VANCOUVER, Wash.

Fire destroyed an apartment building with about 90 units that was under construction in Vancouver.

The fire broke out about 3:30 a.m. Friday and went to two-alarms as it brought the four-story structure to the ground.

Fire Marshal Heidi Scarpelli told KOINflames forced firefighters to take a "defensive approach," pouring on water from outside.

Natural gas helped fuel the flames until a utility crew shut off the line.

There are no reported injuries.

Scarpelli says investigators looking for the cause of the fire will likely bring in a dog trained to detect any accelerants. She also says investigators may ask for assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Witnesses told KATUthey heard an explosion and saw the sky turned orange.

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Original post:
Vancouver fire takes down 4-story apartment building

Published: Thursday, June 19, 2014, 12:01a.m.

Plans to build a 46-unit, low-income senior citizen apartment building have been put aside as Westmoreland County Housing Authority officials look to construct a $6 million headquarters in Hempfield.

The authority will seek to borrow cash to finance the office building, which will replace an aging, 30,000-square-foot structure that houses the agency's 60-member administration and staff.

We're excited to continue on with what we set out to do on our 55 acres of property, said authority Executive Director Michael Washowich.

The authority last year completed construction on an $11.5 million senior citizen apartment building on its grounds. All 45 units of South Greengate Commons are filled, prompting officials to plan for a companion building with as many as 40 apartments for low-income seniors.

Officials said the $11 million project would be funded through the sale of federal tax credits, but late last week the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency rejected the authority's plan.

Washowich said the authority will submit a second application to fund the project early next year. The delay will push construction back by at least a year and into 2016.

In the meantime, the authority will move ahead with construction of its headquarters building. The project was first proposed several years ago during initial plans to convert the agency's wooded acreage south of Route 30 in Hempfield.

Our existing building is in tremendous need of rehabilitation, Washowich said. By reducing the size of the building and making it energy-efficient, it makes much more sense to build it new.

The 24,000-square-foot structure will face the existing headquarters building.

Continued here:
Senior housing units on hold in Westmoreland County

SAN DIEGO Exploding vapors from a bathtub refinishing project caused the fire Saturday in a two-story, 28-unit apartment building on Point Loma that sent three people to a hospital for treatment, firefighters said Sunday.

The Chatsworth Boulevard apartment fire was caused by ignitable vapors, said San Diego Fire-Rescue spokesman Lee Swanson. The bathtub was being refinished and vapors were ignited by electrical equipment used by the refinisher. He was taken to the hospital with burns.

Swanson said a San Diego police officer suffered from smoke inhalation and was hospitalized. Another woman in the apartment complex was also taken to a hospital for treatment after complaining of dizziness and shortness of breath.

The police officer was released from the hospital after being treated, San Diego Police officer Dan Lasher said.

A total of 60 firefighters responded to the two-alarm fire and took about 20 minutes to knock it down, Swanson said.

The Red Cross assisted 20 to 25 people displaced by the fire to find temporary housing.

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Apartment fire blamed on construction project

Alexander Dimolaidis is moving on up, going somewhere he thought hed never go: to the 21st floor.

Until now, he associated high-rise living with the ugly behemoths on the fringes of Frankfurt reserved for subsidized housing. Last month, he bought a one-bedroom unit in the 40-story Henninger Turm.

I like the freedom of being up so high, the open views, said Dimolaidis, 43, an advertising executive who fell for the 140-meter (460-foot) skyscraper, which is due to be completed in 2016. It features concierge service, mosaic floors and unobstructed views of the Taunus hills. Its very different from the ghettoized life in the high-rises on the outskirts.

From London to Warsaw, high-rises are losing their reputation as grim necessities on the Old Continent. Europeans, like buyers in New York, Hong Kong and Dubai, are increasingly drawn to their amenities and convenience. Developers, seeking to maximize profit in densely built cities, are feeding the demand with a record pace of construction.

Henninger Turm is one of at least seven upscale residential towers planned in Frankfurt, home of the European Central Bank and the euro areas financial capital. There is now just one such property: the 21-story Skylight, built by Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE) more than a decade ago.

Henninger Turm is one of at least seven upscale residential towers planned in Frankfurt, home of the European Central Bank and the euro area's financial capital, where bird's-eye views are usually reserved for bankers' offices and welfare recipients living in subsidized projects. Close

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Henninger Turm is one of at least seven upscale residential towers planned in Frankfurt, home of the European Central Bank and the euro area's financial capital, where bird's-eye views are usually reserved for bankers' offices and welfare recipients living in subsidized projects.

