Posted on: 1:11 pm, February 18, 2014, by David Wells, updated on: 01:13pm, February 18, 2014

SALT LAKE CITY A 4-alarm fire at a Salt Lake City apartment building was intentionally set, according to a press release from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

After five days of extensive scene examination and multipe interviews, investigators have ruled the cause of the fire to be incendiary. The factors resulting in the finding of incendiary are not being released due to the ongoing investigation, the ATF press release said.

A joint investigation was conducted at the scene of the fire by the ATFs National Response Team and the Salt Lake City Fire Department.

A probable cause statement from the Salt Lake County Sheriffs Office indicates Dustin J. Bowman admitted to starting the structure fire at 540 E 500 S on February 9.

Since the apartment building was still under construction, the fire was exacerbated by the large amount of exposed wood in the building.

The damage is currently estimated at $6 million.

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ATF: Fire at SLC apartment building intentionally set

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U.S. housing construction down 16% in January

Real estate analysts say Charlottes apartment building boom could oversaturate the rental market this year, possibly prompting free-rent offers and other concessions as leasing competition intensifies.

Developers, however, say the long-term outlook for the Charlotte apartment market remains bright.

Much of the new apartment growth is coming in and near uptown Charlotte, in areas such as the South End, SouthPark, NoDa and Elizabeth neighborhoods, according to research firm Real Data, which tracks the multifamily rental market.

In its most recent twice-yearly report on the Charlotte market, Real Data in September characterized the citys apartment development pipeline as very active, with more than 8,100 units under construction and nearly 12,000 more proposed.

Supply is expected to exceed demand within a year, the report states.

You can expect to see communities of all ages offering one to three months rent-free in the months to come, in reaction to increased competition, Real Data analyst Engle Addington wrote in an email to the Observer last week.

Frank Warren, a real estate analyst with engineering and land-planning firm Kimley-Horn, said Charlotte is building more apartments than can typically be absorbed in a year. But he added: I am fairly convinced demand is going to remain strong and any oversupply will be of a limited duration.

Developers believe favorable demographic trends and pent-up post-recession demand will cushion them against a possible multifamily market bubble or the need for steep rent concessions.

Lennar, a major single-family homebuilder, is developing Astoria at Metropolitan, a 261-unit complex in midtown, and has two other projects under contract, said John Gray, director of investments with Lennar Multifamily Communities.

Charlottes healthy job and population growth make such projects good bets, he said. Vacancy rates are at about 5 percent, according to Real Data, well below the 7 to 8percent that Warren calls an equilibrium point.

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Is Charlotte building too many apartments?

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By Mike Dunn

PHILADELPHIA (CBS)The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, better known as the Mormon Church, is already building a new temple in Center City and now we get word of two new projects, including a massive new apartment building.

The Mormon Church has hired the noted New York architectural firm of Robert A. M. Stern to design both a new meetinghouse and a high rise apartment building. The projects will be built on vacant lots on the 16-hundred block of Vine Street, just one block from where the new Mormon Temple is currently going up.

Stern architect Paul Whalen says the two new buildings will fit in well.The buildings will work together to extend the north wall of Logan Square, currently defined by the Free Library, the Family Court building, and the LDS Temple, which is currently under construction.

Most notable is the apartment building, which is being built by the church for business purposes, so rental units are not limited to church members. Whalen says it will have more than 250 units.

The residential tower will rise 32 floors with vertical bounds of windows and setbacks to articulate the facades, and a variety of rental apartments some with corner balconies providing views out to the city.

Whalen says the tower will also include town homes and retail at the street level.The tower meets the street at a pedestrian scale, with a low row of townhouses on Vine Street and another on Wood Street. The townhouse entrances will bring activity and a sense of safety to these streets.

The meetinghouse will differ from the Temple in that it will be open to the public, while the Temple is limited to church members.

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The Mormon Church Bringing 2 New Buildings To Center City

SEATTLE A backhoe, an apprentice plumber and a 20,000-year-old piece of ivory (give or take a few millenniums) have brought out Puget Sound's inner paleontologist.

