A look at the websites of Nashville's high-end apartment buildings reveals a common thread: expansive shared workspaces, outdoor patios and pools, event venues, hotel-like services and organized community activities.

Some of Nashville's newest apartment buildings aren't just selling a living space anymorethey're selling a lifestyle.

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down most of those highly-advertised amenities in March, leaving these buildings to find creative ways to offer residents virtual and sanitized versions of thatpromised lifestyle. Some had the serendipitous realization thatwith a few tweaks, their existing amenities were surprisingly well-suited to "the new normal."

Kenect Nashville's 16,000 square foot shared workspace, shown here in an artist's rendering, is expected to be complete in October 2020.(Photo: Courtesy of Kenect Nashville)

Residences at Capitol View, which opened in the North Gulch area in 2018, boasts a ground floor with restaurants that consistently offered carry-out options during COVID-19 shutdowns, shops and a Publix grocery store.

"It was a selling point before, and I think even more so now, having those things so close to you and being open is really important," Ashley Van Fossen, community manager at Residences at Capitol View, told The Tennessean.

Kenect Nashville, a new apartment building and social club hybrid on 19th Avenue South, embraces a similarmodel. Though it is still under construction, it will offer 21,000 square feet of retail space on its ground floor in 2021.

A 16,000-square-foot coworking space with plenty of room for social distancing is slated to open in late October, and the building will eventually include a community kitchen, a gym and fitness studio, soundproof studios, outdoor spaces and more. Memberships to the social club amenities are also available for non-residents (residents have automatic memberships).

An artist's rendering depicts Kenect Nashville's fitness center.(Photo: Courtesy of Kenect Nashville)

"All in one big building, it offers you everything that you need within reach," saidAvi Niego, Executive Director for Kenect Nashville. "You don't really have to go anywhere if you don't want to. And obviously, there's some advantages to that during the pandemic."

The move toward sleek shared workspaces, event spaces and other lifestyle-centric amenities has been several years in the making for Nashville's apartment offerings.

In 2014, a 275-unit luxury apartment building on Davidson Street, now called Infinity Music Row, announced that it would feature a shared recording studio and a live performance venue with seating for 50. A 328-unit SoBro building now called The Burham Nashville announced plans for a two-story coworking and events space on its ground floor in 2017.

Residences at Capitol View shut down its shared spaces during phase one of Nashville's pandemic plan, and fitness classes, bingo games and trivia nights went virtual, Van Fossen said. They launched a courtyard concert series, featuring a DJ and local musicians that residents could watch from their balconies and patios. A "wellness room" could be reserved for exercise or meditation for a single resident, with cleaning between reservations.

The Residences at Capitol View now regularly cleans its shared poolside chairs using a steam sanitizing machine due to the coronavirus pandemic.(Photo: Courtesy of The Residences at Capitol View)

When restrictions eased, the building reopened its shared workspaces and fitness center with social distancing rules. Virtual offerings will continue as long as there is a need, according to Van Fossen. Three private workrooms and a conference room are now offered for two-hour bookings.

"We definitely saw an increase in (workroom) use, especially with so many people working from home and wanting to get out of their apartment for a couple of hours, it just gives them that ability," Van Fossen said.

The Residences at Capitol View offer three private workrooms that can be reserved for two-hour blocks. The rooms are sanitized between reservations.(Photo: Courtesy of The Residences at Capitol View)

Kenect Nashville similarly pivoted cooking demonstrations, music shows and fitness courses to a virtual platform for residents whohave already moved into the building as it continues to take shape. By October, the coworking space will offer a change of scenery for those working from home, a place to print documents, and spaces for small meetings, all regularly sanitized.

"I think there was a ... shift already in creating a new product, a new way of living, but the pandemic kind of accelerated it," Niego said. "... For the next six months to a year, it's probably the new reality we have to adjust to."

The pandemic led to buyer and renter hesitation in the Nashville housing market in the spring, but people are still moving to Nashville, and some apartment complexes are looking to attract new tenantswithmove-in deals.

Van Fossen said Residences at Capitol View saw interest in new leases drop at the beginning of the pandemic as employers put hiring on hold and uncertainty abounded, but lease renewals rose.

"In the last two months, we've definitely seen leasing pick back up," she said. "Not quite pre-March numbers, but there's definitely more of an interest."

The health and economic concerns brought by the pandemic may actually accelerate population growth in smaller cities like Nashville, according to a summer 2020 report by Marcus & Millichap, a national brokerage firm. More people working from home, social distancing needs and economic instability may lead to people looking for less expensive, less dense housing than can be found in larger cities,the report states.

The club room and all shared amenity spaces at The Residences at Capitol View feature WiFi.(Photo: Courtesy of The Residences at Capitol View)

The number of Nashville apartment complexes offering move-in incentives has increased significantly from last year, according to a report from real estate website Zillow. In July, 37.9% of Nashville rental listings offered some type of concession, including a month of free rent, waived or reduced deposits and fees, gift cards or perks like free parking. In July 2019, 21.1% offered such incentives the same percentage of Nashville rental listings with concessions in Februarybefore the pandemic hit.

But the typical rent price remains steady: $1,662 per month in July, up 2.3% year over year, according to Zillow.

Van Fossen's building is offering a $500 gift card at move-in on certain units, according to its website. They also offer a look-and-lease special for those who apply within 48 hours of an in-person or virtual tour: waived application and administration fees, credited toward the first month's rent.

A representative for Kenect Nashville said demand has been fairly steady, and the building has "stayed leasing consistently." Because the building and some of its amenities are still under construction, Kenect Nashville is offering one month of free rent and a waived administration fee with a 12-month lease. Other incentives are available for faculty members of the nearby Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

As cities around the nation shut down in an effort to slowthe spread of the virus, the housing rental industry faced a dilemma: capturing interest without the aid ofin-person tours.

