City signs off on the sale of Burlington Telecom City signs off on the sale of Burlington Telecom

Updated: Tuesday, November 18 2014 12:44 AM EST2014-11-18 05:44:04 GMT

It's a done deal after years of financial woes Burlington Telecom has a new owner.

It's a done deal after years of financial woes Burlington Telecom has a new owner.

Updated: Tuesday, November 18 2014 12:35 AM EST2014-11-18 05:35:12 GMT

Burlington city councilors considered a plan Monday night to divest city funds from fossil fuel giants

Burlington city councilors considered a plan Monday night to divest city funds from fossil fuel giants

Updated: Tuesday, November 18 2014 12:45 AM EST2014-11-18 05:45:28 GMT

Two teens were arrested Monday afternoon accused of making threats to staff and fellow students at the Laraway School in Johnson.

Two teens were arrested Monday afternoon accused of making threats to staff and fellow students at the Laraway School in Johnson.

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Everything animals: acupuncture for small animals

City planners Tuesday will review details of a proposed $14 million boutique hotel Downtown and an 89-unit, $10.5 million apartment building in East Liberty.

Greenway Realty Holdings of New Jersey would build the hotel in an 11-story building at 424 Third Ave. that housed the Salvation Army. Greenway bought the building in March for $2.16 million. Its Distrikt Hotel would be the second of its kind; the first is in New York City.

Crews would renovate the interior and exterior of the 1920s building, removing all but historical features and upgrading the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. An addition is proposed, as is off-site parking for 68 vehicles.

Greenway wants to start construction in January and has a target opening date of April 2016.

In East Liberty, Walnut Capital Partners want to continue its apartment construction by building the Penn Highland Building, a six-story structure at the corner of Highland and Penn avenues.

Its nearby 117-unit Walnut on Highland apartments in the former Highland Building is fully leased, with a waiting list.

The structure would have five floors of apartments above first-floor retailers.

The proposal includes turning Antler Way, an alley that separates the two buildings, into a courtyard enclosed by a fence.

Sam Spatter is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7843 or sspatter@tribweb.com.

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Downtown hotel, East Liberty apartments on city planners agenda

MARKO GEORGIEV/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Demand for rental units near transportation has already prompted some towns, including Ridgewood, above, to alter their downtowns.

Robert Weiner, co-owner of the Bruce the Bed King mattress and furniture store on Hackensacks Main Street, last week took his 96-year-old father to see a first in the 60 years since his family opened its store a 222-unit apartment building rising on State Street, a block from downtown.

That project and two others that will put an additional 700 apartments on Main Street are the result of zoning revisions that Hackensack put in place two years ago and the first signs of a policy shift that could produce the biggest transformation of North Jerseys downtowns since the arrival of the malls pulled shoppers away from town centers in the 1960s and 1970s.

A growing number of North Jersey municipalities, like Hackensack, believe that adding rental apartments in their downtowns is the key to revitalizing their Main Streets. Not everyone, though, is convinced that downtowns and residential apartments are a perfect fit.

North Jersey, and particularly Bergen County, was an example of suburban prosperity in the latter part of the 20th century, typified by single-family homes and shopping centers along highways. But now North Jerseys suburbs are responding to a 21st-century sensibility of millennials those between the ages of 18 and 33 who want to live in urban environments such as Hoboken or Brooklyn, as well as aging suburbanites who want to downsize without leaving their hometowns.

michael karas/staff photographer

Englewood, a city of 27,000, has already added one apartment building to its downtown, and last week its City Council adopted sweeping zoning changes designed to encourage residential development downtown.

Demand for rental apartments, especially near train stations, is driving the change. People want to live in places where they have that downtown, where they can live close to things that theyre going to eat and things that theyre going to buy, and the market is following, said Maggie Peters, director of the Bergen County Economic Development Corp. Developers, she said, have known this already and now municipalities are starting to react.

Thats reflected in requests for multifamily unit construction. In Bergen County, permits for multifamily units have outpaced single- and two-family permits every year since 2009, according to the states Department of Community Affairs.

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Bergen County's suburbs embrace a touch of the city

VOL. 7 | NO. 47 | Saturday, November 15, 2014

Expedient Data Centers, a leading provider of cloud computing and other related services, is expanding into the Memphis market.

The company is getting its latest state-of-the-art data center ready to open by July 1 at 3180 Players Lane, close to the TPC Southwind Golf Course and FedEx headquarters. That will be Expedients first data center in Tennessee and the 11th facility Expedient operates across seven markets.

Expedient serves a mix of local and national companies who decide to host critical business computing systems and related applications in secure, purpose-built redundant facilities. Once the Memphis facility is up and running it will include about 7,500 square feet of raised flood computing space with a total of 35,000 square feet available in the building.

