A high-floor apartment in Miami Beach, Florida, that offers unobstructed, 270-degree views of the ocean and city skyline, is coming onto the market Tuesday for $16.95 million, Mansion Global has learned.

Located on the 20th floor at Apogee, a luxury condo tower developed by Argentine- American billionaire Jorge M. Prez, the 4,154-square-foot apartment has four bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths, a home theater and open entertaining spaces enhanced with floor-to-ceiling glass walls. It also comes with an 11-foot-deep, 2,446-square-foot terrace with a built-in summer kitchen.

The view, the space, and the architecture of the home, combined, is what makes it so valuable, said Bryan Sereny, who is handling the sale with Bill Hernandez at Douglas Elliman.

Since the building, which stands at 24-stories, is located on the southwestern-most tip of the island, the high-floor residence enjoys views of the Atlantic Ocean, the Biscayne Bay and downtown Miami Beach skyline.

With that beautiful backdrop, the sunset is incredible, Mr. Sereny said.

From PentaThe BMW M850i Gran Coupe is Exceptional, and so Is the Price

The current owner is a Swiss entrepreneur, per the listing agents, who bought the apartment when the building was under construction. He closed on it in July 2008 for $7.3 million via a limited liability company, property records show.

He hired French architect and interior designer Michel Gamard to design the unit. The homes art-deco interior includes 19 different colors that speak to South Beach style, Mr. Hernandez said.

For the past few years, the family used the apartment as a vacation home and decorated it with some unique pieces of furniture, including a glass dining table from Carlo Santambrogio, who is known for the see-through glass home in Milan, Italy; an original couch of the late Zaha Hadid worth $13,000; and original Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs.

The furniture is not included in the asking price, but can be negotiated separately, the listing duo said.

The home also comes with a two-car, air-conditioned garage, which can also be used as storage rooms, they said.The 67-residence Apogee, has a 34-foot lobby, a full-time concierge, a pool, a gym with massage rooms.

The large penthouse of the building was once the most-expensive apartment listed in Florida, when it was listed for $65 million in January 2017. The listing was taken off the market in May 2018.

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Miami Beach Apartment With 270-Degree Views to List for $16.95M - Mansion Global

Grizzly Station was demolished last week, leaving only memories of midday snack runs and cheap gas stops.

Built in the mid-1900s, the gas station would host groups of 20-30 high school students every day at its pinnacle of popularity. However, Grizzly Station was left vacant for several years before being torn down last week and for a while was in the running to be the new library location.

In September 2019, the Logan Municipal Planning Commission approved a plan to construct a 75-unit apartment complex with one and two bedroom units in the gas stations place. According to the site plan, there will be four levels of living and two levels of parking on the .94 acres located at 100 West and 100 South. The plan was proposed by Jared Nielson of Mill Creek of Logan LLC.

With Logan High School just across the street, the gas station was often utilized during lunch breaks as a place to grab a hot dog, a slice of pizza or something from the aisle of snacks.

While the new apartments might not have the same appeal for teens, they are part of the citys focus on bringing more housing options downtown.

This is evidence of that, said Russ Holley, the citys senior planner. This is the first apartment building in downtown in many years.

Story continues below video

He said the apartments are to be named Mill Creek and because there is a height transition requirement around the high school, the apartment complex will vary between three and six stories above ground.

The project developers did not immediately respond to questions about the timeline of construction for the apartments.

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Grizzly Station gone to make way for apartment complex - The Herald Journal

Jake Adkins took ownership of Bartlett Construction at the beginning of the year

Bartlett Construction has a new face at the helm.

Jake Adkins took the reins of the company as of Jan. 1. Adkins has been in the construction industry for approximately eight years. He previously worked for another Central Oregon company as a chief estimator.

"I looked at the numbers, I looked at where I was headed and then decided it was better that I go out on my own," Adkins said.

