Work started this week on The Hadley, a luxury apartment project on the site that used to be occupied by True Value Hardware and The Islander Restaurant. The average size of the 219 units is 729 square feet.

image credit: Contributed Rendering

Island-owned Legacy Partners Residential, Inc., in a joint venture with The Resmark Companies Resmark Apartment Living division, announced the start of construction of The Hadley Apartments, a new apartment building community located within Mercer Islands Town Center.

The project is located on the corner of S.E. 27th Street and 76th Avenue S.E. The Hadley will be the only significant apartment project to start construction on Mercer Island in either 2014 or 2015, the developer said.

The Hadley will feature four stories of wood frame construction over a two-story concrete podium. The project includes 209 luxury open one and two-bedroom apartments, averaging 729 square feet. Some units will feature dramatic views of the Cascade Mountains, nearby Lake Washington and the downtown Bellevue cityscape.

Underground parking for 244 cars will be provided in addition to four commercial spaces totaling 9,200 square feet at ground level.

Working with the city, the developer agreed to set aside 13 units that will be affordable to residents making 70 percent of King County area median income. For example, a single person making $40,140 would qualify under this program for an affordable unit. Rents for these units range from $1,081 for a studio to $1,389 for a two-bedroom. Fifty-six parking spaces were set aside for walk off parking which would allow drivers to park their car for a time while they shop or run errands at nearby businesses.

The site sat vacant and fenced for the past year after The Islander Restaurant and True Value Hardware moved into new locations within the Town Center.

But plans for the project have been underway for four years or more.

According to the King County Assessors office, the former Hudesman property, a 32,000-square-foot parcel, sold on Nov. 8, 2011 for $8 million, about 10 percent over its assessed value.

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Construction begins on Legacy apartment project

A five-year effort to build a hotel, apartment building and parking deck on the North Side got a boost Monday from a $3 million state grant.

The $20 million development at East Ohio Street and Madison Avenue also will convert the former site of the Arc House alcohol treatment facility into a restaurant and banquet hall. The adjacent hotel would be a 120-room Comfort Inn. The apartment would have 36 units and the parking deck 300 spaces .

Construction could begin by spring or summer of 2015 and finish by summer 2016, said John Elash III, co-owner of October Development.

A second phase could include a second apartment building with from 36 to 48 units, and a row of single-family townhomes, Elash said.

The Northside Community Development Fund is helping finance the project. The two-acre site has been vacant since the Arc House closed about eight years ago.

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Hotel, apartments planned for North Side

Twenty one cranes loom over the south bank of the River Thames from Battersea Power Station to the St. George Wharf tower. Here, in the biggest concentration of residential projects in London, developers are steaming ahead just as prices are starting to fall.

Homebuilding in central London doubled in two years as record-low interest rates and demand from overseas buyers drove up values at a pace not seen since 1987. Developers such as Chinas Dalian Wanda Group and U.K.-based Berkeley Group Holdings Plc were drawn to the Nine Elms district, where Malaysias Sime Darby Bhd. (SIME) is redeveloping the Battersea station as part of a plan to turn the neighborhood into a prime address.

As the apartment towers rise, the price increases that underpinned the construction boom have come to a halt. London home values fell month-on-month for the first time in two years in September, according to Hometrack, and developers such as Killian Hurley, chief executive officer of London-based Mount Anvil Group Ltd., dont see a return to red-hot growth soon.

Over the summer months, the champagne fizz went out of the market, said Hurley, whose company plans to develop London homes worth 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) by 2018. The madness has gone out of it, so its a lot more sustainable. People are becoming more discerning.

Expectations for home price growth in the capital are falling at the fastest pace since before the financial crisis, a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed. Values rose in 1 percent of London postcodes in September, compared with 87 percent in February, Hometrack said Sept. 26. Further modest declines are likely, the research firm said.

Though prices climbed for most of this year, the pillars supporting the London market -- a cheap pound, record-low interest rates and the citys reputation as a haven for foreign buyers -- have been eroding for months.

U.K. financial officials damped domestic demand for homes by tightening affordability checks and restricting the number of high loan-to-income mortgages. Speculation about when the Bank of England will raise the benchmark interest rate from a record low of 0.5 percent is also causing uncertainty in the market. BOE policymakers, meeting this week, have been split over whether to keep the rate at that level.

Overseas buyers have seen prices rise because of a strengthening pound, as well as new levies such as a capital-gains tax on homes sold by people living abroad. Theyre also wary of the opposition Labour Partys plan to raise 1.2 billion pounds from a mansion tax if it gets into power after next years national election.

