Josh Crabb, CTV Winnipeg Published Tuesday, April 7, 2015 2:22PM CST Last Updated Tuesday, April 7, 2015 5:32PM CST

The massive inferno that destroyed a Hargrave Street apartment building Monday night has turned into an arson investigation.

The fire was so intense it cracked windows in Tedale Molla's apartment on the opposite side of the back lane.

"As soon as we saw the fire we left, said Molla, who took her three children outside, fearing the fire would spread.

Mollas daughter, 5-year-old Yedidiya Abasha, said it was a frightening ordeal.

"I saw a big fire," she said. "After that the firefighters came and watered it out."

The abandoned 4-storey apartment block was vacant.

No one was hurt but Winnipeg Police said the fire caused $1-million in damage, and based on witness accounts appears to have been deliberately set.

"We have what appears to be some youth observed in the building at some point, there's certainly some witness accounts that suggest some youth fleeing the area at the time of the fire, said Constable Jason Michalyshen.

Police said the suspects were described as three girls and two boys, 14 to 15-years-old.

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Owner was trying to repair apartment building before suspicious fire

The developers of a proposed new mid-rise apartment building on the Pilgrim Village site just north of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus are scaling back their project and rearranging their parking plans to reduce costs and address problems they encountered with the previous design.

Pilgrim Village owner MHT Holdings Inc. and partner McGuire Development Co. have cut back the first phase of their Campus Square redevelopment of the 90-unit, affordable-housing townhome complex, which was originally built in 1980 on 12 acres at North and Ellicott streets. That phase had called for demolishing 25 townhome units and replacing them with an eight-story, 380,000-square-foot structure on the southwest corner, with 60,000 square feet of first-foor retail space and 190 residential units.

Instead, plans now call for six stories and 152 units in an L-shaped, 260,000-square-foot building, including 62 affordable apartments for senior citizens and 90 market-rate units, with some designated for graduate students. The retail space is unchanged. And the parking, which was supposed to be underneath the building, will now be contained in a separate, four-story, 85,000-square-foot parking ramp with 210 spaces, attached to main building in a U-shape.

The changes were necessitated as part of the normal process when evaluating a project and making sure it makes sense, said attorney Marc A. Romanowski, who is representing the developers. The cost had to be manageable, he said, and the developers also realized that the underground parking would hit the water table, which in that area is only 12 to 14 feet underground. We had to really look back at it and re-engineer it.

Romanowski and McGuire Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey P. Lehrbach explained the changes in a presentation Tuesday to the Buffalo Planning Board, which had previously approved the earlier concept in December. City planners agreed that the changes were significant enough to warrant a new public hearing and board consideration at the next meeting April 21.

Lehrbach estimated the new cost at $65 million to $70 million.

Weve been right-sizing the project based upon coming with an economical project but still having the aesthetics and integrity that are so important for it, he said. Plans call for breaking ground this summer and finishing in the first quarter of 2017.

The concept for the new Campus Square, at 905 Ellicott, ultimately envisions 17 mostly residential buildings and a maintenance building, with hundreds of new mixed-income and intergenerational-living units, as well as some mixed-use commercial and retail space. The first phase will include a bank branch, a grocery store, a coffee shop, a music school and a dance school, as well as possibly medical or dental services. Lehrbach said that all but the bank branch are finalized, and hes encouraging the grocery store to carry prepared foods, fresh produce and basic medicines.

A second major construction phase involves 300 units for students, medical staff and conventional housing, with at least 20 percent of the units slated for below-market rents. Remaining townhomes will be renovated. In all, the project could cost about $200 million when completed.

In other matters, the board:

Excerpt from:
Pilgrim Village developers scaling back project near Medical Campus

Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 04/6/2015 8:48 PM | Comments: | Last Modified: 04/7/2015 11:52 AM | Updates

Winnipeg police are investigating the likelihood a massive blaze Monday at a vacant building on Hargave Street was deliberately set.

The four-storey building at 44 Hargrave, which stood for 105 years, went up in flames about 6:45 p.m.

There were no injuries.

Today, police gave a damage estimate of $1,000,000.

Witnesses told police several youth were seen fleeing the area. The suspects are described as three girls and two boys, all about 14 to 15 years old.

Members of the Winnipeg Police Service arson unit continue to investigate. Anyone with further information that may assist investigators is asked to call 204-986-6813 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-TIPS (8477).

Firefighters were able to save the apartment building at 42 Hargrave to the immediate south, although it was damaged Monday night. The residents there were quickly evacuated just in case.

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Vacant downtown apartment building destroyed

Crane Removal at Woodmont Triangle Apartment Building Construction site
Removing a large crane on the weekend of March 28-29 in downtown Bethesda, MD.