Bevan White, vice president of marketing at Pegasus Residential, a southeastern property management company with properties in Tennessee, told Zillow that the company switched to virtual leasing in late March, increased concessions at some properties and added smart home features in others to increase value and interest.

"Teams have used teaser photos, pre-recorded walk-throughs of amenities and even personalized recorded messages to capture renters' interest before conducting a full virtual tour," White said.

Virtual tours have proved to be a vital tool for Residences at Capitol View, Van Fossen said, so much so that she thinks they will be a permanent feature.

"I think it's really great for people moving (from) out of state, or people that are super busy and aren't able to stop by," she said.

Reach Cassandra Stephenson at ckstephenson@tennessean.com or at (731) 694-7261. Follow Cassandra on Twitter at @CStephenson731.

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Nashville 'lifestyle' apartments turn to virtual events, move-in incentives during pandemic - Tennessean

San Diego County has built more housing in the first six months of this year than it did at the same time in 2019 despite a months-long pandemic.

The increase is marginal just 64 more homes but is notable because it is the only county in Southern California that did not build fewer housing units. Its at least one sign that the construction industry has managed to stay productive during the periodic lock-downs related to rising COVID-19 infection rates.

San Diego County built nearly 4,000 housing units in the first six months, said the Real Estate Research Council of Southern California, or about 1.6 percent more than last year. That compares to the seven-county average decline of 12.5 percent for Southern California.

Construction has been spurred in part by fewer homes being listed for sale, which has led to a recent spike in home prices across the region. That has builders trying harder than ever to keep up, said Alan Gin, economist at the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate at the University of San Diego.

The demand side is still strong and has not been affected by this downturn, he said. I think the reason for that is a lot of the damage in terms of job losses has been in lower paying jobs. Those workers werent likely to be home buyers anyway.

The median home price in San Diego County has climbed throughout the COVID-19 crisis for a variety of reasons, say experts, including low mortgage interest rates; buyers seeing increased value in homeownership while stuck at home; and sellers still not wanting to put homes on the market, leading to intense competition for new homes. The median price in the county recently hit its highest ever, $634,000.

Meanwhile, most of the job losses have been in low-skill, low-wage jobs, which has translated to San Diego Countys first rent drop since the Great Recession.

Gin said the high home prices make the construction of new homes in the region more profitable than ever, even if land constraints mean builders cant turn out nearly as much product as theyd like.

There were 1,771 building permits pulled for single-family homes in the first half of the year, up 20.2 percent from the same time in 2019. Meanwhile, multifamily building which includes apartments, townhouses and condos was down 9.5 percent with 2,217 permits filed.

Apartment construction has fueled building activity for years in San Diego County while single-family homes have been more like an afterthought. More recently, though, multifamily construction has been on the decline for several quarters as the pace of rent price increases slowed. It takes years for apartment complexes to come to fruition, so the recent decline probably has more to do with rent growth slowing in 2019 than the pandemic.

Borre Winckel, CEO of the Building Industry Association of San Diego, said the building permits still reflect an industry and region struggling to keep up with demand. Since 2015, San Diego County had typically built 9,500 to nearly 10,000 homes a year. Last year, there were 8,053 homes constructed, a significant drop mainly attributed to slowing multifamily building, which was a disappointment to housing advocates.

The roughly 4,000 homes constructed so far is behind the pace to produce 10,000 homes for the year a recent benchmark many advocates aim for, even though they say it falls short of what is needed.

In the grand scheme of things, those (2020) numbers dont add up to a hill of beans, Winckel said, in terms of satisfying true housing demand.

He typically points the finger at the high costs of regulation in California as a reason why builders cant construct more homes, but said the city of San Diegos push for more housing is a reason why San Diego County could be standing out with more building.

Winckel said the regulatory environment for San Diego is relatively better than other major metropolitan areas in the state.

As much as I like to dump all over the City Council for not getting it, he said of the need for more housing, they get it more and better in comparison to Los Angeles, San Francisco or San Jose.

Ventura County had the biggest drop in home building in the first six months of the year, down 43.3 percent. Santa Barbara County was down 41.3 percent; Orange County down 31.6 percent; San Bernardino County, down 18.1 percent; Los Angeles County down 7.4 percent and Riverside, also down, by 6.5 percent.

Construction is considered to be essential work under federal COVID-19 guidelines, allowing homes and apartments to keep going up while jobs in other sectors were suspended.

Murtaza Baxamusa, director of planning and development for the San Diego Building Trades Council, said it is a good time to be a construction worker because demand has not seemed to slow.

There is work now and there is work coming up, he said.

Baxamusa said if there is a larger economic downturn with foreclosures it could change things. But he said he has a hard time imagining it in Southern California because of so many large projects in the works, including San Diegos efforts to create a new entertainment district on the former Pechanga Arena site with at least 2,100 housing units.

Data for building permits in the research councils report is provided by the Construction Industry Research Board, which contacts all 58 counties and 538 cities in California for permit data. It sometimes is different from the widely used Census data that provides estimates and has been criticized for a wide margin of error.

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San Diego home building up slightly so far this year even in a pandemic - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Each day, a small squad of about 20 state inspectors visits hundreds of Washington businesses on the sly.

We walk into Safeway like were a customer, said Tim Church, spokesperson for the Department of Labor and Industries.

These inspectors normally investigate things like wage theft or workers compensation fraud, but now theyre following up on complaints about employers refusing to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

These Covid cops have done about 6,000 undercover spot checks of businesses this summer.

Their mission: to see if complaints like these are for real:

Since July, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries has handled about 12,000 complaints from the public about employers skirting the state-mandated measures to beat a highly contagious coronavirus.

The complaints come in to a hotline run by the states Emergency Operations Center, which farms them out to the Liquor and Cannabis Board (for restaurants and bars), the Department of Licensing (for hair salons) and Labor and Industries for most other sectors.

The alleged violations have ranged from construction sites with nobody wearing masks to warehouses not sending workers home who have flu-like symptoms.