The Bloomberg U.K. Homebuilders Index is little changed this year, compared with a 37 percent gain in the same 10 months of 2013. Berkeley, which focuses on London and southeast England, was the worst performer in the 10-stock index, with a 15.7 percent decline. Sime Darby fell 4.6 percent this year in Kuala Lumpur, where its based.

Other homebuilders with projects in London include Taylor Wimpey Plc, which gained 3.7 percent this year. Barratt Developments Plc, the U.K.s second-largest homebuilder by market value, leads the homebuilders index with a 14 percent increase in 2014.

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Champagne Fizz Goes Flat for London Homes: Real Estate

Kim Stephens

Detective Senior Sergeant Armitt briefs the media.

Police reportedly discovered a woman's dismembered body parts boiling in chemicals when they were called to a Queensland apartment on Saturday night.

A murder-suicide is believed to be behind the woman's grisly death, as well as that of a man whose body was found in a wheelie bin in nearby Dath Street, in the Brisbane suburb of Teneriffe.

Detectives were yet to confirm details revealed in a Channel Nine news report on Sunday night that alleged the woman's severed body parts were found in garbage bags and boiling in chemicals at the recently-constructed Commercial Road apartment complex.

Kim Stephens

Police at the murder scene.

Police made the grim discovery when they responded to requests for a welfare check about 9pm on Saturday.

A man who lived in the apartment with the woman fled the scene when they arrived.

Officers gave chase but discovered his bloodied body in a wheelie bin in a laneway beside the apartment complex a short time later.

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Brisbane boiled body parts horror

Once declared the worlds tallest reinforced concrete building, the century-old Arcade is under rehab as downtown St. Louis largest apartment development in decades.

When reopened late next year, the Arcade Building will have 282 apartments, plus classrooms, offices, a street-level art gallery and an auditorium for Webster University, which is expanding its downtown campus.

The $118 million project represents a turnaround for the historic building, which had been vacant for years and targeted for demolition by some previous owners whose redevelopment plans fizzled. At a groundbreaking event Tuesday, Mayor Francis Slay and other officials said they hope the Arcades revival will lead to more downtown redevelopment.

Dominium Development, of Minneapolis, bought the building in August from the citys Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority for about $9.5 million. Almost immediately, heavy work began to renovate and restore the 500,000-square-foot building at Eighth and Olive streets.

The Arcade is really two buildings the 18-story Wright completed in 1906 and the Arcade, built around the Wright more than a decade later then joined to the older structure. Combined as the Arcade, the complex is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Architect Paul Hohmann, whose ebersoldt + associates architecture has a piece of the rehab project, noted that the Arcade was designed during World War I, when much of the nations steel production was diverted to military use.

As a result, engineers and architect Tom P. Barnett turned to reinforced concrete. Contemporary press accounts said the 16-story Arcade was the worlds tallest for such structures.

After years of neglect, the Arcades interior is a mess, but the reinforced concrete frame remains solid, Hohmann said.

Structurally, its very sound, he added.

Dominiums plan calls for 202 affordable artist lofts and 80 market-rate apartments. Marble hallways and other original flourishes will be refurbished. Surviving shop windows on the eight floors of former retail space will be retained.

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Arcade Building's rehab going full speed

A man's body covered with a blanket in Dath St, Teneriffe. Photo: Supplied

Police reportedly discovered a woman's dismembered body parts boiling in chemicals when they were called to a Teneriffe apartment on Saturday night.

A murder-suicide is believed to be behind the woman's grisly death, as well as that of a man whose body was found in a wheelie bin in nearby Dath Street.

Detectives are yet to confirm details revealed in a Channel Nine news report on Sunday night that alleged the woman's severed body parts were found in garbage bags and boiling in chemicals at the recently-constructed Commercial Road apartment complex.

Police made the grim discovery when they responded to requests for a welfare check about 9pm on Saturday.

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A man who lived in the apartment with the woman fled the scene when they arrived.

Officers gave chase but discovered his bloodied body in a wheelie bin in a laneway beside the apartment complex a short time later.

Police say he took his own life.

Detective Senior Sergeant Tom Armitt, officer-in-charge of the Fortitude Valley Criminal Investigation Bureau, told reporters on Sunday he could not say how long the woman had been dead.

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Body parts boiled in Teneriffe horror

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Construction of apartment buildings - Timbeco Woodhouse

Higher rents in the Chicago area and a boom in apartment-building construction didnt dent occupancy rates during the third quarter.

The average monthly rent, after move-in specials, for an apartment in the Chicago area during the three months ended in September was $1,110, up 1 percent from the second quarter, according to Reis Inc., a real estate research firm. Year over year, local rents rose 3.7 percent

The quarterly vacancy rate of 3.5 percent was unchanged from the previous quarter that ended in June and relatively flat from a year ago.

