File photograph of pedestrians passing the boarded up 74 Grand Street in SoHo that John Dunne is seeking to develop. Photograph: Michael Nagle

The son and wife of bankrupt developer Sean Dunne have altered plans for a proposed development in New York, forcing their company to seek renewed permission from the Landmarks Preservation Commission that oversees building work in the citys historic areas.

TJD 21, the company owned by Mr Dunnes wife Gayle Killilea Dunne and his son John Dunne, submitted revised plans for the proposed development at 74 Grand Street in the fashionable Soho area in Manhattan last month.

The plans involve moving the entrance, stairwell and lift in the five-storey apartment development to the other side of the building.

The internal changes require approval from the commission, because the building is in Sohos protected historic area, before the citys planners can grant the green light, paving the way for construction to begin.

John Dunne included a letter in revised plans filed by his companys planners and engineers last month.

They said that the change was due to the stability of foundation walls on the next-door building.

Sean Dunne, who filed for bankruptcy in the US last year with debts of $942 million (700 million), has said he is working as a paid adviser for the firm owned by Ms Killilea Dunne and her stepson.

The company has told New York planners that it expects to make a profit of $3 million on the $22 million development, selling the four apartments in the building for between $3.3 million and $7.7 million.

The project is the Dunnes largest development in the US since Mr Dunne and his wife moved there in 2010.

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Dunnes change plans for New York apartment building

CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) - The mother of four children who died in a Roseland apartment fire earlier this month and her boyfriend have filed separate lawsuits against the apartment building's owner and real estate management company.

Shamaya Coleman and her boyfriend, Nathaniel Johnson, separately filed negligence lawsuits Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court. Both suits name Tahir M. Sheikh, who owns the 18-unit building at 11240 South Vernon, and J&J Real Estate Management and Construction.

Coleman and Johnson were critically injured in the extra-alarm fire that broke out about 3:25 a.m. on Sept. 8, officials said. The fire began in a second-floor apartment.

Coleman and Johnson jumped from a third-floor apartment window and were taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in critical condition, police said. The rest of the building's residents evacuated safely, according to Assistant Deputy Fire Commissioner Michael Fox.

The fire killed Coleman's children Eri'ana Patton Smith, 7; Shamarian Coleman, 12; Carlvon Clark, 13; and Carliysia Clark, 15, authorities said. Autopsies found all four died of carbon monoxide toxicity from inhalation of smoke and soot, and their deaths were ruled accidents, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Both suits claim Sheikh and J&J were negligent in not having working smoke detectors throughout the building. Coleman's suit also claims the defendants did not properly secure the apartment where the fire began, and Johnson's states the building had no adequate escape route or emergency equipment.

Johnson's suit claims as a result of the defendants' negligence, he was forced to jump out of the third floor window, causing catastrophic injuries. Coleman's suit states she also sustained severe and serious injuries.

Both suits also name the city as a respondent in discovery, as it is believed by the plaintiff to have information essential to the determination of who should properly be named as additional defendants, Coleman's suit states.

City building records online show the building has failed several inspections in the last nine years, including its most recent on June 9. Missing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors were among the inspectors' many complaints at the time, the Sun-Times reported. They also complained about water damage, broken doors and furnaces that were either not working or improperly installed. In all, 17 violations were recorded, Mimi Simon, a building department spokeswoman, said at the time.

A representative of J&J Real Estate Management and Construction told the Sun-Times earlier this month that the firm was hired 45 days ago primarily to collect rent and serve eviction notices in the building and was not responsible for maintenance. Debra Jenkins, an agent for J&J, said all tenants at the property had working smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors as of Sept. 4.

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Building owner, manager named in two more suits after deadly Roseland fire

It's hard to miss Lansing's newest apartment building, thanks to the brightly colored exterior of the Midtown complex off Michigan Avenue.

"We said lets really stand out and do something bold," said property developed Patrick Gillespie, President of the Gillespie Group.

It's even harder not to notice all of the construction projects the Gillespie group is taking on around the city. From finished buildings to plans still on the drawing board, it's all part of a vision to revitalize the area.