Complaints received by the Washington Dept. of Labor and Industries of employers in King and Pierce counties allegedly violating the state's pandemic-safety rules.

Labor and Industries generally gives worker complaints higher priority than those from the public, although Church did not know how many safety complaints the agency has received from employees about their workplaces.

Church said he did not know how many formal inspections the agency has conducted or how many fines it has imposed connected to pandemic safety.

Very few complaints result in penalties for employers, though they often do result in improved safety practices, Church said.

The agency starts by contacting an employer to let them know a concern has been raised. If the problem remains after a spot check, a formal inspection and investigation may be launched. If the problem remains unaddressed after the investigation, the agency sends a cease and desist letter.

Only then, if the problem continues, does the agency levy a fine.

Its a fairly small number that end up in the taking formal action category, Church said. Most do what we need them to do if they spend time with us.

Penalties included:

In King and Pierce counties, Labor and Industries has received 377 complaints about alleged violations of the states mask requirements and other pandemic safety rules, according to data obtained with a KUOW public records request.

Out of those complaints, 113 were against the construction industry more than any other sector.

"Its not as visible in most other workplaces," said Mandi Kime, safety director for the construction-industry group Associated General Contractors of Washington. "If somebodys driving by a construction site, theyll see if people are wearing masks or not."

Inspectors found violations at 12 construction companies, nearly half the total violations in the two counties.

While there have been complaints, many have not resulted in citations, Kime said . No AGC contractors have been written violations so far due to the diligence of our membership and my team.

Kime said the construction industry has not had a disproportionate number of Covid-19 cases.

While most complaints released to KUOW focused on businesses not protecting their employees or customers from the widespread virus, one person had the opposite concern.

Mandatory masking and the increase of CO2 causing headaches, dizziness, nearly passing out, that person complained.

A Labor and Industries staffer contacted the person to correct the mask misinformation.

Left message with complainant and sent email regarding the fact that surgical masks are not going to increase CO2," the staffer noted.

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Covid cops do thousands of undercover 'spot checks' to protect public health - KUOW News and Information

Sustainable, renewable, and versatile: Its hard to find a better building material than wood. Its often the builders go-to, whether for a single-family home in the suburbs or a low-rise apartment complex in the city.

And its growing even more versatile. Thanks to a slate of relatively new engineered wood products such as cross-laminated timber and glued laminated timber, wood is becoming bigger and stronger. These engineered products, known as mass timber for their glued-together thickness, are increasingly finding their way into construction projects around the world, from an eight-story apartment building in Portland to two 10-story office buildings now under construction in Toronto to an 18-story mixed-use tower in Norway that is currently the worlds tallest timber building. Unlike concrete, which produces an estimated 5% of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions every year, mass timber sequesters CO2, turning buildings into environmentally friendly carbon sinks.

With global temperatures on the rise and wildfires regularly breaking out in places such as California and Australia, combustible wood may seem like a risky way to build for an uncertain future. According to experts, though, these mass timber products may become a more affordable and sustainable choice for builders looking for fire-resistant material. Due to its plywood-like layers, cross-laminated timber, or CLT, has been found to char during a fire at a slow enough rate that it can take more than 90 minutes of burning for a structure to collapse. By comparison, tests done on single-story wood-frame homes resulted in collapse after just 17 minutes. But while collapse may be delayed, the added fuel load of mass timber can speed up the initial growth rate of a fire. Completely fireproof wood buildings are conceivable but not feasible. The goal is to increase their fire resistance. On this front, CLT is promisingbut theres still much to learn.

CLT, which has been around for 30, 35 years, has only really started to be used as a larger building material in the last 10 years or so. So suddenly we need to start understanding how it performs in fire, says David Barber, a fire engineering expert and principal at Arup.

Most of the buildings that burn in wildfires are single-family homes, and most of these are built with traditional two-by-four wood framing. Because CLT can be around 20% more expensive than an average light-framed wood home, it isnt often found in single-family homes, but rather in taller buildings that need more structural support. These uses tend to be more expensive than traditional concrete or steel constructionone feasibility study of a hypothetical 10-story apartment building found CLT to be between $6 and $10 more expensive per square footbut Barber says costs are coming down.

Compared to the recent past when CLT would be used sparingly as a wall or floor plate in a low-rise apartment or office building made of concrete and steel, Barber says engineered timber products are being used more intensively now in ever taller projects. The way were using them is just different. Part of that is a desire for taller and larger buildings and a desire to build more efficiently, which means you end up having engineered timber materials pushed beyond what they were often traditionally used for, he says. That leads to these materials sometimes being used in ways that havent been fully tested. Fire codes are now beginning to be updated to include materials such as CLT.

Prior to the 2021 edition of the code, being able to go this high with this type of construction wasnt really permitted. It wasnt really anything that had been tried before, says Val Ziavras, a technical services engineer at the National Fire Protection Association, a fire safety nonprofit that develops codes and standards for buildings, services, and installations. Its a fairly new phenomenon, and the codes always take a little time to catch up with new technologies.

CLT is used most often in apartment buildings that are under about 10 stories tall. Ziavras says the codes are clear that CLT is fire-safe in these types of projects, but theres still some ambiguity about how the material itself is used. Often, its used simply as a workaday structural beam, and its covered up with fire-resistant gypsum board to enhance its safety. But, increasingly, some designs call for the CLT itself to remain on display. From what Ive heard people want to use it because, lets face it, wood is beautiful to look at. So why would you want to build with it and then have to cover it up? Ziavras says.

