LOWER HEIDELBERG TWP., Pa. -

While investigators search for clues in the Legacy at Papermill arson, construction crews are working to rebuild.

The apartment building, an over-55 community in the area of Calming Drive and Legacy Boulevard in Lower Heidelberg Township, Berks County, burned to the ground Feb. 25, 2014.

"This whole building was engulfed. It was 3-4 stories high. It was the most incredible sight. The heat, the sound of the crackling wood," said Marlies Leid, a neighbor.

It is an image that many neighbors cannot erase from their minds.

For Cynthia and Ray Bickley, who live across the street, the trauma the fire caused was even more substantial.

"The glass started cracking as I was calling 911, so it was really scary," said Cynthia Bickley.

The heat of the fire was so intense that it actually spread across the street and started melting the siding off the Bickleys' home.

"We had all the siding replaced. We had all the windows replaced. The back porch was all warped, PVC plastic, had that whole thing replaced," said Bickley.

Now a year later, the developer said the new apartment building is about 50 percent complete, and three quarters of the units have already been leased, but with police not being any closer to catching the arsonist, neighbors said they are sleeping with one eye open, afraid it could happen again.

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One year after arson, apartment building being rebuilt in Lower Heidelberg Twp.

By AJ Moser | Published 20 hours ago

The first-ever Biggby Coffee store, which is located in East Lansing, will not be torn down for an apartment complex project, as originally planned by DTN Management.

CEO Bob Fish founded the company in 1995 as Beaners Coffee. The original store was opened at the Grand River Avenue location March 15, 1995. The franchise now has more than 200 locations in the U.S.

The Gateway construction project, first proposed in 2013, required demolishing the coffee shop to make space for a six-story apartment building. The plan has since changed to a four-story building as the proposed project would have cut off public views to Valley Court Park.

Cost estimates for the Gateway project are down significantly after the design changes from $22 million to $9 million. In addition, the number of apartment units has been cut from the proposed 160.

Gateway will now focus on a vacant lot across from Delta Street. The complex will feature underground parking, a bank with a drive-thru, available space for retail stores on the first floor and a total of 39 two-bedroom apartments on upper floors.

The original plan had also included a rebuilt Biggby coffee on the first floor, which will no longer be necessary.

The Biggby location at 270 W. Grand River Ave. provides a valuable resource to MSU students as it is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

This is a great location, close to campus, said political science junior Keith Davis. And I can easily access somewhere to study.

Students also appreciate the quiet late-night atmosphere, as opposed to the sometimes raucous Main Library.

Read more here:
Revised Gateway project proposal would prevent demolition of first-ever Biggby Coffee

Collins House will feature floor-to-ceiling windows. Photo: Supplied

Melbourne is about to sprout one of the world's skinniest residential towers at the historic Makers Mark site at 466 Collins Street.

Golden Age Group announced on Wednesday a $200-million plan to build a 195-metre tower only 12 metres wide.

The 57-level building project designed by architects Bates Smart will accommodate 263 apartments and include plans to restore the facade of the historic Makers Mark building at its base.

Developers hope Collins House will appeal to local buyers. Photo: Supplied

Slender skyscrapers might be uncommon in Australian city skylines, but they are not entirely new. In the world's skyscraper capital of New York, the scarcity of land for new developments has inspired a trend towards pencil-thin buildings.

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A 396-metre apartment building only 18.2 metres wide is planned for 111 West 57thStreet in Manhattan.

Perhaps the most famous slender building is the triangular Flatiron building in New York built in 1902 that is only two metres wide at the vertex.

Collins House will be an unusually slim tower. Photo: Supplied

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Super-skinny apartment tower Collins House to soar in Melbourne's CBD

Pittsburgh is demolishing the historic John A. Brashear factory in the North Side because a wall collapsed Monday night onto an occupied apartment building next door, a city official said Tuesday.

Brashear, a world-renown scientist and philanthropist, worked in the factory to make mirrors and lenses for telescopes until his death in 1920.

The National Registry of Historic Places lists Brashear's house and factory on Perrsyville Avenue. The factory has been vacant for nearly 20 years, and was in poor condition, neighbors said.

It's tragic, said Janet Gunter, a longtime Perry Hilltop resident. No one stepped up to preserve the building. Everybody knew it was in bad shape. Now it's gone and you can't replace history.

Maura Kennedy, who heads the city's Department of Permits Licenses and Inspections, said she issued an emergency demolition order because a wall collapsed about 10:30 p.m. Monday.

Jaydell Minniefield Construction Services Inc. of Hazelwood began razing it Tuesday morning. The city is paying the company $235,000, Kennedy said.

It's unfortunate, but the structure has gotten to a point where it is imminently dangerous, so we needed to take it down immediately, Kennedy said.

The American Red Cross is providing shelter to residents of the apartment building, which was evacuated. Residents won't be permitted to return until city inspectors certify the building is safe, she said.

Brashear was a founder and director of the Allegheny Observatory in Riverview Park and created lenses for telescopes worldwide. He was known in Pittsburgh as Uncle John for the philanthropic work he did and once was named as Pennsylvania's most eminent citizen.