At least 135 residential high-rises -- defined by Los Angeles-based property broker CBRE Group Inc. (CBG) as buildings taller than 20 stories -- are planned for London. They include One Blackfriars and Newfoundland. In Warsaw, Daniel Libeskind designed the Zlota 44. In Paris, Norman Foster is working on Hermitage Plaza. In Berlin, Frank Gehry won a competition to design a 39-story twisting tower that will be Germanys tallest apartment block.

See the article here:
Luxury Goes Vertical in Frankfurt as High-Rises Spread

Published: Thursday, June 12, 2014, 11:03p.m.

Walnut Capital opened its first Bakery Living apartment building to tenants on June 1 with about two-thirds of the 175 units under lease, and the Shadyside developer predicts the rest will be off the market by Labor Day.

It's the fastest lease-up I've ever experienced, said Gregg M. Perelman, managing partner of Walnut Capital, which has developed more than 1,500 housing units locally.

The five-story, multi-colored Bakery Living building along Penn Avenue in the East End, part of the booming Bakery Square complex, is the first housing project that Walnut Capital is building from the ground up. The developer plans to start building another 175-unit Bakery Living apartment building in January, with an opening planned in mid-2016, Perelman said.

It ushers in a wave of similar projects planned across the city upscale, amenity-laden apartment buildings being built from scratch that cater largely to young professionals and empty nesters, with major projects planned in areas such as the South Side, Strip District and East End.

The projects are cropping up as residential demand soars. CBRE, a commercial brokerage firm, said last month that Pittsburgh's apartment rental vacancy rate ranks among the nation's lowest at 3.1 percent, below its historic average of 4.9 percent.

It's a great thing for the city when the driver for the housing market is high-end housing that is catering to young professionals. This is really a new frontier for the city, said Kevin Acklin, who is chief of staff and chief development officer for Mayor Bill Peduto.

Acklin said city officials are looking to throw gas on the fire to promote further high-end development but cautioned, We also need to provide for investment in affordable housing options to ensure we have a balanced approach.

At Bakery Living, carpet-cleaning robots roam the hallways. A dog-washing room is on the first floor, along with bicycle storage rooms and a fitness center with access to a bicycle trail under construction. Rain gardens and porous pavement will reduce stormwater runoff. Retractable walls open an indoor pool to an outdoor lounge and sun deck, and more lounges are inside hot spots for social gatherings.

Dan Siconolfi, 29, moved into the building last Friday from Baltimore. On Sunday, the doctoral student in public health got to meet other tenants at a so-called Bloody Mary Brunch and cookout, organized by Walnut Capital.

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Upscale East End complex points to housing shift in Pittsburgh

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Korea: The Big Lie Gets A Public Apology

June 10, 2014: The May 13 thapartment building collapse in the North Korean capital is turning into a nightmare for the government. That began before the dust had even settled on the collapse of the 23 story building. Some survivors trapped in the rubble used cell phones to call for help. But the government did not immediately send construction equipment to aid in the rescue effort. Initial rescue was done by hand with government officials ordering hundreds of people to aid in the effort. This is believed to have led to more deaths. In an unprecedented move the government later publically apologized for the collapse (apparently caused by the growing corruption throughout the country). This is all very embarrassing for the government because most of the state built housing goes up in the capital for the benefit of military and government employees. Tall apartment buildings in particular are reserved for high ranking officials and their families. Now everyone housed in recently built tall buildings are living in fear. Thus all the victims in these buildings and those in similar buildings are wives, children and parents of mid-level officials. These people know about the corruption and now they know it can hit them where it hurts the most. This also means that the officials responsible for the corruption that led to the building collapse will be punished, perhaps publically. That sends a chill throughout the military and government bureaucracy because the corruption is quite widespread now but that knowledge is still considered a state secret. It later turned out that the military was responsible for putting this building up and that casts a bad light on the military which always insisted that it was largely immune to the spreading corruption. That is a lie, as anyone in the military (or their families) has realized for some time. What is really shocking is that the corruption has gotten to the point where it would endanger the families of military personnel. That is a line that no one thought even corrupt soldiers would cross. The government has a big morale problem on its hand as a result. Worse, officials believe that more people will blame the new leader, Kim Jong Un, for being unable to stem the growing corruption and for the deterioration of the economy and most everything else.