"Michigan avenue has seen its ups and downs," Gillespie said. "I think the down times are done and we're starting to see this upswing."

With a focus on residential and mixed use properties, Midtown is just the latest building in Gillespie's growing portfolio. The developer also has two downtown apartments complexes in the works, Marketplace and the Outfield.

The added housing is meeting the demand of students and young professionals moving to the area. Forty-eight of Midtown's 66 apartments have already been rented, and half of those residents are international students.

"All three projects would mean over 300 new residents to the city of Lansing, which is a pretty big jump compared to what we've been seeing population wise," Gillespie added.

It's a vision Mayor Virg Berneo is on-board with, hoping to boost the area's economic development.

"Our goal is to create such a place, here such an urban environment that people want to stay and start a business here," Bernero said.

The Mayor says building up the Midtown area has been overlooked for decades, but as the main stretch connecting downtown Lansing and downtown East Lansing there's a lot of potential.

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New Apartment Development Helping To Revitalize Lansing

Visakhapatnam, September 16:

Apartment builders are here facing great difficulty in procuring sand for construction activity due to the State Governments indecision over the sand mining issue.

According to members of the Visakha Apartment Builders Association (VABA), construction work at a few hundred sites in the city has come to a standstill for the past one month or so.

President of VABA, P Anand Kumar, said that sand was an important ingredient in civil construction and due to the ban on mining, there had been no supply of sand.

Construction activity has stopped due to the shortage of sand, he said and added that the association members had met the District Collector N Yuvaraj and he had assured them that the issue will be addressed in the next few days.

Vice-President KS Krishna said: About one lakh workers are engaged in the apartment construction sector and they have been idle since the last one month. They are poor people who survive on daily wages and they are hit badly..

Based on a Supreme Court directive that sand mining cannot take place without the clearance from the environment board, the government has banned mining.

Environment clearance is good but there are sites such as Konam reservoir which has got an environment clearance. The government can allow mining at such places, said Krishna.

Another issue is the setting up of the Environment Clearance Board (ECB).

After bifurcation, the AP state has no ECB. The governments plan of allotting the mining rights to the DWCRA groups will take some time, but something has to be done on a war-footing to save the industry, said Anand.

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Sand scarcity brings building activity in Vizag to a halt

In an effort to address the housing crisis in Burlington, Redstone Development has started building new apartments.

The new housing will be located where the Dairy Queen used to be in the Queen City, just down the street from another Redstone Apartment building. Mayor Miro Weinberger and developers met Monday afternoon to break ground on the new building set to open next year.

Kathy Goguen used to own QTees a summer staple in Burlington that was around since the 1950s. She decided to close the shop in 2013.

I was seven and actually grew up here, Goguen said.

Mayor Weinberger joked about the ground breaking being dj vu. He had done the same thing just nine month ago when Redstone opened its Silversmith Commons location on Winooski Street. He said the new housing will be a big help for residents.

From my perspective, we have no larger social problem than the lack of housing in Burlington, Weinberger said.

Aside from the lack of housing, people choosing to live in Burlington are faced with a lack of affordable housing. The project in the Q Tees site is slated to have 28 units with four dedicated to affordable housing. Its another step in what the mayor calls an overall plan to open up the rental market in the Queen City.

We have people paying a really high percentage of their income for rent and part of the solution is having more units and more houses in the downtown and this project, by bringing in 28 more units is a step in the right direction, Weinberger said.

So, at an end of an era, Goguen said she is looking towards the future.

I came on the day of demolition and it was sort of like to say goodbye, Goguen said. I was starting a new life and the property was starting a new life also.

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New housing construction breaks ground

The Athens Board of Zoning Appeals voted unanimously last week to approve a single variance a developer had requested for student housing it plans to build near Ohio University's South Green.

Construction on the proposed $15 million, 232-bed apartment building, called "River Gate," is slated to start sometime this year, provided the developers receive approval through the Title 41 site plan review process with the Athens Planning Commission this Thursday.