He was a partner in another bedrock construction business venture in 2011 in North Dakota. Primarily, he has been doing site preparation and paving for most of his career. He has been away from Central Oregon for several years, and he was drawn back to Crook County to raise his children.

"Coming back to Crook County and being able to run a business in Crook County is a blessing," Adkins said. "We are growing by leaps and bounds, but that same core is still there. I can still walk into the city office and shake hands with everybody there or walk into the court, and within 15 minutes be sitting in front of any official that we have."

"When something happens in the community, we all come together," he added.

He really enjoys supporting sports events and youth in the community.

"Those are the things that I enjoy putting my money into, because it is still that small town we are still close knit," he said. "Without that closeness of a community, it's not the same as it would be in a city and there are five schools and nobody knows anybody. And here everyone knows everybody."

When previous owner Brad Bartlett decided to retire, Adkins decided to take the opportunity.

"It seemed logical," he said.

It made sense to keep the name Bartlett Construction because Bartlett owned and operated the business for 33 years, Adkins said.

"Everything just kind of fell into place," he said.

Business operations include site preparation which includes all underground infrastructure such as storm systems, as well as public and private utilities. Currently, Adkins and his business are doing all the infrastructure for Prineville Apartment Complex, a new 135-unit complex being constructed off Peters Road north of Secure Storage.

"We are the general contractor for all of the site prep up there," Adkins said.

In addition to larger jobs like the complex, his business does a variety of work for ranchers, such as cleaning ditches, removing dams, building roads and installing and maintaining septic systems. He will be soon be expanding to add asphalt maintenance.

"It's something that I have funded and am going into in the springtime," Adkins said.

Although the scope of the business is vast, his focus is on the smaller local businesses.

"I still want to take care of those guys," Adkins emphasized. "Really the focus is the ranchers and Prineville, primarily. We branch out and we go everywhere in Central Oregon."

He has added different types of work and has expanded the payroll from three to nine employees; he anticipates being up to 15 employees by spring.

Adkins brought Rod Fulton on as a field superintendent; he was public works superintendent for the city of Madras for 25 years.

"When I took this on, I looked for somebody that was going to know the ins and outs and kind of run the field," Adkins explained. "Not that I can't, but it just gets to be too much."

Adkins stressed that Bartlett had the business for 33 years, and he has built a lot of good relationships.

"Those relationships are going to continue," he said, "and I will do my best to cater and facilitate those relationships. I will do my due diligence to make sure those contacts are met. The customers in this are the primary."

He wants to make sure that he takes care of all customers not just the larger general contractors.

"I also have this community to take care of in little ways, also," he pointed out. "I want to be able to treat that $200 job the same as the $200,000 job. That is kind of my main focus here to be able to sustain just like Brad did for that amount of time."

He explained that it will be a family-owned and operated business where his door is always open. Adkins prides himself on being a hands-on business owner, and is often on the job site.

"There is not anything that I won't ask my guys to do that I won't do," Adkins concluded.

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Bartlett Construction

Owner: Jake Adkins

Address: 1248 NW Madras Highway, Prineville, OR 97754

Business phone: 541-447-3301

Business Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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Bartlett Construction has a new owner - Beaverton Valley Times News

Dunn Development has racked up a lot of firsts with its redevelopment of the former Triboro Hospital for Tuberculosis in Jamaica, Queens, into about 200 affordable and supportive apartment units.

The Brooklyn-based firm, which is a prolific owner and operator of affordable housing in the city, is tackling its first project in Queens, its largest single-building development, and its first adaptive reuse of a historic property.

Logistically, its the most complex thing weve ever done by far, said Martin Dunn, president of Dunn.

Surveying the vast swaths of vacant patient wards, decaying office labs, and cavernous kitchens, that appears to be an understatement.

The 10-story property, just north of the Grand Central Parkway at 82-41 Parsons Boulevard, originally opened in the early 1940s as the Triboro Hospital under the watch of Mayor LaGuardia. Decades later, the building transitioned into part of the Queens Hospital system, where it was known as the T Building and began to slowly deteriorate.