In sharp contrast to the collapsing government people cant help but notice how different things are in the growing (legal and illegal) market economy. Most of the new housing in the country is being built by the new entrepreneurs and no shoddy construction practices are tolerated. While many of the new entrepreneurs are corrupt (often of necessity to get around government anti-business laws) they are responsive to their customers. This is in sharp contrast the government, which let nearly two million citizens die of starvation in the 1990s and hasnt improved much since. People expect lies and deception from the government. A recent example was the exposure of the government rebranding of Chinese cell phones to make it appear that they were made in North Korea. This was discovered when some of these phones were dissembled (or had internal components exposed via an accident) and it was discovered that all the components were Chinese.

North Korean fears that North Koreans allowed to legally visit China are the source of the growing number of security leaks and that has led to a sharp cutback (over 80 percent) in the number of visas issued for travel to China. The government is also paranoia about North Koreans coming into contact with Christians and possibly bringing these subversive beliefs with them. Normally up to a hundred North Korean a day travel to China. This is part of a program that included North Korean secret police being sent to China to arrest North Koreans who had overstayed their visas and were apparently refusing to return to North Korea. This paranoia is also showing up more in North Korea itself, where orders have gone out to assign more civilians to duty guarding and beautifying the thousands of statues and pictures of members of the ruling Kim family found all over the north. The increased incidence of graffiti and other forms of vandalism against these sites has upset many senior officials. The government has also added new laws that make it a serious offence to use a cell phone illegally, look at foreign videos or have improper contacts with foreigners. All these violations can now be punished with the death penalty. Apparently at least one man, caught using a Chinese cell phone to call outside the country, was executed for this illegal activity. At the same time the government is trying to entice some of those who fled to China to return. This is being done with promises that there will be no retribution. It is implied that such returnees would also get family members out of prison camp. Its common for immediate family (parents, siblings or even more distant kin) are sent to prison camp to punish escapees.

A recent survey to measure unhappiness in countries (using things like unemployment, high crime rates, economic growth rate, inflation, shortages, high prices, political strife and so on) ranked Venezuela as the most miserable country in the world followed by Iran, Serbia, Argentina, Jamaica, Egypt, Spain, South Africa, Brazil and Greece. Where is North Korea? Like many of the most miserable nations on the planet the needed statistics for the ranking are state secrets. Japan is the least miserable (out of 89 nations ranked) followed by Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. The U.S. ranks 71st and China 82nd. Misery often leads to instability and an atmosphere where criminal activity flourishes.

North Korea has released video showing its warships firing what appears to be a Russian Kh-35 anti-ship missile. Russia denies it sold the missiles to North Korea thus the only other likely source is Burma, which has been conducting an illegal (and always denied) arms trade with North Korea for over a decade. The Kh-35 is similar to the American Harpoon but lighter (610 kg/1,340 pounds, compared to 728 kg/1,600) and has less range (130 kilometers compared to 224 for the latest version of Harpoon). The Kh-35 (also known as the SS-N-25 or Switchblade) can be fired from helicopters, aircraft, ships, or shore batteries.

June 9, 2014: South Korea recently confirmed that it is not buying American SM-3 anti-missile missiles for its three Aegis equipped destroyers or for use on land. Instead South Korea is buying PAC-3 anti-missile missiles for its land based Patriot systems and developing its own anti-missile missile with capabilities similar to the SM-3. South Korea has built a substantial arms industry in the last two decades and wants to demonstrate that it can handle really high-tech stuff (like anti-missile systems).

Singapore is prosecuting a local shipping company and a Singaporean citizen for complicity in the 2013 incident where a North Korean ship was caught in Panama trying to carry out an illegal arms deal between Cuba and North Korea.

June 8, 2014: North Korea issued unspecified threats against the UN for establishing an office in South Korea to monitor the worsening abuse the North Korean government is inflicting on its own people.

Read more from the original source:
Korea: The Big Lie Gets A Public Apology

John Carrier of J.F.C. Endeavors, Inc. discusses new housing developments and the Connecticut housing market.

PLAINVILLE Home builder Johnny Carrier savors the nail gun's staccato tap-tap as two workers finish piecing together two-by-fours at Samuel's Crossing near the Plainville-Farmington line.

Carpenters hoist up the wall frame for the colonial, one of four houses that Carrier's company is building in the development, all in various stages of construction.