Exposed wood might not be the safest choice. In 2018, the NFPA released a study on the fire risk of CLT in tall buildings. The testing process included building six rooms out of 175-millimeter-thick CLT wall panels and lighting them on fire. Uncovered CLT elements fully caught flame 3 to 5 minutes earlier than covered elements. But because of the slow rate at which the fire can burn through CLTs many layers, their slow charring rate, CLT elements can withstand flames and remain structurally intact for much longer than frame-built wood buildings. The key thing is that all building materials are vulnerable to fire. They all have strengths and weaknesses, says Barber, who notes that CLT buildings in the U.S. require sprinkler systems that would prevent all but the most extreme fires from engulfing an entire building. Even so, a building made primarily out of wood is inherently a greater fire risk than one made primarily out of concrete or steel.

And though wood is no stranger to fire, mass timber forms such as CLT may actually become preferred building materials as they become more cost-competitive with concrete and steel. And builders will see that the fire risk of CLT is relatively low overall. At the moment it probably is still a niche product, Barber says. In 5 years time or 10 years time it probably will be, I would hope, a lot more mainstream.

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Mass timber is the future of architecture. But can it survive a world - Fast Company

In Orlando, Baldwin Park rentals as they looked while under construction. Private entrances and ... [+] separate garages allow more physical distancing. Generous balconies are in greater demand in a time when fresh outdoor air is desired more than ever.

I recently overheard a developer lament, amenities used to be about getting people together; now its all about keeping people apart. I couldnt disagree more. Its like what my daughters principal said: we should never do social-distancing. We sometimes have to physically distance, but we have to keep people socially connected.

Developers are now working out creative solutions to straddle this tricky line, and these solutions will be showing up in the marketplace in the near future.

Apartment developers are taking a fresh look at what they will build going forward, taking into account todays new health concerns. Some are going back to the (literal) drawing board, re-working their planned layouts, and in other cases are just emphasizing the already-existing designs that are likely to work best in the years ahead. Still others are hesitant to change much of anything, citing the economic model that might not show financial justification for elevators with facial recognition technology in their particular style of building. The scale and type of changes that make sense will vary according to the type of building and the particular market audience.

I consult for rental apartment developers on the subject of what renters want, what my clients should present to the market, what the supportable rents will be, and which groups will be the audience for that product. Many of them are pivoting toward layouts that reduce the likelihood of microbe transmission such as more and larger balconies, outdoor/rooftop common spaces and touchless elevators for high-rises, and private ground-floor entrances for garden-style developments.

Changes are being contemplated right now by most developers at the design stage to possibly add or emphasize things such as:

Some developers are looking into adding more staircases, sometimes featuring an enhanced feeling of openness, and artwork, to provide an attractive alternative to using the elevators.

A developer in Miami Beach starting work on a high-rise apartment building that will feature touchless elevators (using facial recognition), touchless entry doors, elevator corridors that are only accessible by residents, and advanced HVAC systems that will

A rendering of the balconies and outdoor gathering areas planned at 72 Park in Miami Beach.

filter out airborne microorganisms. To be in your own home and able to experience the expansive outdoor world is a recipe for success in this new era. And in a pandemic scenario, when isolating, you will still be attached to the world around you, said Matis Cohen, the developer of 72 Park. The expansive amenity decks and large balconies here will enable people to have a lavish outdoor experience without leaving their building. Cohens smallest units, 455 square foot pied a terres, have an additional 130 square feet of balcony, amounting to a 29% increase in total usable space.

For a broad international perspective on this topic I interviewed Brian O Looney, an architect with award-winning architectural firm Torti Gallas, who just published a book called Increments of Neighborhood: A Compendium of Built Types for Walkable and Vibrant Communities, and we talked about some examples from his book of this type of development. He noted the increased demand for balconies in this time of heightened consciousness about health and fresh air. The biggest change we are seeing (besides more 1BR+Den units in building unit mixes) as a direct result of COVID is an adoption of much larger outdoor patios and terraces in multifamily units, where what used to be a small 5x8 balconies in the United States are now being designed as an outdoor room- minimum 10x12 - similar to those built for decades as part of the culture in Brisbane and the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia, said OLooney.

Some developers were already putting strong emphasis on balconies before the

Balconies are seen on most units at NOVEL Atherton, in Charlotte, NC, by Crescent Communities.

pandemic, and now are well-situated with their product. Crescent Communities for example includes balconies for a large percentage of the units in their apartment buildings. All of our units have a balcony if they are larger than a studio apartment, said Brian Natwick, President and COO of Crescent Communities. And outside air is available in all units. Natwick also noted that Crescent is spacing out the equipment in the fitness centers and moving group fitness classes outside, to the pool deck or other outdoor areas on the property.

For two-story apartment buildings, there is merit in having separate entrances from the front of the building for each unit. Even before COVID, we had been seeing a rebirth of interest in rental housing formats that are stacked, with separate entrances from the street, and upscale walk-up, as opposed to conditioned secure corridor buildings.For many years, conditioned corridor buildings have been preferred for multi-family rental housing for their secure, connected interior environment.Now a number of trends are coming together which are expanding future multi-family offerings, particularly rental offerings, into alternate formats.

An interest in both healthier lifestyles and a renewed awareness in avoiding germ

Centergate Baldwin Park stacked rental units, in Orlando, feature balconies and distinct unit ... [+] entrances and separate garages per unit. This is a Torti Gallas design that is distinct from typical stacked rentals.

transmission in shared touchpoints such as security panels, building entrance door handles, elevator touchpads and recirculated air, is causing the promotion of non-elevator housing formats without shared conditioned lobbies and corridors.OLooney said that distinct direct-from-street unit entrances like those in conventional for-sale neighborhoods will be predominant in upscale rental communities with rental coming more in the form of townhouses, stacked flats and other distinct-entrance formats.We are beginning to see a renewed interest in courtyard housing andgarden apartments, where one can get to ones unit door without having to touch or engage in environments with shared mechanical ventilation.