Last week a Columbian mammoth tusk was discovered in the foundation of an apartment building under construction in the South Lake Union neighborhood. On Friday, three days after the discovery, scientists carefully crated the 81/2 -foot-long fossil and sent it to a museum for study.

In between, a steady stream of curious onlookers made their way to the giant hole across the street from an Amazon.com office building in hopes of getting a peek at the largest and most intact piece of prehistoric dentition ever discovered in Jet City.

That, of course, is the allure: ice age meets computer age.

Ryan Eyre, an unemployed English teacher, peeked through the chain-link fence baring "No trespassing" signs, hoping that the ancient ivory wasn't entirely covered up by a tarp.

It was, for its own protection.

"I came out entirely to see it," Eyre said. "I'm fascinated with this kind of stuff, and they found it within a mile of where I live."

Where tech workers troll and apartment buildings rise, herds of giant prehistoric proboscideans once roamed, grazing on verdant grasslands studded with the occasional pine, pounding down hundreds of pounds of roughage daily to nourish their vast bulk.

Mammoths migrated to North America from Asia about 2 million years ago and became extinct about 10,000 years ago. There is little agreement about what killed off the ancient relatives of today's elephants, but scientists point to a combination of climate change and hunting by humans.

Until last week, only 25 mammoth fossils had been found in the Seattle area, mostly skeleton fragments. So the discovery of a long, curving, intact tusk set paleontologists around the country abuzz.

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Ancient mammoth tusk offers gateway to Seattle's history

Crews work on the scene Monday morning after a four-alarm fire broke out Sunday night at the site of a future apartment complex at 500 South and 500 East.

Matt Gade, Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY Federal officials announced Saturday that an arrest was made in the four-alarm inferno that burned a Salt Lake apartment building under construction.

Dustin Jay Bowman, 33, of Bountiful, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail late Friday night for investigation of arson.

Bowman "stated that he did intentionally start a fire in the structure at 540 E. 500 South" on Feb. 9, a jail report written by a Salt Lake fire investigator states. Investigators said the blaze caused $2.5 million in damage.

Bowman apparently worked at the construction site. On what appears to be his Facebook page, he lists his occupation as an electrician and posted three photos labeled "downtown fire aftermath" the day after the blaze and included a link to a news story about it.

"Guess I'm not working Monday," one post states. "New House apartment complex construction burnt down. Anybody want to hire an electrician for a day or two? Maybe the boss has some temp power to hook up somewhere or something. Can't really afford a day off."

No official charges have been filed against Bowman.

Brad Beyersdorf, spokesman for the Denver office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, confirmed that an arrest was made, but refused to release any other information about the arrest, including Bowman's name or the nature of his alleged offense.

"We're not finished with the on-scene investigation," he said Saturday. "Due to the ongoing investigation and continuing judicial process, no further information can be released at this time."

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Bountiful man arrested in Salt Lake inferno that caused $2.5M in damage

TAMPA Officials broke ground Thursday on the fourth and last apartment building planned at Encore, the $425 million mixed-use, mixed-income residential community just north of downtown.

The Tempo at Encore will join The Ella, The Reed and The Trio on 28 acres where the Central Park Village public housing community stood until 2007.

Theyve taken a drug-filled, gang-infested violent neighborhood and turned it into the something to be proud of, Mayor Bob Buckhorn said at the groundbreaking ceremony.

The seven-story, 203-unit Tempo complex, expected to be completed in 2015, will have a swimming pool with outdoor theater, a two-story clubhouse with a fitness center, community space, a library, a WiFi cafe, multipurpose rooms, a nondenominational chapel and music rehearsal rooms. Construction is estimated to cost about $43.3 million.

The Encore project pays homage to Tampas segregation-era Central Avenue, once a thriving black-owned business and entertainment district. Nightclubs in the area attracted performers like Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and James Brown.