His home still stands on Perrysville Avenue near the factory. He died in 1920 at age 79. His ashes are interred with his wife's in Allegheny Observatory.

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Wall collapse forces Pittsburgh to raze historic Brashear lens factory

Melbourne's CBD will run out of land for new office and apartment buildings within 35 years as space is gobbled up by skyscrapers, unlikelyever to be demolished in our lifetimes.

As they age, older high-rise towers will instead be given new leases of lifewith expensive renovations.

No building taller than 200 metres has ever legally been demolished anywhere in the world and property experts say most tall towers will continue to be preserved into the future.

The city is already home to 30 skyscrapers taller than 150 metres, more than in Sydney, Beijing or London. Another 40are proposed or under construction, including the 100-storey Australia 108 (pictured below).

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"If there is nothing structurally wrong I would expect [these buildings] would last decades and decades up to 100 years," head of research for property adviser Savills Australia, Tony Crabb said.

Towers looking a bit tired after about 40 years are generally given facelifts, he said. Entirelift and airconditioning systems often need to be pulled out and replaced at a cost to the building's body corporate, which, he added, should already be putting aside money for the task.

Victoria's former state government architect, John Denton, warned that Melbourne was creating "a new problem for the future" in new poor-quality apartment buildings, which he said could need major repairs within a few decades.

Co-founder of architectural firm Denton Corker Marshall, he said that while it was technically possible to demolish high-rise apartment towers,it would be difficult to organise with each apartment on 50 or 60 levels owned by a different person.

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Melbourne's new wave of skyscrapers could survive '100 years'

The developers of the new Water Street apartment community in downtown Dayton will begin construction this week on the $30 million project.

A groundbreaking ceremony with Mayor Nan Whaley and local business leaders and residents will be held on Thursday at the site of the planned complex near the banks of the Great Miami River.

The residential component of the Water Street District will feature 215 luxury rental apartments, a mixture of two-story townhomes and 1-2 bedroom flats.

The apartment community will feature river views, a swimming pool, outdoor gathering areas, a business center and fitness center membership. The first units will be complete and available for occupancy in late August, according to a release from the city.

The Water Street District residential community is the first new large-scale rental housing development constructed in downtown Dayton since the early 2000s.

Water Street is being developed by Columbus-based Crawford Hoying Development Partners and Dayton-based Woodard Real Estate Resources. The project will contribute amenities to the heart of the city including a fitness center, a bank branch and restaurants.

The $45 million Water Street District includes four elements:

A 50,000-square-foot commercial building fronting Patterson Boulevard. PNC Bank is the anchor tenant of the building.

215 luxury rental apartments.

A three-level public parking garage serving the Webster Station community.

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Developer to begin construction on downtown Dayton apartment community

ALBANY An aging foundation, heaving frozen ground and neighboring construction all likely combined to undermine a Sheridan Avenue building razed Friday as it threatened to collapse, a city official said Monday.

"There was the frost, the age of the foundation that had some kind of deterioration to it, and you have to add the factor of the exposure that it had from the new construction," Chief Building Inspector Carlo Figliomeni said.

That determination was made after the two-story building at 211 Sheridan Ave. was visually inspected by city codes officials and outside engineer Russ Reeves, who the city often calls in to assess buildings it fears are near collapse.

That was the case Friday when the east wall of 211 Sheridan began to bow toward the excavation site of multi-unit apartment building soon to rise as part of Capital District Habitat for Humanity's rebuilding of much of the Sheridan Hollow neighborhood.

The building on the northwest corner of Dove Street and Sheridan Avenue is being built by Syracuse-based nonprofit Housing Visions and will eventually house Habitat's regional headquarters, as well as those of the Albany County Land Bank.

The stress of the construction, "definitely added to it," Figliomeni said, "but it wasn't the primary cause. The building was old and these things happen."

Figliomeni said it appeared as though masonry block had been added to support the existing brick-and-mortar foundation.

Engineers were unable to more closely examine the failing wall because the foundation appeared to be shifting so quickly that it was not safe to do so, Figliomeni said.

"The frost heaved and shifted, and once that foundation starts going, it's going to deteriorate," he said.

Two people were left homeless by the demolition. They are currently being put up in a hotel.

Continue reading here:
Albany building felled by age, frost, construction, inspector says

The state's healthy economy and steady population growth have combined with a national downturn in home ownership and shifts in preferences for mobility and urban living as a vast cohort of younger adults known as millennials form their own households. Up against rising prices on single-family houses, tighter lending rules and lagging incomes, many are opting to rent instead of buy, at least in the short term.

After a decade of adding an average of 1,223 new apartments annually, the greater Salt Lake City area could see up to eight times that many units come online in the next three years, according to EquiMark, which tracks the industry in Utah.

Nearly 4,839 apartments are under construction in Salt Lake County alone and work will start on an additional 6,484 units in the next 18 months. Together, those new dwellings amount to about 10 percent of Salt Lake County's existing inventory of 120,389 multifamily rental units.

Another 9,944 apartments are either planned or under construction across Davis, Utah and Weber counties, EquiMark said. Researchers documented 122 apartment projects being built or proposed across the four-county area, each with scores to hundreds of units apiece.