The hulking, 243,000-square-foot property has experienced a bumpy road going into its third act. Earlier plans for senior housing were derailed by the financial crisis, and preservation groups had to lobby to save the property from the brink of demolition. The city eventually selected Dunn to lead the project a task that involved collaborating with community groups, preservationists and NYC Health + Hospitals (NYC H+H), which controls the city-owned property and, last June, Dunn secured a 99-year ground lease at the site.

We spent years working to build community support, Dunn said. Its a big building in a neighborhood with low-rise homeownership. We brought people to the building, and our other buildings, to show them what we do and the quality of our design and operations, to get them comfortable that were going to be good neighbors.

The final plans call for 124 affordable units, ranging from studios to three-bedrooms and reserved for low to moderate incomes, and 75 supportive units catering to tenants coming from NYC H+H.

Since kicking off construction last August, Dunn has been busy with things like restoring the marble lobby, which features original bronze radiator screens and grilles and double-hung steel windows that hint at the architectural gems upstairs. On the ninth floor, an auditorium with a stage and projection room, where visiting thespians would put on plays for sick patients, will be restored with a plaster ceiling and a rounded wood proscenium. The building also houses a solarium ward with historic bed partitions, an eerie and dazzling space that looks like it was yanked straight off the set of Sleep No More.

Agreements with preservation groups, plus the use of historic tax credits, require Dunn to retain a number of original elements within the building, such as certain 10-foot wide hallways, fixtures and certain structural elements. (Though, notably, the team has been busy undoing the work from the Batman-inspired series Gotham, which filmed there; set designers took the liberty of adding things like doors, walls and even a few sea-green archways.)

Elements that are being restored across the property include its glazed terra cotta wall tiles, terrazzo corridor flooring, oval-shaped teak exterior handrails, copper skylights, slate stairways, and brick facade.

There are so many things that we wanted to restore, said Maggie Poxon, senior project manager at Dunn, pointed to an oversized glass partition that was too bulky to save. I had some big heartbreaks.

When completed in the summer of 2021, the property will also include 12,000 square feet of office space, occupied by NYC H+H; an 8,000-square-foot community center repurposed from the propertys industrial kitchen space; an attended lobby; on-site social services; a restored library and computer room; childrens play area; roof terraces; and community, exercise, laundry and bike storage rooms.

Monthly rents on the affordable units range from $856, on the low end, for a low-income tenant in a roughly 419-square-foot studio, to $2,143, on the high end, for a middle-income tenant in a roughly 1,156-square-foot three-bedroom. The lottery for the units is expected to open in early 2021.

Dunn has even embraced the propertys past association as a tuberculosis hospital. The building, after all, is orientated to the southwest, so patients could receive a blast of afternoon sunlight through the oversized windows and cantilevered balconies.

As a tuberculosis hospital, it was all about getting light, air, and getting sun into the lungs of the people and keeping them happy, Poxon said.

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A Blast of Sunlight at the T Building in Queens - Commercial Observer

The second phase of Leland Town Center includes plans for a hotel, big-box retailer, apartment complex, and more. (Port City Daily photo/Courtesy Leland Town Center LLC)

LELAND A major commercial development is underway at Leland Town Center. Planning work has begun on phase two of the project, set to include a 10,300-square-foot hotel, at least one big-box commercial store, restaurants, and a 13-building apartment complex.

Phase one of Leland Town Center is still underway, with visible frontage on Highway 17. Chik-fil-A notably opened in December and construction of a 9,450-square-foot, multi-tenant commercial building continues this month, set to include Starbucks, Firehouse Subs, AT&T, and Heartland Dental.

Related: Leland announces Wrightsville Beach Brewerys second location planned in Brunswick Forest

Behind phase one south of Gateway Boulevard, even bigger plans are in store.

