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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: May 5, 2012 (Issue # 1706)

The man's decomposed body was found in an elevator shaft, like the one above in the Ostankino television tower.

The body of a man was found in the elevator shaft of a partially built high-rise apartment building in western Moscow around six months after he died.

The gruesome discovery was made Thursday evening at the building at 2 Ulitsa Tvardovskogo, located between the Strogino metro station and the Moscow Ring Road, Interfax reported.

The damage to the body suggested that the man had died after falling from a significant height, but the remains are so decomposed that it will be difficult to make an identification, the report said, citing a unidentified law enforcement official.

The official said the man was 30 to 45 years old and appeared to have died last autumn.

Police have opened an investigation and are checking the payroll records of the construction company responsible for the building, City 21, to see if the dead man might have been one of its employees, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported on its website.

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Body Found in Elevator Shaft After 6 Months

Photo by Don Shrubshell

Construction continues Tuesday morning on a 100-unit apartment complex at Walnut Street and College Avenue. The developers also are seeking to rezone land on the south side of Walnut, just across from the property, to construct an additional 120-unit building.

By Andrew Denney

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Negotiations between the North Central Columbia Neighborhood Association and the developers of a new student apartment complex at College Avenue and Walnut Street hit a snag last night after the neighbors asked that the developers put $1 million into a trust fund for neighborhood improvement projects.

The developers, Nathan and Jon Odle, are seeking approval for a rezoning request to allow the construction of a 120-unit apartment building on the south side of Walnut, across from a 100-unit apartment building scheduled to open this fall. The developers have been in talks with neighbors to gain their support for the rezoning request, which could be brought before the Columbia Planning and Zoning Commission on May 10.

Over the past few weeks, neighbors have met with Nathan Odle and Craig Van Matre, an attorney for the developers, to work out terms of a contract to require the developers to restrict traffic from the complex onto the Ash Street bike boulevard and encourage apartment residents to use nonmotorized transportation. But after further discussion with other area residents, neighbors involved with the negotiations said they think the developers should pay more for their support.

"The feeling of the neighborhood association is if we're going to do it tit for tat, then let's do it tit for tat," said Mara Aruguete, who lives on Hubbell Street. Nina Wilson-Keenan, who lives on St. Joseph Street, said in an email that money from the developers could be used for neighborhood betterment projects such as a property rehabilitation grant program and green-space preservation.

Van Matre said there is "no way" he would be able to get his clients to agree to give $1 million to a trust fund for the association. He said if his clients' refusal to give to the trust fund is a "deal breaker," then "the deal is broken."

"I wouldn't be able to get them to agree to it if I held a gun to their head," Van Matre said. "If I waterboarded them, they wouldn't agree to it."

The rest is here:
Neighbors want $1 million from apartment developers

KITCHENER Renters, have you longed to live in a nice, modern apartment building free of stinky, poisonous second-hand smoke?

Well, youll be able to by late summer or early fall. Drewlo Holdings is building Kitcheners first non-smoking rental apartment tower.

The building on 161 Fallowfield Dr. is one of four highrises planned for the site. Its possible a second building could be designated smoke-free if theres enough interest, said Allan Drewlo, vice-president of Drewlo Holdings.

Drewlo built southern Ontarios first non-smoking apartment building in London. It began taking tenants just over a year ago and was quickly filled.

It proved so successful that Drewlo launched a second smoke-free highrise in London, and also built one in Burlington.

Its been successful for us in London and Burlington, Drewlo said Thursday. We know theres a demand for it. People want to have a smoke-free environment.

They know about the bad effect of (second-hand smoke). They dont want to have their neighbours smoke.

He said the company got emails from Kitchener residents when Drewlo was constructing the smoke-free highrise in London.

People in Kitchener wanted us to bring it there, too. They were saying, When are you bringing it to Kitchener?

Its perfectly legal to have smoke-free buildings and its enforceable, he said.

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Smoke-free apartment coming Kitchener

WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. builders started work on fewer homes in March after they sharply cut back on apartment construction. But builders requested the most permits for future projects in 3 years, suggesting many anticipate the housing market could improve over the next year.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that builders broke ground at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 654,000 homes last month. Thats down 5.8 percent from February. Apartment construction, which can fluctuate sharply from month to month, fell nearly 20 percent. Single-family homebuilding was mostly unchanged.

Building permits, a gauge of future construction, rose 4.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 747,000. Thats the highest level since September 2008.

Jonathan Basile, director of economics at Credit Suisse, said the increase in permits is a good sign for broader economic activity and should lead to increase in construction in the coming months.

Yet the rate of construction and the level of permits requested remain only about half the pace considered healthy. Economists say that construction activity still is depressed and the housing market has a long way to go before it is back to full health.

Since the fall, builders slowly had grown more confident in the market after seeing more people express interest in buying a home, but that interest has yet to materialize into many sales. As a result, builder confidence fell this month for the first time since September.

Part of the reason for the previous optimism was a mild winter allowed builders to keep working in most parts of the country, and an improving job market has many slightly more optimistic about home sales this year.

January and February were the best for sales of previously occupied homes in five years. And an average of 212,000 jobs was created each month from January through March. Unemployment has sunk from 9.1 percent in August to 8.2 percent last month.

Though new homes represent just 20 percent of the overall home market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

There are some hurdles to a smooth recovery: Builders are struggling to compete with deeply discounted foreclosures and short sales when lenders allow homes to be sold for less than whats owed on the mortgage.

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U.S. home building slows, but permits hit 3½-year high