"We've never seen so much new construction in Salt Lake," said Sage Sawyer, a principal at EquiMark. The last boom even comparable was 30 years ago, he said, when apartment building accelerated as the U.S. came out of a global economic recession in the early 1980s.

In Salt Lake County, the new construction is focused in Salt Lake City's downtown, cities in the south end of the valley and along light-rail lines. Utah County's new projects, though centered on Provo and Orem, reach from American Fork to Payson.

In Weber County, apartments are mostly going up in Ogden and Pleasant View. Davis County has new projects in Layton, North Salt Lake, Centerville and Farmington.

Demand goes beyond millennials. At least eight new apartment complexes along the Wasatch Front will cater to seniors, with about 1,124 dwellings between them.

With the pace and breadth of new rental construction, EquiMark and others are warning that markets could be nearing a saturation point, where the number of new units starts to exceed would-be renters, creating downward pressure on rents. That said, even seasoned commercial analysts of Utah's apartment sector have seen recent predictions that the market would top out proved wrong.

"Some of these upscale, urban developments in Sugar House and downtown are getting two dollars per square foot in rent," said Pete Williams, a longtime expert in investment sales and development with Coldwell Banker Commercial. "I never thought I'd see that in my lifetime."

Original post:
Utah apartment boom making history - and money

When Sherry and Larry Howard want to get away for the weekend, they merely have to step out the back door, walk around the pool and climb some stairs. With the help of their son - a building design and construction specialist - the Deer Park couple has remade a dumpy garage apartment into a charming, cozy retreat in their own backyard.

The space, roughly 500 to 600 square feet, is simple but stylish. On one wall hangs an old sign that says "Howard's Hideaway" - the very sign that hung in a cabin Larry's grandparents owned on Matagorda Beach, one they had to rebuild after Hurricane Carla destroyed it in 1961. This backyard haven isn't even close to the beach, but among family and friends, it, too, has become known as the Hideaway.

The Howards moved into their three-bedroom main house in 1995, when their two sons were still living with them. Back then, the apartment had blue carpet, striped wallpaper and one long, narrow living space.

"It was kind of an ugly room," Larry admits. And it had just a half-bath and no kitchen, "so it could never function as a true apartment."

Even so, their older son talked his parents into letting him claim it as his own. "He moved up here his last year of high school, and he stayed here until he finished his Ph.D. at the University of Houston," Sherry says, adding that when Larry Landon Howard left in 2007, "it was really kind of empty."

The Howards decided to gut the place in 2009. They wanted to do something with it, but they weren't sure what. Initially they talked about a game room, but then Sherry started discussing possibilities with their younger son, Spencer, who owns the Houston company Design & Construction Management. The plans became more ambitious, and they decided to transform the space into a clean, bright, livable apartment.

Spencer delivered the architectural drawings on Mother's Day in 2012. Then he, his father and one of their craftsman friends did every bit of the work to make it happen. They installed whitewashed poplar panels horizontally along one wall. Overhead, poplar beams provide structural support and serve to break up the studio space visually, gently dividing it into areas for eating, lounging and sleeping. Near the front door, antique stained-glass window lets in light through blue and green panels.

"The sunbeams that come in, in the morning - it's just a gorgeous window," Sherry says. "Even in the evenings, the glow from the moon - we'll see it reflecting in here all night long."

To decorate, the Howards started with furniture pieces they had already. An antique Duncan Phyfe table and reupholstered chairs fill the tiny dining space. The headboard of the bed, meanwhile, is made from the Jenny Lind crib the couple's sons used as babies.

While the apartment morphed into the Hideaway, they also decided to remodel the adjacent pool, making it more lagoon-like with dark surfaces and a rocky waterfall. The couple now has the perfect spot to host family and friends on the weekends.

View original post here:
Deer Park couple turned their garage apartment into a weekend hideaway

Monday March 16, 2015 6:42 PM UPDATED: Monday March 16, 2015 6:49 PM

Though spring has not yet arrived, everywhere you go, it seems you'll see construction - especially apartments. One expert says it's in response to changing lifestyles, a change that may create a new problem.

A giant crane cuts a huge arc across the sky above Grandview. Men are busy building below it. The new apartments are rising skyward.

The greater Columbus building boom began as the recession ended in 2012.

"I think it's good," commented local resident Harry Harbin. "There's a lot of people moving to Columbus."

Three years and 5,000 apartments later, the construction shows no sign of letting up.

"It's actually accelerating," said Rob Vogt, a partner in Vogt Santer Insights, a company that specializes in real estate feasibility studies. "We see close to 5,000-6,000 units right now in the pipeline. That will probably have a huge impact on the Central Ohio housing market in the coming couple of years."

Vogt said much of the thirst for new rental housing is driven by the millennial generation. He said many twenty-something residents have too much college debt to qualify for a home loan. Others currently have no interest in home ownership.

"These are folks who aren't getting married, they're not getting into relationships, they're staying single longer," he explained.

He said they also love the idea of walking to work, restaurants, and entertainment.

Original post:
Apartment Booms Continue In Columbus, Should Homeowners Be Worried?