Site plans for phase two show nearly 200,000 square feet of new projects are planned on the 67-acre parcel. An apartment complex comprised of 13 multi-family buildings totaling 312 units will be situated toward the southeast portion of the site, near the West Gate Drive and Tradeway Drive roundabout.

Behind Ocean Gate Plaza, phase two of Leland Town Center will also include a 127,000 square foot commercial building comprised of eight tenants.

Five restaurants are planned, three of which would be free-standing. A 30,000-square-foot, free-standing commercial building is also shown on site plans could this spot eventually be filled with a long-awaited home improvement retailer? In total, 15 multi-tenant commercial buildings are planned.

Palmer Williams, developer of C&S Commercial properties, said the project is still in the early planning stages.

Phase two has not yet been submitted to the Town of Leland for review. Earlier this month, C&S Commercial Properties submitted a pre-construction notification seeking environmental approval.

Check out the site plan for phase two of Leland Town Center below:

20200060 Ver 1_PCN Form Submission_20200109 (1)-12 by Johanna Ferebee Still on Scribd

Send tips and comments to Johanna Ferebee Still at johanna@localvoicemedia.com

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Hotel, 312 apartment units, 15 commercial buildings planned for second phase of Leland Town Center - Port City Daily

An 18-story apartment building in Brumunddal, Norway, is not only the worlds tallest timber building, its also the worlds tallest carbon dioxide sink. The building's timber structure, including elevator shafts, are made entirely from cross-laminated timber with columns made from glued-laminated timber. The same materials will be used for a massive 500,000 square-foot timber office complex on the waterfront of Newark, New Jersey. In Sweden, a new development in Stockholm will see31 timber towers rise 25 to 35 stories from the waterfront to house 3,000 apartments and 30 shops and restaurants.

Wood, or more specifically cross-laminated timber (CLT), is the hot new building material due to its high strength-to-weight ratio, precise prefabrication in a factory and ease and speed of assembly on building sites. Designers also say timber buildings can be a powerful tool in the struggle to reduce global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Double benefits for climate protection

Trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow and will release it if the tree decays or is burned. However, if the wood is used in a building that CO2 could be locked away for many decades, or even hundreds of years, said Galina Churkina of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Such timber buildings are carbon sinks a place that keeps CO2 from getting into the air. A second benefit from using wood as a building material is that it reduces the amount of cement and steel production, both of which are large CO2 emitters.

This matters because an enormous number of new buildings will be built as there will be 2.3 billion more people living in urban areas by 2050, according to UN estimates. If these future buildings are made of concrete and steel they may use up 20 percent of our remaining carbon budget to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, according to a study by Churkina and colleagues published Jan. 27 in the journal Nature.

However, if most of these new buildings are made from wood they could store close to 700 million tons of CO2 every year. In addition, this would reduce cumulative emissions from steel and cement manufacturing by half.

We need to keep CO2 on the land and out of the air. Building timber cities can help, Churkina said in an interview.

CLT is an engineered wood product that is sometimes called mass timber. Its prefabricated using several layers of kiln-dried lumber, laid flat-wise and glued together in alternating layers which makes it far stronger while being light. Not only is CLT a better insulator, it is more fire resistant rather than burning, it chars.

Keeping climate change under2 degrees Celsius means there can be no CO2 emissions by 2050 without ways to remove it. We cant get rid of most of the CO2 from concrete and steel production, she said. That makes reducing the need for such materials and finding ways to remove CO2 from the air extremely important.

A five-story residential building structured in laminated timber can store up to 180 kilograms (396 pounds) of carbon per square meter, according to the study. Thats three times more than trees in a similar sized area of forest would naturally store. So that 500,000 square-foot timber office complex in Newark, N.J., may end up being a permanent storage site for around 8.4 million kilograms (18.5 million pounds) of CO2.

Impressive as this might be, the worlds forests store thousands of times more CO2 than buildings are ever likely to. Existing forests must be protected to avoid dangerous climate change, a coalition of forest scientists warned in a statement. The worlds forests contain more carbon than exploitable oil, gas and coal deposits, they note.