By: Andrew Metcalf - Bethesda Magazine

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Crane Removal at Woodmont Triangle Apartment Building Construction site - Video

HARTFORD The long-troubled, four-story brick apartment building that anchored the corner of Main and High streets for more than a century came tumbling down Friday, a day after it was weakened by a fire police say was set accidentally by a squatter.

As crews from Environmental Services Inc. of South Windsor razed the structure, people stopped by to watch the workers, reminisce about the building and speculate about what might replace it.

"I think it's horrible that one person could cause such destruction," said Sheri Garrett, who once lived nearby. "It's very sad, but at the same time it's an eyesore. It needs to come down."

"My father fought several fires in this building about 60 years ago," said Jack Dooley of Newington, who admitted he stopped by to gawk at the demolition.

A man who rode his bicycle over to watch the demolition said he had lived in the building about 15 years ago. The man, who identified himself only as Frank, said when he was there the building was full of tenants and had shops and a popular club on the ground floor.

"It was good. It was full," he said. "It was a nice building."

The building's owner, Eric Dornevil of Watertown, Mass., bought it in June 2003 through a city tax sale. He paid $125,000.

Since 2003, tax and utility liens have been placed on the property, which is listed in city land record as 1359-1363 Main St. The city also assessed $88,000 in fines in December after Dornevil failed to address blight issues at the property, according to land records and court filings. He could not be reached for comment Friday.

Francheska Dornevil is listed as the owner of the adjoining structure, 1355-1357 Main St., which was not razed Friday. There are tax and other liens on that property, too.

The fire caused extensive damage to the building, including a partial collapse in the rear, city officials said. Unable to reach Dornevil after the fire, city officials hired Environmental Services to take the building down.

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Demolition Of Burned-Out Hartford Building Draws A Crowd

View Larger Legacy of neglect landlord project See More

In a four-part series, The Dispatch examines neglected properties and neglectful owners. See stories, video and more.

The owner of a crime-plagued apartment building in Franklinton that the city boarded up last week plans to improve security there and reopen.

The buildings owner, Interstate Construction of Grove City, has no plans to sell, said the companys attorney, Erica Probst.

She said the companys president, Dwight Douglas Kincaid, has owned the 17-unit building at 398-404 S. Central Ave. for 30 years but didnt know about the claims in the citys complaint, including drug use and drug dealing.

Probst said the issues that led to the city shutting down the building came about in recent months.

Dispatch special report: Legacy of Neglect

City prosecutors and the owner agreed last week to remove the residents and close the building until Franklin County Environmental Judge Dan Hawkins hears the citys request for a permanent injunction on June 15.

We agreed to the property shutdown so my client could investigate the allegations and make sure the tenants were safe and secure, Probst said.

She said Kincaid will work over several months to see how he can boost security, including hiring a guard and installing cameras, hiring a new property-management company and possibly starting a neighborhood watch.

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Owner of boarded-up Franklinton apartment building promises to improve security

K.C. Kappen and Rachel Ballard believe that renting a place to live "simply makes sense," given their current situation.

Kappen, 26, a junior account executive for social media and public relations with the Brownstein Group in Philadelphia, arrived here with Ballard, 25, from Southern California in June.

Ballard will finish graduate school in the next 18 months, Kappen said, "and I'm in the beginning stages of my professional career." Renting "gives us a chance to weigh our options and see what areas of Philadelphia we prefer."

Thousands of other millennials have come to the same decision, for a variety of financial reasons, so rental apartments continue to fill a growing housing need in the Philadelphia region.

And that boom has given a shot in the arm to the regional economy, $14 billion in 2013 alone. For the United States as a whole, the economic contribution was $1.3 trillion.

A study by George Mason University's Stephen S. Fuller for the National Multifamily Housing Council and the National Apartment Association showed that 544,300 people, or 9 percent of the Philadelphia area's population, live in its 321,200 rental apartment units.

Thirty-four percent of those apartments are in buildings of 50 or more units, Fuller said.

While single-family-home building still lags, multifamily rental construction accounted for 49 percent of building permits issued in the region in 2013, valued at nearly $367 million, he said.

Spencer Yablon, senior vice president for capital markets/multifamily at CBRE Group in Wayne, said apartment fundamentals remain good and support "near-term growth."

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Millennials help build a Phila.-region apartment boom

HARTFORD A squatter who police say accidentally set fire to a vacant four-story building at Main Street and Albany Avenue Thursday morning was ordered held on $100,000 bail after his arraignment on charges of reckless burning and criminal trespass.

Kenneth Onalty, 46, had been living in the building for several months and on Thursday set some papers on fire to keep warm, according to a statement he gave to police. He insisted, however, that he extinguished the fire, the statement said.