The Board of Zoning Appeals granted the developer's request for lot coverage for the 2.59-acre property of 77.5 percent, whereas the normal limit in city zoning code is 60 percent. The term "lot coverage" refers to the "footprint" a building makes on is property site.

The proposed 3.5-story apartment building will replace the building that now contains the New Life Assembly of God church, located at 10 S. Green Drive.

The building would join the ranks of the nearby River Park and River's Edge student apartment complexes. Columbus-based student housing company Homestead U, LLC, is developer/owner of the three existing or proposed apartment complexes.

A firm that was started by the company specifically to buy the land, Delaware-based Athens River Gate, LCL, bought the two lots occupied by New Life Assembly of God for $1.7 million in late August.

Local attorney Ken Ryan voiced some concerns about the proposed project during the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting. Ryan, speaking for a group of commercial real-estate owners in Athens, said that granting the variance could pave the way for other developers to find a way around the lot coverage requirement in city code.

"I would also submit that it would grant special privilege to them that would not necessarily be afforded others," Ryan said. "These are not the only developers who seek to develop in the city of Athens."

Dave Fisher, lawyer for Homestead U., said during the meeting that the request for the variance on lot coverage is justified in some way because of the usage of trees and pervious pavement (which allows water to drain through) and grass in the space. Those are all factors in the city's rationale for lot coverage requirements, as the specific coverage of a building on a property affects green space and storm-water management issues.

Fisher said Homestead U had included provisions in its plans for 4-inch trunks on trees used on the property, compared to the city-mandated 1.5-inch width of tree trunks. Grass pavers also will be used in 6.3 percent of the site's area for parking, on top of permeable surfaces used in the parking spaces contained in an underground parking lot below the proposed housing. According to design plans for the project provided by Dave Anderson, president of Homestead U, about 40.9 percent of the site would consist of pervious surfaces.

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City zoning board approves River Gate building variance

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By Cherri Gregg, Charlotte Huffman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) Contractors are making final preparations for the implosion of the Queen Lane Apartment building in Germantown as the Philadelphia Housing Authority isplanning to build 55 low-rise, affordable town home rentalsthat will be completed next year.

At 16 stories high and nearly a block wide, the Queen Lane Apartment Building is a formidable structure. But at 7:15 Saturday morning itll be reduced to rubble.

Just imagine the capacity of the dust thats going to occur when the building does come down, says Bilquis Basset who lives on Priscilla Street, adjacent to the construction.

She and more than 90 other residents who live in a one block radius known as the evacuation zone have been asked to be out of their homes by 6 a.m. Saturday.

Of course were concerned about the cleanup of windows and our doors, but our most concern is health-wise, she says. Many of the children and elders on this block have asthma and whenever there is dust coming from the building I can barely speak and have to go inside.

Lamita Robinson lives across the street from the site and like Basset, shes concerned about the effects that may be left behind after the dust settles.

My sons asthma is really bad and theres a lot of dust and I know there is asbestos in the building because I saw the signs when walking my dog. So Im not happy, Robinson said.

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Implosion Of Germantown High-Rise Forcing Residential Evacuations

View Larger View Larger Crime & Safety Headlines More Crime&Safety Crime Stoppers More Crimestoppers Crime Databases More Databases Continuing stories More Ongoing Stories Local Stories from ThisWeek More Articles By Encarnacion Pyle The Columbus Dispatch Friday September 12, 2014 6:33 AM

Benito Lucio worries that memories of the 10 people killed in a Prairie Township fire a decade ago are as abandoned as the memorial where their apartment building once stood.

To see the memorial today with weeds, its obvious people have forgotten, Lucio said last week.

Gone are the candles and flower-draped white crosses that honored the 10 people, including three young children, who lost their lives on Sept. 12, 2004.

One of three markers lies broken among tall weeds and uncut grass. A boulder surrounded by a semicircle of pavers is dwarfed by the boarded-up remains of the former Lincoln Park West apartments.

So many lives gone, just like that, Lucio said as he stood in front of the memorial. I cant help but wonder what would have become of those three little children if things had been different."