Our planets future climate is inextricably tied to the future of its forests, the scientists wrote.

How to prevent timber cities from increasing deforestation

Protecting forests from unsustainable logging and a wide range of other threats is thus key if timber use was to be substantially increased, agrees Churkinas co-author, Christopher Reyer of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

Our vision for sustainable forest management and governance could indeed improve the situation for forests worldwide as they are valued more, said Reyer in a statement.

The study used complex simulation modeling to determine that there is enough wood resources available with plantations and the cultivation of fast-growing bamboo by small-scale landowners to construct 90 percent of future buildings out of timber.

Deforestation is almost entirely driven by clearing land for agriculture and for fuel, said Mark Wishnie, global forestry and wood products director at the Nature Conservancy. Very little deforestation globally is for wood products like building material or furniture, according to data from Global Forest Watch, Wishnie said.

Done right, building future cities out of timber has the potential to cut CO2 emissions and create more forests, he said in an interview.

Doing it right means managing forests on a landscape scale to ensure they continue to provide habitat for a diversity of species and maintain and clean water flows, among other ecological functions. To make a significant impact on the climate, timber construction will be needed to be done on a mass scale and there is the potential for large impacts on existing forests, he said.

Research into the potential impacts of a shift to timber cities is ongoing so that safeguards and appropriate policies can be put in place to protect forests and encourage the use of timber. These are beautiful buildings with wide open spaces that are wonderful to live or work in.

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Building timber cities to protect the climate - The Hill

The 2.2-acre site, at 8400 Delmar Boulevard, had been owned since 2018 by a company affiliated with AKG Development. LuxLiving acquired the property last month. The office building currently contains the Global Village Language Center, while small business Craft Central is located in a building on the parking lot.

Plans call for a five-story Element by Westin Hotel, according to University City planning documents, though the developer says negotiations with hotel brands arent final yet. The four-story luxury apartment building would be mostly one-bedroom and studio apartments, with about 29 two-bedroom apartments out of 160 total units. The developer would also add a restaurant space to the building.

University City Planning Director Cliff Cross said the University City Council is expected to take up the rezoning matter at its Feb. 24 meeting. Approval of the final plan could come as soon as this summer. Construction is expected to take 18 to 24 months after that.

LuxLiving, led by Victor Alston and Sidarth Chakraverty, has been busy in recent years. It is finishing up leasing on its new Bordeaux apartments, a 48-unit rehab of an old mop factory in Lafayette Square, and it expects to complete construction of its 150-unit Chelsea apartments on Pershing Avenue in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood later this year. It recently proposed another 150-unit building in that neighborhood.

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LuxLiving plans another apartment project, this one in University City - STLtoday.com

Not all the development activity is going on in Buffalo. There are plenty of new projects in the suburbs that could have a big impact on the region in the coming years.

The biggest and most long-term projects would create big retail, office and residential complexes in spaces that now are struggling as suburban malls. Others would expand manufacturing capabilities and help build the region's tourism base.

Here's a look at several projects worth watching in 2020:

In 2020, the owners of the Eastern Hills Mall will take the first steps toward the $250 million town center proposed for the Clarence site.

Uniland Development Co. and Mountain Development, with the Gensler architecture firm, in December unveiled their plan for boutique-style retail mixed in with restaurants, recreational space, housing, offices and hotels.

This year the companies will try to secure tenants and financing. Construction on the initial phase of retail and public green space would begin as soon as 2021, with the full project taking 20 years to complete.

Town and business leaders trying to reach agreement on a long-debated proposal to reshape a large section of central Amherst face a deadline to act this year.

Amherst officials and the owners of the former Westwood Country Club have informally agreed to a swap of public and private property. The plan would preserve the country club as parkland and a theater, see a medical building and hotel constructed near the towns Northtown Center and perhaps add additional sports venues and housing in the area.