The business decisions being made by developers now may have an impact on who prospers a few years into the future. A large number of apartment buildings already under construction are going to reach completion during the next 12 to 18 months, just when demand is weakening, which will cause an uptick in vacancies and/or a decline in average rents, particularly in the second half of this year and the first part of 2021. (Though rents should start moving up again by the spring or summer). Developers are looking for ways to stand out among all the competition, and several of them are investing in healthy living technologies, layouts, and programs in order to gain an edge. This being the trend, many of the buildings that will open for leasing in 2022, 2023, and 2024 will have an leg up over buildings built before this crisis.

More here:
New Health-Driven Trends In Rental Apartment Design And Development - Forbes

OGDEN Ogden City officials are concerned with a surge of apartment developments popping up in commercial areas across town, so much so that theyre considering introducing an ordinance that would address the problem.

Ogden Planning Manager Greg Montgomery recently told the city planning commission that there have been more than 1,500 apartment units considered by planning staff just since 2019. Though not all of those units have been approved for final build, the number represents a significant increase from just two years ago, Montgomery said. In 2018, only 122 new apartment units were approved by the city.

Weve been seeing a lot of them, Mayor Mike Caldwell said.

Montgomery and the mayor say there are a variety of potential reasons for the uptick, including the fact that Utah has relatively stable housing and employment markets, land is available and affordable, and financing is available for multi-unit projects.

The city has long sought to bring higher density to the downtown area, but Montgomery said many of the new apartment construction requests are for commercial areas outside of the Central Business District. He said the waning interest downtown might be due to the higher cost of property and the additional, more stringent design standards required in the area.

Space is also dwindling in the citys River redevelopment area, where the citys redevelopment agency has actively tried to recruit developers to build high-density housing.

Its something were currently working through, trying to figure out, Caldwell said.

The citys planning staff has analyzed some of the current apartment proposals, looking at their long-term livability. The department is also pondering long-term consequences of poorly designed or placed projects.

As such, the city is considering an ordinance that would strengthen design standards, as well as call for certain requirements regarding open space, parking and building materials. Montgomery said while there is an abundance of commercially zoned property in the city, thought should be given to make sure prime commercial space is not lost to housing. An ordinance would help the cause, the city says.

According to the citys General Plan, which provides a framework and common vision for all future development in Ogden, multi-family hosing, like apartments, is more desirable along transportation corridors. Though the plan is not a mandate and Caldwell says the issue really centers around making common sense decisions.

Generally speaking, when it comes to housing, we want to have the right balance, Caldwell said. We want a number of different housing options, but we want everything to be in the right place and we want a certain quality and (housing) that will last.

According to the Utah League of Cities and Towns, Ogden has about 30,000 total housing units, with 45% of those being rentals.

Ogden provides 58% of all of Weber Countys rental properties, according to the league. Conversely, Provo and Orem, combined, account for about the same percentage for all of Utah County. Salt Lake City provides 33% of the total rental properties in Salt Lake County.

The Ogden City Council is set to discuss the issue during a Tuesday, Sept. 8, work session.

Link:
Ogden officials concerned with number, placement and quality of apartments coming into commercial areas of the city - Standard-Examiner

The Falmouth Board of Health will offer to inspect apartments of tenants of the Falmouth Housing Authority after the board learned of chronic leaks and mold in common areas of the buildings they live in. To date, there has not been an inspection of the 163 units.

Housing authority Executive Director Bobbi J. Richards was before the board of health on Monday, August 31, to answer questions and provide a plan to fix the federally subsidized Tataket and Harborview apartment buildings. The discussion followed an anonymous letter from tenants that led to the health departments inspection of both buildings last week.

This seems like an ongoing issue we just found out about now, said Falmouth Health Agent Scott McGann, who received the anonymous letter dated August 16. In the letter, Falmouth Housing Authority tenants complained of unhealthy living conditions due to water leaks that have caused stained carpets and mold.

We believe these extreme hazards have led a lot of us to the emergency room. We are all elderly, on fixed incomes and dont have the money for a lawyer...we fear of retaliation from Ms. Richards and possible evictions, the unsigned letter reads.

The town inspectors found copper pipes leaking throughout the building, causing wall, ceiling and floor damage at the four-story Harborview apartment building at 115 Scranton Avenue.

At the Tataket apartment building at 138 Teaticket Highway, health inspectors found rubber flooring in exterior hallways and exit porches was torn and worn and has bubbled and lifted, creating tripping hazards and causing leaking through the ceiling onto the lower walkways. Inspectors also noted water damage in the building from similar water pipe failures.

The apartments were not inspected, as the complaint did not reference specific units, Mr. McGann said.

My concern is these people are not necessarily reporting. Im afraid some are sitting in a room with a leak [or] mold and not saying anything, he said.

Board of health chairwoman Diana Molloy also expressed concern for the residents, many of whom are elderly.

They may have underlying respiratory diseases, COPD, asthma. And there are tripping hazards. Its a safety risk, she said.

Board members requested that Ms. Richards learn the extent of the damage and how many residents have been impacted.

Ms. Molloy asked if she had received complaints from tenants and, if so, when they began.

Ms. Richards said the housing authority has not received many complaints from tenants and was surprised to see the anonymous letter.

We received a complaint about four weeks ago from a resident at Harborview concerned about something outside their apartment in the hallway, she said. We immediately sent over a team to investigate. We worked with disaster specialists and mold pros.

She clarified the tenants did not send her the letter; she received it from one of the authoritys board members. She also noted she did not understand why tenants feared retaliation or eviction, since she has evicted just two tenants since assuming the position in 2017.

My impression from the letter is they dont feel comfortable coming to the housing authority for whatever reason, but we are open to hearing from them. We want to make sure no one feels uncomfortable in their apartment, she said.

Upon learning of the anonymous letter, Ms. Richards said, she called Servpro, a remediation company that did some work over the weekend. She is awaiting results of the mold tests taken at both buildings. The testing was conducted only in the common areas since, she said, she did not receive complaints of mold in apartments.

Mr. McGann asked Ms. Richards for an inventory of the rooms that might have been affected and what communication she has had with residents regarding leaks.