Nationally, the vacancy rate rose for the first time in 4 years, to 4.2 percent, up 0.1 percent, and largely caused by the jump in construction.

During the quarter, some 46,055 units were delivered to markets across the country, the second-highest quarterly number since 2002s fourth quarter. Year-to-date, more than 113,000 units have been constructed.

New construction continues to increase over time and will likely reach a post-recession high this year, Ryan Severino, Reis senior economist, wrote in the report. Meanwhile, demand has clearly declined from levels observed during 2010 and 2011. This type of slowing is expected, but demand should remain robust.

Despite the uptick in Chicago-area rents, the local market remains a bargain compared with many cities. For instance, average monthly rents were $3,185 in New York, $2,173 in San Francisco, $1,870 in Boston and $1,484 in Los Angeles.

Looking for something a little less expensive? Head to Oklahoma City or Wichita, Kan., where average third-quarter rents were $588 and $543, respectively.

mepodmolik@tribune.com Twitter @mepodmolik

Originally posted here:
Chicago-area rents rise while occupancy stays steady

The U.S. apartment-vacancy rate rose for the first time in almost five years, a sign that supply is starting to catch up to rental demand after a boom in multifamily construction.

The vacancy rate rose to 4.2 percent in the third quarter from 4.1 percent the previous three months, the first increase since the end of 2009, Reis Inc. said in a report. Net leasing gains of 37,233 units lagged behind the 46,055 new units completed, the New York-based real estate research firm said.

The completions were the second-most since 2002 as developers build more rentals to capitalize on demand sparked by the foreclosure crisis and younger Americans moving out on their own. The increase in vacancies from the lowest level in more than a decade is an inflection point in the apartment market, said Ryan Severino, senior economist at Reis.

We have passed peak occupancy and with the new construction coming on, occupancy is likely to decline going forward, he said.

Apartment developers are poised to finish building the most units this year since 1999, when the economy was booming, Severino said. With construction outpacing the net total of units likely to be leased over the next four years, we expect the national vacancy rate to slowly drift upward, he said.

So far this year, 113,024 apartment units have been built in the U.S., exceeding the 85,438 units completed through nine months of 2013, according to Reis.

Thirteen of the 79 largest U.S. markets had a vacancy rate of less than 3 percent in the third quarter, down from 16 in the prior three months, Reis data show. The national vacancy rate is still below where it was a year ago, at 4.3 percent.

Rents rose, partly because new units charge higher-than-average prices, Reis said. Effective rents, or what tenants pay after any landlord price breaks such as a free month, climbed 3.4 percent from a year earlier to an average $1,111 per month, and were little changed from $1,100 in the second quarter, according to Reis. Rents are at record highs on a nominal basis, according to the researcher.

The national apartment-vacancy rate is likely to remain at less than 5 percent through 2018 as demand continues from younger adults and lackluster income growth prevents landlords from raising rents more, Severino said.

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U.S. apartment-vacancy rate rises for first time in five years

Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - As flames spread through a Manlius apartment building in August, firefighters surrounding Carriage House East were cautioned to watch out for a potential roof collapse.

"Unfortunately with trusses, they are safe for construction, but they are unsafe under heat and fire. They deteriorate very rapidly and that causes collapse," explained Ken Pienkowski of the Firemens Association of the State of New York (FASNY).

Pienkowski sayscommanderswho knowwhat type of construction they're dealing with can alert crews to attack the fire from the exterior of the building, avoiding a potentially deadly scenario.

Put to the test in a lab by the Fire Science program at Dutchess Community College, trusses presented a serious dilemma. Instructor Dave Walsh says trusses are common in construction because they are lightweight, easy to install, affordable, and they can span long distances without support columns in the middle.

But, the Metal gusset plates that hold the frame together expand with heat. When one pops out of the place, it creates a domino effect.

"It stays very stable right up until the split second when it turns around and collapses. So it collapses without warning. There is no indicator, so it puts firefighters at big risk because they have no warning signs that something bad is about to happen," Walsh explained.

Once there is a collapse, there may be entrapment, increasing the risk of death for firefighters. FASNY pushed for better notification about construction methods. State lawmakers agreed. Governor Cuomo signed legislation in August.

Effective January 1, 2015, when truss type, pre-engineered wood or timber construction is used in new construction or renovations it must be indicated on a building permit application. Then, local governments need to inform first-responders.

Also, asign or symbolmust beattached to theexterior electrical box as a common, go-to source of informationfor responding crews.

For small departments with limited technology, Walsh worries that maintaining and accessing that information quickly may be a challenge. But, he calls the legislation a step in the right direction.

Read more from the original source:
New rules for home builders alert firefighters about risks