The parties remain divided over land values and other stumbling blocks. Construction is unlikely to begin this year, but the town and developers face a July deadline to reach agreement or the state approval of the land swap expires.

Lancaster's West Main Street project, more than a half-century in the making, is now on the brink of building a walkable downtown with creekside park, bike lanes and old-time village center.

Villagers can expect to see road construction extending West Main to Aurora Street beginning in 2020. The $2.5 million project will convert West Main into a two-lane boulevard that in coming years will be lined with 48 upscale apartments and up to 20 retail spaces.

The road is the catalyst to restore the historic street grid, said developer Tommy Sweeney, who expects to spend at least $8 million on the project.

The developer plans to use a phased approach to add 12 building blocks along the new street.

"As you go downhill, the entrance level for each building will be aligned with the roadway. Phase One will consist of four buildings with first-floor retail and upper-floor apartments. The one- and two-bedroom apartments will run from $1,100 to $1,300 a month. Were also looking to set up charging stations for electrical cars, said Sweeney.

Mayor William Schroeder expected to starting the bidding process for road construction early next year.

He advised patience.

Were not going to get another chance to do this, so it has to be done right. Everyone is antsy, and it is progressing as planned. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time," said Schroeder.

Rosina Foods $58 million investment in its new plant on Clinton Street in West Seneca is just the first phase of a plan to keep the local company making frozen meatballs, sausage and toppings in Western New York.

The expansion of Rosina's footprint in West Seneca is before the Planning Board, with construction on the 100,000-square-foot plant expected to start this year.

If the new factory was not built, Rosina said it would have to shut down its Cheektowaga processing line, which is no longer competitive, and shift that work to a Chicago company.

Orchard Park

A new medical building is expected to be the first phase of a major multi-use development in Orchard Park. Orchard Park town planners are hoping to see detailed plans of Ellicott Developments development of more than 70 acres on vacant land west of North Buffalo Road and south of Webster Road.

Buffalo Medical Group wants to build a companion to its office building at North Buffalo Road and Holland Drive. It would be located behind the existing building.

Its a fairly substantial project, said Planning Coordinator Remy Orffeo.

Long range plans call for a three-story hotel, other medical facilities, single family homes and retail space.

The growth of entertainment and lodging options will continue in downtown Niagara Falls in 2020.

Rupal Hospitality's plans to reopen the former Niagara Club, 24 Buffalo Ave., as a banquet and entertainment facility will be completed this year, company president Nirel Patel said.

The project, whose costs have grown from $3 million to $4.5 million, will begin with the opening of a Spot Coffee location in the building by "mid-spring," Patel said. The rest of the project should be open late in the year, featuring several entertainment lounges with varying themes and a rooftop lounge affording views of the upper Niagara River rapids just across the street.

Rupal owns the Courtyard by Marriott hotel a few blocks to the east. "Having a banquet facility within walking distance of the falls is an integral part of our hospitality portfolio," Patel said.

Also on the drawing board for this year is a $22.5 million plan from Merani Hotel Group to erect two five-story buildings at 402-430 Buffalo Ave. One building will be an 83-room Holiday Inn Express, while the other will house 36 market-rate apartments and two ground-floor commercial spaces, to be filled by a Tim Hortons and a Circle K convenience store.

Michael Marsch, vice president of operations for Merani, said construction will start this year, but the buildings probably won't open until 2021.

When the Holiday Inn Express opens, it will be Merani's fourth downtown Niagara Falls hotel, along with the Holiday Inn, DoubleTree and Four Points by Sheraton.

"We're diversifying our portfolio a little bit," Marsch said. "We don't own any apartment buildings, or any retail space except for the restaurants we have. We're definitely filling a need in regard to market-rate housing in the downtown area. There isn't any."

In Lockport, the renovation of the old Tuscarora Club into a banquet venue and a 17-room boutique hotel will begin this year with asbestos removal, funded in part by a $300,000 brownfield grant from Niagara County, according to city planning and development director Brian M. Smith.