I am not aware of a number of units that have this as a concern in their unit. I am aware of one or two units. When a person calls and says they have an issue in their unit, we remediated the unit. I would be happy to survey the tenants, she said.

She told the board that maintenance staff have been chasing leaks since last July, and the frequency of burst pipes increased in January.

Weve been doing a lot of remediation at both buildings on a case-by-case basis, she said.

The housing authority retained Winslow Architects to investigate the reason for the increasing number of leaks. The results were noted in a May 7 report prepared by the consultants, who concluded the water piping was failing and would fail more over time due to the poor quality of the piping material used during construction in the 1970s.

The type of piping is called type M copper. It was banned for use in apartment buildings in the mid-1980s, the report states.

Principal architect John Winslow said the pipes have outlived their lifespans, and they are literally weeping.

Its not an easy fix. Its occurring everywhere in Harborview and in Tataket, he said.

Just as his firm was preparing bid documents, firm staff suspected mold issues, having smelled it in the common areas, he said. He used a consultant to check for mold, and samples were taken on August 19.

We were ready to go to bid when we realized mold is an issue. We had to step back, which is where we are now, he said.

Ms. Richards estimates the project will cost $1.4 million. Another $300,000 is earmarked for walkway repairs at Tataket. Work can begin in October or November.

After expressing confidence the company would do a good job making the repairs, Mr. McGann turned the discussion back to the tenants.

We dont even know whats going on inside the apartments. I know we have a population that may not want to make waves, so the real question is what we do now to make sure they are safe, he said.

The board agreed to ask tenants if they want inspections for mold or other issues. The board will also invite Ms. Richards back to discuss the ongoing remediation and scope of work.

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Falmouth Health Board To Inspect Apartment Complexes For Leaks And Mold - CapeNews.net

A union pension fund is set to inject $1 billion into Bay Area housing construction, an initiative the group says will help finance more than 4,000 new residential units by 2025.

The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, one of the nations largest pension investment programs focused on housing, said that the investment would result in 4,000 union construction jobs and 12,000 jobs altogether.

The Bay Area initiative will invest $500 million in a broad spectrum of housing types, including market-rate apartments, middle-income workforce housing and affordable units. The trust said the $500 million would allow it to leverage another $500 million from local unions, investors, low-income tax credit investors and other partners.

The investment comes as financing for housing has become more difficult to find. With dropping rents, spiking vacancies and uncertainty about what the regions housing market will look like in the wake of the pandemic, new housing projects are likely to be delayed, contractors and developers say.

While the coronavirus pandemic has led to significant declines in Bay Area rents one-bedrooms are down as much as 14% year over year, according to Zumper the $3,000 a month average price tag is still unaffordable for a broad segment of the population, the group said.

Too many people in the Bay Area are being laid off and too many still cannot afford decent housing, said Chang Suh, the HITs chief executive officer and co-chief portfolio manager.

The AFL-CIO announcement comes after a two-year stretch during which several major tech companies announced plans to invest in housing. Apple pledged $2.5 billion for affordable housing, while both Facebook and Google pledged $1 billion.

Suh said that the pandemic is leading to rising unemployment among local construction workers, service industry workers and public sector employees, who will struggle to afford rent or mortgage payments.

Since 1984, the trust has invested $396.1 million in 19 projects throughout the Bay Area. The investments helped create more than 3,200 housing units and 4,500 construction jobs.

The union pension fund backed some of the earliest developments coming out of the great recession, including investing $33 million into Potrero Launch, a 196-unit Dogpatch development, and $32 million into the Arc Light project at 178 Townsend St., both in San Francisco and developed by the Martin Building Group.

In addition to those two projects, the AFL-CIO trust invested $70 million into Rincon Green, Emerald Funds 308-unit apartment complex on Harrison Street in the South of Market.

Emerald Fund Chairman Oz Erickson said that project would not have been possible without the union pension funds investment, which provided two-thirds of the financing.

Their participation was essential, he said.

The pandemic-induced recession and plummeting rents in San Francisco, along with increased city fees and rules around affordable housing requirements will make it nearly impossible to finance housing construction, Erickson said.

I dont think there will be much built in the next two years, he said, adding that the $1 billion initiative will be very much appreciated as the market starts to rebound.

For developers looking to raise money for new projects, the capital markets remain stalled, said Todd David, executive director of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition. The markets have been dislocated since March and the lending markets have not improved at all, he said.

Tim Paulson, secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Building & Construction Trades Council, said that union pension funds have a history of coming through when other capital financing dries up.

Our pension funds like to invest in real jobs and real housing investment not just Wall Street dividends and bottom-line profits, said Paulson. Jobs and housing that is kind of the one-two punch of what we all care about right now.

Ted Chandler, managing director of the trust, said the investment in Bay Area housing would both produce competitive returns for our pension fund beneficiaries as well as help many thousands in this time of need.

The lesson here is that smart capital is the lifeblood of housing and community development, Suh said.

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen

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Bay Area housing to get $1 billion investment from union pension fund as financing dries up - San Francisco Chronicle

Suburbanization, flight from crime, racism and other factors cost the city thousands of residents since the 1950s, but more was at play downtown. Ironically, the 52-story Terminal Tower was part of the Cleveland Union Terminal project that displaced 20,000 people from a corner of Public Square in the 1920s. Other city renewal and beautification efforts displaced more people. By the 1980s, downtown population dwindled to 9,000.

That's when the idea of boosting population to revitalize downtown took hold, first to occupy empty warehouse buildings and later to replace obsolete office space. A handful of people had taken up residence in The Bradley Building in the 1970s to make it the first residential loft between New York and Chicago. In 1987, an affiliate of Independence-based Dalad Group installed 30 suites in The Hat Factory, 1235 W. Sixth St., to take renovations to a grander scale.

However, turning visions of downtown living into reality took creating a track record.