The fire was ruled arson, but the crime has not been solved a fact that Lucio finds disheartening.

The retired migrant-worker monitor for the state said he will talk about the fire today on his local Spanish-language radio show. He wants to encourage anyone with information to come forward.

People who do bad things are supposed to get punished, he said. We cant rest until that happens in this terrible tragedy.

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Apartment fire that killed 10 still unsolved 10 years later

Architecture is not just slow. It's a hurry-up-and-wait profession at its core, chancy and contingent, as vulnerable to the cold feet of clients as the whims of capital markets. During the Great Recession, as financing dried up and confidence cracked, the construction of important new buildings in Los Angeles ground nearly to a halt.

And so this fall, which brings with it a number of significant architectural debuts, is both welcome and a little alien: For the first time in nearly a decade, thanks to a stronger domestic economy and an influx of investment from China, South Korea and elsewhere, a steady supply of ambitious, market-tested architecture is emerging from the city's cultural pipeline.

The crop includes ground-up projects by some of L.A.'s most talented architects. The city is also learning to reuse its underappreciated older buildings in inventive ways.

All in all, it's a season of marked if still cautious revival for Los Angeles architecture: a fall that feels more like a spring.

An improving economy tends to produce what might be called a reverse domino effect. A big project coming out of the ground pulls up others by sheer force of momentum. Witness the buildings, good and mostly bad, sprouting like mushrooms in the shadow of L.A. Live's Marriott hotel tower downtown.

Even stalled projects can have this effect. Opening next month on Bunker Hill, across a new plaza from Eli Broad's delayed contemporary art museum, is the Emerson, an expedient-looking residential tower by the firm Arquitectonica with 271 apartments on 19 floors.

More impressive models for new residential architecture have popped up in Santa Monica, where the second phase of the Expo Line is expected to begin running to the beach by early 2016 and where a mid-rise collection of condos and apartments has just opened across the street from popular Tongva Park. Divided into a section of affordable rental units by Koning Eizenberg and condos by the Santa Monica firm Moore Ruble Yudell, the complex offers a compelling combination of spare neo-modern design and generous open space.

An expanding transportation network is also producing new architecture in Orange County, where the $190-million Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, or ARTIC, will open in late fall.

As designed by architecture firm HOK and engineers Parsons Brinckerhoff, the station may seem an overly grand arrival hall for the scant number of passengers it is likely to attract in its first years of operation. Enclosed under a wide roof covered with pillowy ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) panels, it was designed in part to hold high-speed trains that won't begin running for about two decades, if ever; perhaps over time the train-riding population in the O.C. will grow to match its magisterial scale.

The colleges and universities in town, many of which kept building at least modestly during the recession, with endowments or fundraising efforts robust enough to withstand the downturn, are now accelerating those efforts.

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Fall marks season of revival for architecture in Los Angeles

A New York property developer is offering the uber-wealthy the opportunity to buy a condo parking spot for a cool $1m merely six times the value of a typical American home.

The 10 parking spaces are for sale at 42 Crosby St, the luxury apartment building under construction in the SoHo neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan.

Based on the $1m price tag, the spots are probably the most expensive residential car spaces in the country, said the broker marketing the seven-storey building.

Anyone who lives in Manhattan and has a car knows that parking is a premium in the city, said Shaun Osher, chief executive of the brokerage Core. Theres definitely a large demand and a short supply.

Prices for the parking spots compare with the US median single-family home value of $174,800, according to real estate website Zillow. For that price, however, there are few if any residences for sale in trendy SoHo, known for its high-end fashion shops and art galleries

Osher said he expected residents of the 10-unit building to snap up the parking spots when the underground spaces, which were approved for construction this week, hit the market.

The building, designed by German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf, will include 10 luxury condominiums priced at a minimum of about $8m each with private elevator access.

The 14-19 sq m parking spaces will be offered under a 99-year license to tenants, who will have the right to transfer or sell their parking spaces to other building residents.

The pricey spaces will not lack for amenities. Osher said they would come with storage space and electric car charges.

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Million-dollar parking spaces in Manhattan