"We hope to have the banquet facility open by mid-2020," owner Dominick Ciliberto said.

The $2.5 million project involves installation of a new elevator to reach the hotel rooms on the second and third floors of the 109-year-old former social club. Some of those rooms could be available by the end of the year, Ciliberto said.

"We're able to get a certificate of occupancy for individual rooms as long as that whole area has been remodeled," Ciliberto said.

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Projects to watch in suburban Erie and Niagara counties - Buffalo News

The new owner of a vacant lot on Linwood Avenue is proceeding with the prior owner's plans for a new three-story apartment building but now he wants to ezpand the lower unit, so he has his own place to live.

That means Joseph Carubba has a scheduled collision with the Buffalo Planning Board first.

Carubba bought the quarter-acre site at 295 Linwood from Jesse Hawker last year, along with the architectural drawings that had been approved last August by the city's Planning Board, Preservation Board and Zoning Board of Appeals.

That proposal called for a 7,802-square-foot structure, with two one-bedroom and three two-bedroom apartments. The building's facade would feature white brick and fiber-cement panel, with a green preweathered copper roof and red stone base. A new driveway under one side of the 34-foot-tall building would lead to a paved rear area containing an eight-car garage.

Hawker already demolished a deteriorated former duplex on the site, before Carubba bought the land and plans.

Now the former owner of Carubba Collision wants to pursue Hawker's plan, but with a one-story addition in the rear of the first-floor apartment, for a master bedroom suite and an attached garage. That's where he plans to live.

[Related: Linwood Avenue apartment proposal suffers setback, over setback]

Carubba, of Carubba & Company Development, intends to construct the building in accordance with the prior design plans, using the previously approved exterior windows, roofing, wall panels, brick, trim work and other elements, according to a letter to city Planning Director Nadine Marrero from architect John A. Lydon. The addition will use the same materials and finishes, he wrote.

The attached garage will mean he won't have to go outside to enter his unit. Carubba is also proposing to create an enclosed walkway at the south end of the property, where an open path was originally included.

Lydon added that they believe the addition, because it will be identical in appearance to the original approved building, should be considered a minor change that does not need a new public hearing before the full board, particularly since it's in back and not visible from the street. However, the board first has to rule on that question on Monday.

Last June, Carubba sold his well-known business, with 18 stores, to Illinois-based Gerber Collision and Glass, which is part of Boyd Group, a publicly traded company based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The Planning Board will also hold a new public hearing on the revised $24 million plan for the Lawrence, a 129-unit market-rate apartment building that Symphony Management LLC wants to construct on the edge of the Fruit Belt, across Michigan Avenue from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The firm led by Timothy LeBoeuf originally proposed a five-story building with 131 units and 74 spaces of enclosed parking at 983-997 Michigan and 228-250 Maple St. But strident opposition from the neighborhood and activists throughout the city forced the developer to go back to the drawing board.

In the new version, Symphony reduced the height by one floor and 11 feet, while adding more glass and putting more of the parking underground. Plans by Stieglitz Snyder Architecture now call for a four-story building 44 feet high, fronting on both Michigan and Maple, and connected by a structural link in the middle. The 44,150-square-foot building would include a 78-space garage on the ground level and a mixture of 31 studio, 52 one-bedroom and 42 two-bedroom apartments on the four floors above.

The first floor would still have a fitness center and an office for the building manager, along with 29 apartments. Two lobbies one along Michigan and the other on Maple, can be accessed from the ground level. There are also 28 bicycle spaces and a storage room in the basement.

The design uses utility bricks, glass stairwells, balconies, "simulated entrances," and "vertical" features to break up the facade's mass and appearance, particularly along Maple within the historic residential neighborhood. And the developer plans to secure about 60 additional off-site parking spaces within 500 feet of the project, according to a transportation demand management study included with the application.

"The applicants believe that the significant changes in the proposed design are responsive to public concerns about the scale of the project and mitigate potential impacts to the greatest extent practicable," attorney Marc Romanowski wrote in a letter to the Planning and Zoning boards.

