Photo by Ben Benschneider

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UHS Fairfax Hospital, Kirkland, Wash.

Work on the two-story, 34,000-sq-ft expansion of an existing behavioral health facility included the addition of 68 new beds. It also included the design and installation of significant stormwater treatment systems such as a chamber system covering an area equivalent to several football fields.

The project scope required considerable site redevelopment work as well as accommodating the treatment systems and 133 parking stalls. The work was done while the hospital remained in operation.

There were numerous challenges associated with keeping the front entrance to the hospital functional, safe and separate from construction activities. To meet these challenges, the team created a series of phased temporary entrance plans to safely manage and direct pedestrian, auto and ambulance traffic. Another challenge was the project's 10-month completion date. The general contractor attributes meeting that deadline to teamwork and the use of an integrated project delivery process, which provided work-arounds for issues that had the potential to derail the schedule.

Other innovative approaches on the project included the involvement of the drywall company and exterior envelope contractor in early design as a contract signer.

The MEP contractor also ran all overhead utilities, including multitrade racks, ductwork, sprinkler piping and electrical conduit, resulting in a cost savings of $100,000.

Key Players

Owner/Developer Universal Health Systems

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Award of Merit: Health Care

Hollywoodland (Adjacent) - Special Report: Drywall Installation (Ep. 3)
This SPECIAL REPORT covers the LATE BREAK NEWS of the DRYWALL INSTALLATION at Hollywoodland (Adjacent) for the week ending 11/14/2014. - - - - - - - - - - - ...

By: Hollywoodland (Adjacent)

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Hollywoodland (Adjacent) - Special Report: Drywall Installation (Ep. 3) - Video

Samsung is mounting a serious challenge to Sonos in the multi-room audio market. Samsungs Shape product line includes the M7 Wireless Audio Speaker reviewed here; a pair of smaller siblings, the Shape M5 and M3; several Wireless Audio Soundbars; and a Link Mate box that lets you add non-networked audio gear to its system.

As with Sonos numerous self-powered speakers, you can deploy a single Shape speaker and control it with your smartphone over your home network. But the real fun starts when you deploy Shapespeakers all over the house. Samsungs solution isnt as elegant as the Sonos mesh network, and Samsung doesnt support nearly as many online music services, but the M7 speaker sounds pretty good.

Samsung sent two M7s and an HW-H750 sound bar so I could evaluate the individual speakers as well as the products multi-room chops. This review focuses on the M7 and my installation experience with the system as a whole. Ill review the HW-H750 later.

Samsungs optional hub is actually a requirement if you want to set up a multi-room system using its Shape-series speakers.

Youll need Samsungs dual-band (2.4-/5GHz) WAM250 hub if you want to set up a multi-room audio system, using whatever combination of Shape speakers and wireless sound bars you decide to deploy. This little box plugs into your Wi-Fi router and enables Samsungs smartphone app to see all the speakers. Its wall wart is way out of proportion to the boxs size, but Samsung thoughtfully provides a two-port ethernet switch inside of it so you wont lose any hardwired ports on your router.

Installing the system isnt at all complicated, but it can take a long time. After you fire up the hub, you plug in the speaker. It emits some tones to let you know its starting up, and a blue light on its front panel starts blinking. The light glows solid blue once the speaker has connected with the hub, but this was taking much too long. I was sure Id done something wrong.

Each speaker can run independently or be grouped together to play the same tracks.

A quick peek at the user manual yielded this surprising tidbit: It can take the hub up to 20 minutes to connect to your network, and it can take the speaker up to 10 minutes to connect to the hub. I didnt time how long my setup took, but it seemed like an eternity.

Enduring the wait isnt the worst part: The speaker emits an incessant beep that sounds exactly like water falling from your homes roof gutter to the bottom of its downspout. Its torture. But once youve configured the hub and one speaker, adding additional speakers is practically automatic.

Pair the speaker and your smartphone using Bluetooth, and you can control the speakers using the free Samsung Multiroom app (available for Android and iOS phones).The pairing process is rendered particularly easy with an Android phone, because theres an NFC chip embedded in the speaker. Just tap your phone on top of the speaker and youre ready to go. Setting up an iPhone requires a few additional steps.

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Samsung Shape M7 Wireless Audio Speaker review: A solid multi-room audio system

Though a large earthquake can prove catastrophic to life and property, even relatively minor tremors may compromise the structural integrity of a home, resulting in large repair costs. A team of engineers based at California's Stanford University has developed a new method of building earthquake-resistant homes that could be implemented relatively easily and inexpensively.