Bob Rains, a partner with the Carney family in downtown apartment concern Landmark Management, recalled the difficulties in 1992 when it undertook its first rehab project, converting three buildings into the Grand Arcade, at 408 W. St. Clair Ave., which is now condominiums.

"No one wanted to make the loan for the project," Rains said. "No one wanted to buy the equity for the federal historic tax credits."

Breakthroughs came from several quarters, such as the carpenters union pension fund, and redirecting funds from unused federal Urban Development Action Grants helped finance pioneering projects.

Patience paid off.

"Once we had 200 units downtown, it took off," Rains said.

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Crain's Cleveland Look Back: Apartment boom was decades in the making - Crain's Cleveland Business

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Critics of the proposed Sixers arena on the waterfront have been vocal from the moment the Inquirer broke news about the potential project near Penns Landing on the Delaware River.

Philadelphians from seemingly every corner of the city have expressed concerns that range from issues with awarding public subsidies to the teams billionaire owners to complaints over a potential influx of traffic along a stretch thats just starting to become walkable after years of effort.

While often controversial, downtown sports arenas are on the rise across the country. Some 45 U.S. cities have seen new stadium construction or major renovation since the turn of the millennium, per a 2016 Brookings Institution study, with a total cost of $28 billion.

Results have been mixed. Government officials and sports franchises tout economic benefits that dont always deliver. Public financing of professional sports stadiums which made up half the money spent in the Brookings study and is already contentious looks even more precarious at a time when city budgets have been capsized by the coronavirus.

The 76ers have been courting state and local officials for some time, but the deal is far from set in stone, as the team is one of four bidders in the running for the parcel. A decision is reportedly coming by the end of September from the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation, the quasi-public entity that oversees the district.

One thing that makes the Sixers proposal stand out is its price tag: $4 billion.

That would make it one of the most expensive NBA arena projects in the nation by a lot. Over the past two decades, this kind of venture has been financed anywhere from $200k at the low end to over $1 billion.

These widely fluctuating costs are largely due to varying scope. Its become increasingly common for stadium construction to also include mixed-use buildings, often packaged as part of a larger entertainment district.

The Sixers proposal is of that ilk. Beyond retail and commercial offerings in apartment buildings erected near the prospective arena, the teams ownership suggests building a new public school and new homes for the Independence Seaport Museum and African American History Museum. As Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron noted, franchise owners Josh Harris and David Blitzers company is vying for development rights for a mile-long stretch of the Delaware waterfront.

The stadium as its own neighborhood creator is an idea thats been floated in Philadelphia before. In other cities, its actually been executed so we can look to those projects as examples of what might or might not pan out should the 76ers get approved.

Heres a partial list of other NBA basketball teams that have recently built stadiums downtown, including the cost, the financing, the public outcry, and the economic impact of the projects.

Name: Chase Stadium

Year opened: 2019

Owner: Golden State Warriors

Construction cost: $500 million

Financing: Privately financed. Chase Bank paid $300 million for a 20-year lease on naming rights to the stadium.

Neighborhood style: On the bay waterfront, near Oracle Park and a hospital complex in the Mission.

Commentary: The stadium construction was met with sizable opposition from community and neighborhood groups, who noted it would also come with a hotel and luxury condos. Opponents depicted it as a traffic nightmare that would also destroy the waterfront view, altering the fabric of surrounding residential neighborhoods. As will likely happen with the Sixers proposal, critics said the project was being pushed by two billionaires, neither of whom lives here, according to SF Gate.

Economic impact: As the stadiums owners, the Warriors made $2 billion in ticket sales before the arena even opened, which includes concert ticket revenue.

Name: Little Caesars Arena

Year opened: 2017

Owner: Detroits Downtown Development Authority, which leases it to a combined NHL-NBA franchise parent company. The Pistons began playing here the 2017-8 season.

Construction cost: Projected at $862 million for the entire district ($932 million adjusted for inflation); eventually exceeded $1.2 billion.

Financing: Nearly 60% funded by tax dollars

Neighborhood style: A 50-block area known as the District Detroit, which includes mixed-use retail and residential.

Commentary: The public financing of the project sparked public outrage, including a lawsuit that sought to block the construction from using school property tax dollars without voter approval. Moving the Pistons also signalled the first time all four of Detroits major league sports teams would play close to the downtown, the Detroit News reported.

Economic impact: The construction phase employed some 12,500 people. Urban planners, government officials and business stakeholders said the stadium generated over $1.5 billion in new economic investment in its first year.

Name: Golden 1 Center

Owner: City of Sacramento

Year opened: 2016

Construction cost: $558 million

Financing: Kings owners financed roughly half of the cost of the project, while the Sacramento City Council approved municipal bonds to cover the rest, with some additional economic stimulus grants filling in the gaps.

Neighborhood style: Downtown grid area along the Sacramento River, mostly commercial and government buildings prior to the stadium.

Commentary: Concerns around the rising construction costs over two years of construction came up frequently. The final cost was roughly $50 million more than first projected.

Economic impact: Three years after it broke ground, the Downtown Sacramento Partnership reported a 38% increase in jobs in the citys downtown area, as well as dozens of new retailers and other businesses, according to the New York Times.

Name: Barclays Center

Owner: New York State, via an umbrella organization

Year opened: 2012

Construction cost: Over $1 billion

Financing: More than half from tax-exempt bonds, as the building was to be publicly owned. Barclays Bank also paid $200 million for naming rights.

Neighborhood style: Part of a 17-building retail and residential project called Pacific Park in Prospect Heights thats directly adjacent to downtown Brooklyn.

Commentary: Some Brooklyn residents made careers out of their opposition to the stadium construction, news reports quipped at the time. Most controversially, the city used eminent domain to condemn, seize and acquire privately owned property for the project.

Economic impact: The stadium did not turn out to be an immediate financial success as its stakeholders predicted. Barclays continued to lose money in the first three years of its operation. The pandemic has stymied any potential reversal of that trend, but even so, the complex lost less money in the first half of 2020 than the year prior.