The planned use is allowed by the Green Code, but the project will require variances for building height, lot width and coverage, and side and rear setbacks. However, Romanowski argued that the requests will not constitute "an undesirable change" and will not harm the "physical or environmental conditions" in the Fruit Belt. And they're needed to make the project feasible and viable, given the need for density because of the soaring land values near the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

"The project is on a challenging site to say the least," Romanowski wrote, citing the irregular shape of the 1.013-acre property, with part of it fronting Michigan and the other fronting Maple, with different requirements on each street. "The applicants have gone to great lengths to redesign the project to minimize adverse impacts on the character of the neighborhood."

If approved, construction would take about 20 months, according to the application.

New rendering of the Lawrence, a proposed apartment complex on Michigan Avenue and Maple Street on the edge of the Fruit Belt. (Image courtesy of the Symphony Property Management)

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Former Carubba Collision owner takes over Linwood Avenue apartment project - Buffalo News

SAINT JOHN The mixed-income apartment complex that will replace the demolished Jelly Bean buildings at the corner of Wellington Row and Union Street is still being built, though construction will be starting a little later than previously forecast.

Construction on the complex, dubbed The Wellington, was expected to start by this spring at the latest. Now, its expected to begin by the fall.

In terms of the schedule, were hoping to break ground as early as fall of this year, said Narinder Singh, general manager of Saint John Non Profit Housing. Theres still a lot of Is we have to dot and Ts we have to cross in order to get there.

The complex, designed by Saint John-based firm Acre Architects, would set a new environmental and design standard for buildings being constructed in Saint Johns uptown core. It will comply with the Passive House Standards, which has rigorous environmental standards for energy efficiency.

The Passive House Standard is a design approach developed in Germany and Sweden in the 1990s to deliver large reductions in the energy used for heating and cooling buildings.

Some of its key features include a compact building shape, high levels of insulation in exterior walls, roofs, and under foundations. It will also have high-performance windows to minimize air leaks and electric car charging stations.

But Singh said since the project is so complex, some changes have had to be made since the initial design stages, hence the later construction start.

This project is a little bit more complex than your typical build because its quite innovative, he said. Its a building thats meeting Passive House Standards for environmental friendliness. Its going to be extremely energy efficient, so theres a lot of design issues related to that in a building this size to make that happen.

The overall urban design of the building is quite similar to the original renderings. It will be a six-storey building with 47 units, a mix of both subsidized and market-rate units. The ground floor will also have two commercial spaces, one ideal for a food-service business.

Some of the changes that have been made since the project has progressed from the early design stage include the placement of the windows and the decision to build it with mass timber, as opposed to stick-frame wood.

This is where the innovation and wood and the environment is really going. So [it will have] wood columns, wood floor slabs, said Stephen Kopp, partner at Acre Architects. What that allows us to do is interior in the units, if youre to look up in your living room, youd actually see exposed wood planks which are the structure.

Youre economizing, but also allowing that biophilic design and feeling of natural materials around you to be present. That also allows for quicker construction and its a light build too.

Another big change thats been made is all the units will meet universal design standards, so as tenants grow older, they can stay in their homes longer.

Its not for seniors by any means, said Kopp. The location should cater to a lot of people who want to live in the uptown. The thing about universal is they are convertible and if you do stay long-term in your spot, theyre ready for the challenges of aging.

Singh says recently announced development projects, like the complex being built on the old Gothic Arches site, are great for city and show that uptown is growing both physically and culturally. But he says the Wellington project play a slightly different role.

Our project is important because its mixed-income, said Singh. So not only are we providing housing for people of means at the market level, but were also providing housing for people who have lower incomes who have always lived in this area that would be pushed out as a result of the resurgence and gentrification thats happening in the south end.

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Construction Date Pushed Back For Apartment Complex To Replace 'Jelly Bean' Buildings - Huddle Today