The Stanford engineers built a small two-story home model that features what they refer to as a "unibody" design. Rather than screwing drywall to the home's wooden frame, it was attached with glue, while strong mesh and additional screws were used to attach and keep the white stucco facade safely in place.

More significantly however, the home was not placed on a standard foundation, but on "seismic isolators." The seismic isolators comprise 12 steel-and-plastic sliders, each measuring around 11.4 cm (4.5 in) in diameter, and plates and bowl-shaped dishes made of galvanized steel were placed beneath.

The prototype model home was tested on an earthquake simulator that essentially acts as a large shaking table. Though unable to give a Richter scale reading, the engineers report that they shook the table at three times the intensity of a 6.9 magnitude quake. Thanks to the seismic isolators, the house slid harmlessly from left to right, but took no damage. Indeed, it wasn't until the researchers turned up the earthquake simulator up to maximum that the building displayed significant damage.

Of course, the principle of seismic isolators isn't new, and they are already used to protect some larger structures, like San Francisco International Airport for example. However, the significance of the Stanford research lies in its inexpensiveness and ease of installation. The researchers report that their system would only add around US$15,000 to the total cost of a typical 185 sq m (2,000 sq ft) full-sized house.

Though retrofitting the earthquake-resistant technology to an existing home is possible, the researchers say that a new build would be much easier and only take contractors roughly four additional days to install.

The video below shows the model home being tested.

Source: Stanford News

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Stanford researchers develop earthquake-resistant house prototype

Los Angeles County prosecutors have declined to file criminal charges in connection with taxpayer-funded work performed at Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas' home.

The district attorney's office said in a memorandum released Monday that county officials told investigators that the remodeling of Ridley-Thomas' converted garage into a home office last year was within county policy, though prosecutors found the project exceeded its initial costs.

"If they are correct, then the remodel was done with 'authority of law,' and there is no violation," the memo said.

The investigation focused on whether the work which cost taxpayers at least $10,675, according to the memo was a misappropriation of public funds.

A district attorney spokeswoman said the office had no immediate comment.

Ridley-Thomas did not respond to an interview request. He has said in the past that the work at his home was proper.

For months, county officials have refused to provide to The Times a full accounting of the costs of the project, which involved adding a security alarm system and making other improvements to Ridley-Thomas' garage.

Previously, the county has said the job cost $10,038 in labor and materials slightly less than the minimum total cited by the district attorney's office. But records reviewed by The Times suggest the cost could have been greater.

Time sheets for five Los Angeles County employees show a total of 170 hours worked at Ridley-Thomas' home in Leimert Park. If billed at standard county rates, 170 hours would cost more than $20,000.

County officials have declined to discuss the employees' work or how they calculated the costs.

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L.A. County won't file criminal charges over work at Ridley-Thomas home

CUBA Some new residences are emerging among the latest group of shops and offices popping up along the villages main strip.

One- and two-bedroom apartments are being created in the upper portion of the 20,000-square-foot building at 24 W. Main St. the structure that has Hometown Fitness and The Perfect Blend as neighboring businesses said Randy Searle, building owner.

Each apartment the one-bedroom units are roughly 700 square feet, and the two-bedroom units are approximately 1,200 square feet features a kitchen, living room, dining area, bathroom, air conditioning and new windows on the street side. There is also an on-site laundry room.

To complete all of the work needed to develop these apartments, Mr. Searle said it took a bit of sweat and tears.

The apartments were constructed from scratch, explained Mr. Searle, noting the upstairs previously served as a storage spot for the furniture and hardware stores that previously existed in the lower half of the building several years ago. He said he had to clear out some interesting remnants from the previous tenants.

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Housing boom in Cuba's downtown

Published: Tuesday, 11/11/2014 - Updated: 12 hours ago

BY TOM TROY BLADE STAFF WRITER

An apartment complex in West Toledo is called Riviera Maia, apparently after the exotic Mexican resort area. All the apartment layouts have Mexican names, such as Acapulco and Playa.

But right now, about the only thing the two have in common is water. In the Toledo case, its leaking through the ceilings.

The city of Toledo last week ordered the closure of eight out of 63 buildings at the garden apartment complex, declaring them unfit and uninhabitable, after the owners, Kidz Real Estate Group LLC of Chicago, had voluntarily closed 19 buildings.

PHOTO GALLERY: Click here to view more photos

Toledo filed a lawsuit against the owners over the buildings one year ago, and recently obtained a court-ordered assessment of repair needs. Chris Zervos, director of the Department of Building Inspection, said the repairs will cost millions.