Indianapolis-based developer Milhaus Ventures has applied for another building permit for the long-awaited Highland Row project near the University of Memphis.

The company has applied for a $6.75 million building permit through the city-county Office of Construction Code Enforcement for construction of a four-story apartment building at 387 S. Highland St., the first piece in the $61 million Highland Row project. In October, Milhous applied for a $20 million permit for the project.

The mixed-use Highland Row development will include 354 apartments, 35 townhomes, a parking garage and 26,000 square feet of retail space. Memphis-based Poag Shopping Centers originally planned to develop Highland Row, but those plans were shelved following the recession.

In an email to potential supporters this week, Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. says his re-election plans are definite and he is "running to win."

The email comes after Wharton's campaign sent out invitations late last month to a Nov. 17 fundraiser at the Memphis Botanic Garden.

Wharton has said several times in the last year that he would seek a second full four-year term of office. He has also faced an increasingly critical City Council in that time as well as some less public criticism in some quarters of the city's business community.

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Milhaus Seeks Building Permit for Highland Row

PARIS - France called on Israel to "immediately" reverse a decision to approve the building of 200 new homes in settlements in East Jerusalem, a move it said directly threatened a two-state peace solution.

"The decision by the Israeli authorities approving the construction of 200 new homes in the Ramot settlement again directly threatens a two-state solution," French Foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said.

"We call Israel to immediately go back on this decision at a time when everything should be done to stop the escalation (in violence) and relaunch the peace process," Nadal said in an unusually strong statement.

The new housing is slated for a sprawling hillside complex of apartment buildings and private homes at the northern edge of Jerusalem, on land Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed to the city in a move never recognised internationally. Palestinians want this territory as part of a future state.

French lawmakers are set to hold symbolic parliamentary votes over the next month on whether the government should recognise Palestine as a state, a move likely to anger the Jewish state.

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France urges immediate reversal of Israel settlement decision

Paris France called on Israel to "immediately" reverse a decision to approve the building of 200 new homes in settlements in East Jerusalem, a move it said directly threatened a two-state peace solution.

"The decision by the Israeli authorities approving the construction of 200 new homes in the Ramot settlement again directly threatens a two-state solution," French Foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said.

"We call Israel to immediately go back on this decision at a time when everything should be done to stop the escalation (in violence) and relaunch the peace process," Nadal said in an unusually strong statement.

The new housing is slated for a sprawling hillside complex of apartment buildings and private homes at the northern edge of Jerusalem, on land Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed to the city in a move never recognized internationally. Palestinians want this territory as part of a future state.

French lawmakers are set to hold symbolic parliamentary votes over the next month on whether the government should recognize Palestine as a state, a move likely to anger the Jewish state.

(Editing by Mark John)

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France: New Israeli settlements must be called off 'immediately'

WATERLOO | Residential construction was a bright spot in a relatively gloomy start to the construction year in Waterloo, while Cedar Falls saw a similar spike in residential activity for the beginning of the fiscal year.

Building reports for the first quarter of the fiscal year July, August and September show Waterloo nearly doubled its output of housing starts from the first quarter of 2013.

But a lack of large commercial and retail projects left the overall value of new and remodeling construction at just $18.8 million, behind the $21 million pace set during the same period last year.

"We are seeing good numbers of new housing permits in many sectors of the community, and many housing types," said Community Planning and Development Director Noel Anderson. "There is also a good amount of housing on the horizon."

The overall value of new and remodeling construction for the quarter in Cedar Falls is healthier in comparison at $28.8 million, up from $21.3 million at the same time last year.

"We had a good, strong first quarter, theres no question about that," Cedar Falls Building Inspector Craig Witry said.

Waterloo Building Inspections wrote permits for 29 new single-family homes through the first quarter, which outpaced the 14 houses and a duplex underway at the same time last year.

Housing projects in Waterloo include six town homes former Mayor John Rooff is building in a city parking lot at East Third and Lafayette streets, near Queen of Peace Church; six homes on Red Tail Drive in Audubon Park's sixth addition; six homes in Crossroads Estates, south of the Crossroads Hy-Vee store; and three in Summerland Park off Dysart Road.

With lots in those existing developments filling up, Anderson noted the city is seeing new subdivisions being created.

In Cedar Falls, Building Inspections issued 34 new single-family home permits from July to September, a slight uptick from the 29 single-family residential permits issued last year. Commercial growth is slower, with only three commercial permits issued this for the quarter.

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Home starts fuel Waterloo, Cedar Falls construction activity

The world's tallest timber residential tower, 10 stories, in currently in Melbourne, Australia, though a 14-story Norwegian project may top it in 2015. Courtesy of Lend Lease hide caption

The world's tallest timber residential tower, 10 stories, in currently in Melbourne, Australia, though a 14-story Norwegian project may top it in 2015.

