Rabbit Brush Run apartments

ELKO The permitting of two new buildings in the Rabbit Brush Run apartment complex helped boost the City of Elkos February fees for building permits up roughly six and a half times what they were a year ago $283,887 compared with $44,505 in February 2011.

The two buildings amounted to a total of 14 permits issued, at $2.2 million in valuation, according to figures released by the City of Elkos building department.

The residential is whats helping us at this time, said Building Official Ted Schnoor.

The number of permits issued in February was 146 nearly double the 75 permits issued during the same month last year.

The 146 permits had a valuation of $4.1 million, compared with 75 permits with a total valuation of $1 million in February 2011.

Single-family dwellings amounted to $1.4 million in permit valuations, and $81,627 in permit fees for the city.

Fifty-six permits were issued for the construction of eight new homes. Five new houses in Brookwood Estates were permitted, as well as three in the Spanish Gardens II subdivision.

The residential growth is not expected to slow down anytime soon, as Schnoor estimates March will end with similar results.

The trend is continuing. ... It looks like were going to be issuing quite a few residential permits.

With a higher than average number of applications coming through, there is at least a six-week wait on permits.

Read the rest here:
More buildings at Rabbit Brush Run apartments

Spain is littered with vacant lots and half-built apartment complexes, where developers ran out of money when the construction bubble burst.

But in one Madrid barrio, neighbors are putting an abandoned tract of urban space to creative use.

Behind a chain link fence, in a dusty weed-filled lot between two soaring apartment blocks, Emilio de la Rosa is planting vegetables.

"Different types of products garlic, beans, tomatoes, lettuce," he says. "We're teaching our children where tomatoes come from not from the grocery store, but the ground."

A generation ago, this was farmland just outside Madrid's city center. But Spain's economy boomed in the 1990s, and municipalities sold off land to developers. Credit and labor were cheap, and condos went up fast.

Then the bubble burst, leaving Spain littered with half-built houses, or land cleared for construction that never began. That's allowed de la Rosa and his neighbors to obtain a one-year permit to create an urban garden, on land slated for development.

"The idea is, with this type of land OK sure, it might be built on tomorrow, but today it's not going to be, because look around at all the empty housing here," he says. "So this is a timely project. This land has spent a ton of years empty. So fine, if they want to build a commercial center here, go for it. Just give me one year to grow my seeds."

More Houses Than Families

People here joke that Spain's construction boom left the country with at least two houses for every family. More than 600,000 homes are for sale nationwide. But the real surplus could be much larger. Most aren't on the market. They're owned by banks, or developers who've gone under.

Jesus Maldonado, who teaches urban planning at a university in Madrid, uses this example of open land and half-built houses to teach his students what not to do in the future. "With the already-built houses, if developers can no longer pay, they get transferred to banks, which will eventually sell them," he says. "Sure, they'll lose money on the deal. But it's better to lose a little bit even half your money than the whole thing."

Continued here:
After Spain's Construction Bust, Gardens Bloom

1:00 AM

AUGUSTA

Three families homeless after apartment house fire

A fire chased three families out of an apartment building on Hospital Street on Friday afternoon, but no one was injured.

Augusta Fire Department Battalion Chief Ed Charles said the state Fire Marshal's Office is investigating how and where the fire started in the four-unit building at 208 Hospital St.

The fire was reported at 2:43 p.m. and was burning strong when firefighters arrived five minutes later.

"I'm not sure how that got past everyone that was driving up and down the highway," he said. "When we got there, there was fire showing over the top of the roof."

Hallowell resident William Bowden, who owns the building, said he bought it four years ago and had put in a new roof and windows. Three of the units were occupied, and he planned to renovate the empty apartment so he and his wife could downsize by moving in.

"I've been a landlord for 35 years, and this is the first fire," Bowden said. "I've never had to deal with anything like this."

Bowden said he believes that residents of all three occupied apartments were home when the fire started. They all made it out safely.

Excerpt from:
Dispatches

by Emily Adams The Daily Home

Construction on Coosa Village Apartments began a few weeks ago in Sylacauga. The complex on 13th Street will house residents age 55 and older. Photo by Bob Crisp/The Daily Home

The future Coosa Village Apartments is on about 15 acres on West 13th Street.

Plans for the 53,588 square-foot complex include 56 one-story, brick units with a layout similar to duplexes.

There will be 25 one-bedroom units, two one-bedroom handicapped units and one one-bedroom unit for the sensory impaired. Plans also include 26 two-bedroom units, one two-bedroom handicapped and one two-bedroom for the sensory impaired.

Each one-bedroom unit will be about 820 square feet, and the two-bedroom apartments will be about 1,000 square feet.

The complex will include a community building, mail center and gazebo, as well as 112 parking spaces for residents and guests.

Coosa Village Apartments, Ltd. chose Sylacauga in response to the citys large population of senior citizens.

A 2010 census from the U.S. Census Bureau showed of 12,749 citizens, 3,746 are at least 55 years old, a number the census said is expected to rise.

Birmingham-based Park Lane Construction is building the complex, which is privately owned by Coosa Village Apartments, Ltd.

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Construction begins on retirement apartments