Firefighters were called to 1363 Main St. about 3:45 a.m. and when they arrived had to rescue Onalty from the building's second floor. He was taken to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center for treatment of smoke inhalation, and later charged.

The fire heavily damaged the building, forced police to close surrounding streets through the evening rush hourand also closed Capital Preparatory Magnet School, which is across Main Street from the building. Students could not reach the school because the street was shut down.

City spokeswoman Hilda Muoz said Thursday afternoon that the city hired Environmental Services Inc. of South Windsor to demolish the building. Crews set up fencing around the site and planned to remove a billboard atop the building Thursday night. The building is scheduled to be demolished Friday, she said.

The 1890s brick building is part of a block of existing structures the city hopes will be renovated now that development in the nearby Downtown North area is underway. Downtown North, on the edge of downtown, will feature a minor league baseball stadium, apartments, a supermarket and a brewery. Construction on the stadium began in February.

During his arraignment Thursday afternoon in Superior Court, Onalty became angry about the bail set in his case, discussions about his mental health and the reckless-burning charge filed against him.

"Excuse me your honor, there's nothing wrong with my mental health," Onalty said. He insisted that he had nothing to do with the fire, which he said began on the building's third floor, not the second floor where he was staying.

"I'm here for trespassing, that's it," he said.

When Judge Joan K. Alexander set bail at $100,000, Onalty became even more angry and yelled and swore. Marshals escorted him out of the courtroom, and an unfazed Alexander ordered that Onalty undergo a competency evaluation.

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Squatter Charged In Fire That Destroyed Hartford Building

HARTFORD A squatter who police say accidentally set fire to a vacant four-story building at Main Street and Albany Avenue Thursday morning was ordered held on $100,000 bail after his arraignment on charges of reckless burning and criminal trespass.

Kenneth Onalty, 46, had been living in the building for several months and on Thursday set some papers on fire to keep warm, according to a statement he gave to police. He insisted, however, that he extinguished the fire, the statement said.

Firefighters were called to 1363 Main St. about 3:45 a.m. and when they arrived had to rescue Onalty from the building's second floor. He was taken to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center for treatment of smoke inhalation, and later charged.

The fire heavily damaged the building, forced police to close surrounding streets through the evening rush hourand also closed Capital Preparatory Magnet School, which is across Main Street from the building. Students could not reach the school because the street was shut down.

City spokeswoman Hilda Muoz said Thursday afternoon that the city hired Environmental Services Inc. of South Windsor to demolish the building. Crews set up fencing around the site and planned to remove a billboard atop the building Thursday night. The building is scheduled to be demolished Friday, she said.

The 1890s brick building is part of a block of existing structures the city hopes will be renovated now that development in the nearby Downtown North area is underway. Downtown North, on the edge of downtown, will feature a minor league baseball stadium, apartments, a supermarket and a brewery. Construction on the stadium began in February.

During his arraignment Thursday afternoon in Superior Court, Onalty became angry about the bail set in his case, discussions about his mental health and the reckless-burning charge filed against him.

"Excuse me your honor, there's nothing wrong with my mental health," Onalty said. He insisted that he had nothing to do with the fire, which he said began on the building's third floor, not the second floor where he was staying.

"I'm here for trespassing, that's it," he said.

When Judge Joan K. Alexander set bail at $100,000, Onalty became even more angry and yelled and swore. Marshals escorted him out of the courtroom, and an unfazed Alexander ordered that Onalty undergo a competency evaluation.

Continued here:
Squatter Charged In Fire That Destroyed Main Street Building

Jewel Samad | AFP | Getty Images

Construction laborers work on the top floor of a high rise apartment building in New York on March 31, 2015.

U.S. construction spending unexpectedly fell in February and the prior month's outlays were revised to show a steeper decline than previously estimated, which could see economists further mark down their first-quarter growth forecasts.

Construction spending dipped 0.1 percent to an annual rate of $967.2 billion, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. January's outlays were revised to show a 1.7 percent decline instead of the previously reported 1.1 percent drop.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast construction spending being flat in February.

Economic growth slowed markedly in the first quarter, held back by bad weather, a strong dollar, weaker overseas demand and a now-settled labor dispute at the country's busy West Coast ports.

Estimates for first-quarter gross domestic product range between a 0.8 percent and 1.2 percent annual pace. The economy expanded at a 2.2 percent rate in the fourth quarter.

Read MorePriced out: New housing froth discourages buyers

Construction spending in February was restrained by a 0.8 percent drop in public construction outlays.

Spending on federal government projects jumped 9 percent, but that was offset by a 1.6 percent plunge in state and local government outlays -the largest portion of the public sector segment.

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Feb construction joins US's bad data parade