Carrier, watching from behind a stack of framing studs, sees promise this spring in the pace of building. But he wonders if it will last, considering what happened last year.

"It was good out of the gate until April, when it died," Carrier says. "Is it going to continue this year, or are we going to have the same cycle?"

Carrier and other developers in the Hartford area are hopeful but wary, even with the state as a whole coming off its best year in new home construction in five years. The number of housing permits single-family houses, apartment units and condominiums jumped by 16 percent last year, compared with 2012.

But most of the increase last year was in Fairfield County, and an analysis of data by The Courant shows that only Fairfield County has returned to the robust residential building levels that the state enjoyed prior to start of the housing downturn in 2007.

The strong showing on the state's Gold Coast last year was dominated by apartments, not single-family houses.

Statewide, overall home construction started out strong this year, but has lost some momentum this spring.

Carrier whose family-owned home building company, By Carrier Inc., focuses on houses and condominiums said he expects that his part of the residential construction market will keep making gains, albeit slowly.

See the original post here:
Hopeful But Wary: Will Promising Signs For Home Construction Fizzle Once Again?

Kumagai Gumi Co. (1861), a Japanese construction company, fell the most in four months after saying an apartment complex it had built has defects.

The shares dropped 5.7 percent to 264 yen at the close of trading in Tokyo, the biggest decline since Feb. 4. Construction flaws in supporting pillars were found in the building completed in March 2003 in Yokohama City, south of Tokyo, the company said in a statement through the stock exchange today. The residents have been asked to relocate to temporary shelters and further investigation is required, it said.

This is a big negative for Kumagais reputation and it may hurt the companys future earnings, said Yoji Otani, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in Tokyo.

The latest defect comes after Mitsubishi Estate Co. (8802) said in March it will rebuild a residential complex, constructed by Kajima Corp. (1812), in central Tokyo, after defects were found. Mitsui Fudosan Co. (8801) said it would repair some parts of an apartment building in Kawasaki City after the builder Shimizu Corp. (1803) found cracks in the concrete of some columns in April.

Kumagai reported net income of 4.3 billion yen ($42 million) for the year ended March 31, from a loss of 1.1 billion yen a year earlier, the company said on May 13.

The building was sold by Sumitomo Realty & Development Co. (8830), the developer said in a separate statement. While Sumitomo Realty has never faced such flaws and the construction company is responsible for the defect, it will do its best to serve the customers by taking responsibility, it said in the statement.

Shares of Sumitomo Realty rose 2.1 percent to 4,521 yen.

The ratio of people seeking consultation on building defects has risen to a record in the year ended March 31, according to a report published last week by the Center for Housing Renovation and Dispute Settlement Support.

The percentage of individuals who sought help has risen to 69 percent, the highest since the Tokyo-based center started compiling the data in 2010, it said. That compares with 65 percent last fiscal year and 62 percent in both fiscal 2011 and 2012, according to the group, whose goal is to raise the quality of housing.

A record number of complaints about defects is marring Japans biggest residential building boom in five years, amid a shortage of skilled workers.

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Kumagai Drops Most in 3 Months on Building Defect: Tokyo Mover

EVstudio has been involved in a significant number of multifamily projects, both for architectural design as well as engineering. All of these projects start with a pro forma and a fundamental question: How much does it cost to build a Multifamily Apartment building?

Because this is time sensitive data, we try to post as much information as we can on a regular basis in order to inform our clients programs. This post is relevant for 2012 and the data below is excerpted courtesy of RSMeans, the industry leader in construction cost estimating. These costs are for the construction of the buildings themselves, and do not include land costs, soft costs, financing costs or FF&E costs.

The Apartment buildings that we are studying in this post are 4-7 stories. Above is a chart, representing the construction cost per square foot for these projects, classified by region. Note, there are wide differences in cost depending on location, and New York City tops the chart at $232.14 per square foot while Winston-Salem is on the low end at $133.28 per square foot. The median falls around $178 per square foot.

It is important to note, however, that every project is unique, and index pricing cannot be relied upon solely for outlining your project budget. Many factors must be considered not only geographic location. Building complexity, program, amenities and level of finish all serve to inform the estimated cost of the project and a qualified full service design firm like EVstudio can help design to your budget. If you would like to discuss your project, please dont hesitate to contact us and we can help you with any phase from entitlements to architecture and engineering to final punchlist.

Tagged as: Apartment, construction cost, Multifamily

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Construction Cost per Square Foot for Multifamily ...