A recommended repair, he said, is installation of pitched roofs to better shed the rain.

Its beyond us why anyone would purposely allow their asset to be devalued, he said. We can make them make the improvements or tear down the nuisance. He said the city would like to work with the owners to restore the buildings because rental apartments are in demand in Toledo.

The buildings are basically in decent-enough shape. Theyre salvageable, Mr. Zervos said. He said the city started issuing repair orders in 2009 when inspectors learned that the owners had been making repairs without obtaining permits for inspection.

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City orders W. Toledo apartments closed

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By Henry Culvyhouse

WINCHESTER -- When William Sutton was discharged from the U.S. Navy in 2006, he found the civilian world was a huge, different place.

"The main thing you have in the military is structure and when I got out [of] there, I didn't have it," Sutton said. "It was tough adjusting to conducting how people do things in the civilian world."

But Sutton was able to make the transition, leading a fruitful career and raising a loving family. However, some veterans are not so lucky and end up becoming homeless. That is why in 2013, Sutton founded The Veterans for Valor Foundation, which will open a center to provide vocational training and counseling for transient veterans on Veterans Day.

Sutton said the exact scope of the homeless veterans problem is hard to determine.

"We don't have any figures on it because nobody has been keeping count," Sutton said. "A lot of homeless veterans are not going to admit they're veterans, either."

According to Sutton, many homeless veterans are too proud to admit their troubles.

"A lot of military veterans aren't going to come and say 'I'm struggling' or 'I need help,'" Sutton said. "One thing we're taught is you deal with the punches given to you and continue moving."

Originally posted here:
New job center focusing on vets

Published: Tuesday, 11/11/2014 - Updated: 19 seconds ago

BY TOM TROY BLADE STAFF WRITER

An apartment complex in West Toledo is called Riviera Maia, apparently after the exotic Mexican resort area. All the apartment layouts have Mexican names, such as Acapulco and Playa.

But right now, about the only thing the two have in common is water. In the Toledo case, its leaking through the ceilings.

The city of Toledo last week ordered the closure of eight out of 63 buildings at the garden apartment complex, declaring them unfit and uninhabitable, after the owners, Kidz Real Estate Group LLC of Chicago, had voluntarily closed 19 buildings.

PHOTO GALLERY: Click here to view more photos

Toledo filed a lawsuit against the owners over the buildings one year ago, and recently obtained a court-ordered assessment of repair needs. Chris Zervos, director of the Department of Building Inspection, said the repairs will cost millions.

A recommended repair, he said, is installation of pitched roofs to better shed the rain.

Its beyond us why anyone would purposely allow their asset to be devalued, he said. We can make them make the improvements or tear down the nuisance. He said the city would like to work with the owners to restore the buildings because rental apartments are in demand in Toledo.

The buildings are basically in decent-enough shape. Theyre salvageable, Mr. Zervos said. He said the city started issuing repair orders in 2009 when inspectors learned that the owners had been making repairs without obtaining permits for inspection.

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City orders apartments to be closed

By THADDEUS MAST / thaddeusm@laramieboomerang.com Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Construction projects in Laramie could be finished by next spring, even if the weather doesnt cooperate.

The outer shell for future professional offices at the corner of Fourth and Harney streets should be finished by next month, said Mike Peck, partner in the project. The building was previously a laundromat, but should be four 1,400-square-foot offices after the renovation.

The location is fantastic, he said. Itll be one of the best locations in town for offices. There has already been interest in the building.

Attorneys, accountants and other professionals would likely move into the space, Peck said. The building should be open to tenants by April, he said. There is also space adjacent to the building for future expansion, but no plans are currently in place.

Construction at the University of Wyoming Plaza is also on schedule. The shell for the retail building on Grand Avenue should be finished within the week, said Randy Hall, representative for University Plaza, LLC. Contractors have been grading the area slated for a movie theater and have just obtained a building permit. The steel has already been ordered and should be on site in the near future.

There is a superintendent on site, Hall said. The foundation should get started pretty quick.

Work should continue throughout the winter, he said. Crews will probably take brief periods off when work is not possible. He said the project should be done around March 1. A theater group would then take over the building and finish the interior in about 90 days.

Whites University Motors on Grand Avenue is renovating their showroom and is on schedule to finish at the end of December.

We tore off the old showroom, General Manager Dave Meade said. This will be a completely new, state-of-the-art Ford Trustmark design.

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Cold, snow wont stop building projects