Name: Spectrum Center

Owner: City of Charlotte

Year opened: 2005

Construction cost: $260 million ($340 million with inflation)

Financing: All publicly funded

Neighborhood style: The First Ward of the financial district (here called Uptown) was once relatively barren, but these days is full of entertainment and some historic renovation.

Commentary: The former Charlotte Coliseum was only 13 years old when the city of Charlotte pitched a new stadium for the basketball team. In 2001, the city put a $342 million spending package on the ballot for voters to decide and despite poll support, voters rejected those early plans. Opponents cited concerns about living wages in the city at the time, arguing the citys priorities were out of place.

Economic impact: Boosters noted the stadium also hosted major basketball events that brought in hundreds of millions in estimated economic impact.

Name: American Airlines Center

Owner: City of Dallas

Year opened: 2001

Construction cost: $420 million ($606 million with inflation)

Financing: Taxpayers approved two new taxes to fund the stadium a hotel tax and a rental car tax. The Mavericks and the Dallas Stars, which shared the stadium, agreed to pick up the rest.

Neighborhood style: Promises of revitalization in the planned Victory Park district lagged despite stadium construction, but two decades later there are signs of things picking up.

Commentary: In the late 1990s, Dallas City Hall feuded over the use of tax dollars to fund the Mavs new home. The brawl divided along familiar lines: Opponents said the city shouldnt front the money for a development that would directly benefit the teams billionaire owners, who were threatening to take both the team out of the city. City lawmakers narrowly approved $140 million in bonds to finance the stadium, which were backed by the hotel room and rental car levies.

Economic impact: Dallas paid off much of the bond debt by 2011, earlier than expected, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Name: State Farm Arena, formerly the Phillips Arena

Year opened: 1999

Owner: Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation Authority

Construction cost: $328 million adjusted for inflation, plus nearly $200 million for renovations in recent years.

Financing: The city funded about 90% of the stadium costs through bonds and a $2.50 rental car tax to help finance construction.

Neighborhood style: In the middle of Centennial Park District, built around the 1996 Olympics, next to downtown offices (including CNN) and attractions like the aquarium and Coca-Cola Museum.

Commentary: The project was a replacement for Atlantas 70s-era arena, the Omni Coliseum. The rental tax projected to raise $1 billion over 30 years was challenged in court after being implemented in 2000.

Economic impact: Twenty years after its construction, the rental tax was also used to bankroll major renovations to the area. That arrangement could now hurt the citys bond rating as car rentals plummet during the pandemic.

Name: Capital One Arena

Year opened: 1997

Owner: Monumental Sports & Entertainment

Construction cost: $260 million ($436 million with inflation)

Financing: Construction was privately financed, but the D.C. government gave the team plenty of perks, including a property tax exemption, $70 million worth of below-market rent for the land and millions more in low-interest municipal loans for renovations.

Neighborhood style: Between Chinatown and Penn Quarter, a buzzy retail area full of bars and entertainment.

Commentary: Originally called the Verizon Center, the new arena brought the Wizards back into the city from their home court USAir Arena in the D.C. suburbs.

Economic impact: The Downtown D.C., a business improvement district, said there billions in new real estate investment came to the Chinatown area near the stadium in the years after it opened. However, the organization noted this redevelopment would have happened without the stadium anyway, but the Verizon Center accelerated the redevelopment of surrounding areas by seven to 10 years.

Name: AmericanAirlines Arena

Year opened: 1999

Owner: Miami-Dade County

Construction cost: $213 million ($337 million with inflation)

Financing: This is one of the more unique arrangements in big city stadium construction because the Miami Heat privately financed the construction. How? Because the city gave them $38 million in land for free, with a promised $6.5 million in annual subsidies.

Neighborhood style: Along the bay waterfront in one of the few really walkable, tourist attraction-filled areas of non-South Beach downtown.

Commentary: The city also orchestrated a profit-sharing agreement with the Heat, but it wasnt until 2013 that the stadium went into the black. Even then, the city only saw a sliver of money, while the team kept asking for higher tax breaks.

Economic impact: It took years to find profitability, but the stadiums boosters tout billions in economic churn for the city. American Airlines moved to end its naming rights contract with the city last year, but its still called that until a new sponsor can be courted and government-approved.

Name: Bankers Life Fieldhouse

Year opened: 1999

Owner: City of Indianapolis

Construction cost: $183 million ($283 million with inflation)

Financing: About a quarter from public funding and the rest a mix of private funding sources

Neighborhood style: In the heart of the downtown business district, with residential buildings now popping up.

Economic impact: As in other cities, the Fieldhouse has proven a popular event venue in Indianapolis. Research commissioned by the Pacers showed the stadium drew $370 million in combined revenue in 2018. Last year, the city agreed to spend an additional $365 million to renovate the aging facility. The Pacers would kick in $65 million, and the city would not propose any new taxes on residents, according to the Business Journal.

Name: Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse

Year opened: 1994

Owner: Gateway Economic Development Corp, a quasi-governmental entity that leases the stadium to Cavs ownership

Construction cost: $100 million ($192 million adjusted for inflation)

Financing: The Gateway complex was largely funded by an alcohol and tobacco tax narrowly approved by voters in 1990

Neighborhood style: Part of a larger entertainment district called the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex, which also Indians ballpark Progressive Field

Commentary: Backers said the complex could draw an additional 2 million people to downtown Cleveland each year, according to the New York Times, and boost its potential to host conventions. That was enough to finally sell the public on the project; an earlier, similar proposal had failed to gain support for nearly a decade.

Economic impact: A 1999 study found the area surrounding the stadium complex did see substantial physical redevelopment, with a variety of other buildings and projects constructed.

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Would a Sixers arena work on the Philly waterfront? Here's how other cities fared - Billy Penn