When Encore is completed it will have shops, offices, a hotel, a museum of black history and a refurbished Perry Harvey Sr. Park. A grocery store and condominiums also are planned, and there is space for another residential building.

The project is expected to create about 1,000 jobs, officials have said.

This is another exciting step on the pathway to progress for the city of Tampa and our community, said U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a longtime proponent of the Encore project.

Redevelopment of the Central Avenue district long has been a goal of local officials. Through the years the area transformed from a family-friendly urban neighborhood to a magnet for crime and blight between downtown and Ybor City.

Plans for Encore supported by a combination of local, state and federal money moved forward after the former Central Park Village was torn down, but came to a halt during the recession. In December 2012, the project received a federal Housing and Urban Development Choice Neighborhood grant for $30 million so developers could complete work on the last three apartment buildings.

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City breaks ground on final Encore segment

Scientists from the Burke Museumare making preparations to remove a tusk fromthe bottom of an apartment building construction site.

Theyare digging out a Columbian mammoth tusk that was discovered by workers on Tuesday.

Christian Sidor is a paleontologist with the museum.

"Right now, without any further excavation, it stands at7feet long, and we're not at the tip of the tusk yet," said Sidor.

Heestimatedthe age of the artifact at 22,000years, but it could be up to 60,000years old.

Carbon-datingtests will be able to offer a more precise age for the fossil.

The property owner is AMLI Residential.

"We think this is an amazing find, and it's not something that should end up in a living room or even in a leasing office lobby.It should end up where everyone can see it," saidone of the company's officers, Scott Koppelman.

AMLI has given the Burke Museum permission to put the tusk on display.

The museumhas 25 other mammoth fossils, but this could be the largest tusk ever found in Washington State.

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South Lake Union mammoth tusk excavation continues

BOGOTA - The 44-unit apartment complex currently under construction at 297 Palisade Ave. continues to be the center of controversy in Bogota with the filing of a lawsuit by the developer against the borough and the council president.

Council President Jorge Nunez and Borough Clerk Fran Garlicki were served with papers notifying them of the lawsuit before the Jan. 30 special meeting that was called to appoint the boroughs professionals for 2014.

The suit was filed by 297 Palisade Ave. Urban Renewal, LLC, which is the developer of the apartment building set to be constructed on the former site of the Florence E. Dewey Elementary School.

Attorney Paul Kaufman, of the firm Kaufman, Semeraro and Leibman, LLP, which represents the developer, said that his firm had served the borough clerk with an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request for emails sent by Nunez, including emails that were sent to a local daily newspaper, and was given a certification by the clerk that there were none.

Kaufman said that this "doesnt quite add up" as statements made by Nunez in a Dec. 31, 2013 article in a local daily newspaper, which was on the subject of a stop work order that was issued, were specifically noted to have been said via email. Kaufman stated that it is a violation of the Open Public Records Act.

Construction began on Dec. 23, 2013 with soil removal work being done at the construction site, but was ordered to stop on Dec. 30, 2013 when borough officials could not locate a permit from the county to begin digging. The letter had been on file with Borough Engineer Harry Tuvel, but he was on vacation at the time and officials did not have immediate access to his files.

The lawsuit was filed to compel the borough to turn over Nunezs emails and to have someone appointed to go through the boroughs computers since the borough did not send any of the emails containing the quoted statements that appeared in the article in the local daily newspaper, said Kaufman.

For his part, Nunez stated that he believes this is an attempt on behalf of the developer to intimidate him and stop him from asking questions about the project and voicing his concerns.

Nunez has been a vocal opponent of the tax abatement given to the developer since the Sept. 19 meeting at which the resolution was passed to execute the payment in lieu of taxes agreement between the borough and the developer.

"This sweet heart deal is bad for Bogota and bad for taxpayers," said Nunez in an emailed statement. "I will continue to pursue every avenue to protect taxpayers in Bogota from the negative impacts of this deal. There are many questions that need to be answered about the flawed process and conflicts associated to this project."

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Developer sues Bogota and council president over alleged OPRA violation

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