In a head-spinning step, a handful of researchers from Cambridge, England, are experimenting with one of man's oldest building materials the kind from trees instead of steel as the primary structure for big buildings. And they're aiming really, really high.

Already, there is one timber apartment building with nine stories in London, a 10-story structure in Melbourne and a 14-story building in Norway. But all that is dwarfed by talk of a wooden building that someday could reach 70 stories into the sky. That's just seven fewer floors than the Chrysler Building in New York City.

Architectural engineers behind the idea, which has recently been gaining momentum, say they are looking for cheaper and more environmentally friendly materials to use than steel and concrete, the materials that have dominated tall buildings since the early part of the 20th century. But relying on timber takes some doing; for it to succeed, it will require not just great architectural skills but the expertise of biochemists.

It doesn't take a degree in architecture, of course, to know that wood has long been considered too weak for high rises not to mention a towering inferno just waiting to ignite. Indeed, builders have been far more likely to opt for steel for both medium- and large-scale structures.

Yet environmentalists long have argued that the construction world urgently needs to become greener. For years, the creation of homes, offices and skyscrapers has been one of the biggest contributors to climate change. All told, these activities lead to nearly half of the U.S. global CO2 emissions. By 2050, the U.N. estimates that nearly 80 percent of the world will live in urban areas, adding up to a lot of planet-damning construction unless something changes and soon.

Scientists are making inroads by studying certain building materials, including wood and concrete, at the molecular level.

To Go Big, Starting Small

Cambridge University has set its sights set on creating that 70-story skyscraper made out of timber. For now, it's in the design stage, but by better understanding the molecular and cellular structure of wood, professor Michael Ramage and his team from the university's department of architecture say they are certain they can strengthen the materials of a wooden building at the weakest points where the giant timber slabs connect at walls and floors.

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For Greener Skyscrapers, Basic Building Materials Are Being Reinvented

NORRISTOWN >> Council voted Nov. 5 to ask Montgomery County officials to support a 10-year tax abatement for a proposed $25 million apartment building.

The council action also sought a collaborative meeting to enjoin the developer, Westrum Development Co., to employ local workers and members of a Norristown laborers union. Council and the Norristown Area school board have already approved the LERTA tax abatement. Montgomery County `is the third, and last, taxing authority to act on the tax abatement.

Daniel Woodall Jr., the business manager for Laborers International Union of North America, Local 135, said the 10-year tax abatement for the proposed apartment building at 900 Sandy St. should be overturned. The union represents 800 workers including 200 Norristown residents, he said.

Mr. [John] Westrum does not work very well with our laborers union, said Woodall. I would like council to reconsider the tax abatement and rescind it.

Bernard Griggs, a representative of the building trades council, said, Westrum has no intention of working with local labor. We ask that you reconsider the tax abatement.

Tyrone Baker, an IBEW union member, said, If he is granted 10-year use of a tax abatement. He is not even a resident of Norristown. I pray you reconsider that vote.

Resident Jacqueline Jones said, I think if I have to pay taxes everybody else should pay taxes.

Council member Marlon Millner said, I would like us to send a letter to the board of commissioners supporting this project and asking them to broker a meeting with the construction trades over the tax abatement issue.

Municipal Administrator Crandall Jones said the tax abatement was not on the current tax on the undeveloped land. The tax abatement on the new $25 million apartment building would begin after one year and amount to a 100 percent abatement in the first year, diminishing over 10 years, to a 10 percent abatement.

Jones said the abatement would total $2.1 million for Norristown, the Norristown Area School District and Montgomery County. Continued...

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Norristown council supports tax abatement plan

BERWYN A planned cellular phone antenna added atop a Harlem Avenue apartment building in Berwyn is expected to increase service and minimize complaints of dropped calls by T-Mobile cellular customers.

The City Council accepted the recommendation of the Zoning Board of Appeals to approve a request by T-Mobile to install an antenna on the roof of a building at 3201 S. Harlem Avenue.

The installation required a conditional use designation in a C-4 Restricted Commercial District by the board.

T-Mobile representative Mike Howley appeared before the ZBA last month and explained the need for additional wireless coverage in response to customer complaints over dropped calls,.

Howley said T-Mobile is trying to avoid the construction of a new antenna tower by installing smaller antennas on existing structures.

T-Mobile engineers determined the Harlem Avenue site to be more suitable than other sites examined in the area.

The antenna will not exceed the height of the buildings existing chimney and will be painted to match the chimneys color, Howley said.

Engineers said the antenna will produce a humming sound, but the noise will be muffled as a result of the height of the antenna.

T-Mobile will still need to secure construction permits with the village before construction begins. A date has not yet been scheduled.

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Berwyn approves T-Mobile antenna on Harlem Avenue