LIVE OAK - A plan to build a new office building at a prominent lot here has been scrapped, meaning the site will likely continue to serve as the seasonal home for sales of pumpkins and Christmas trees for the foreseeable future.

The proposal, calling for the construction of a 12,000-square-foot building at the corner of 17th Avenue and Brommer Street, gained traction in recent months, with Barry Swenson hoping to submit plans to the county in January.

But that momentum has ground to a halt, and "we have made a determination that we will not be moving forward with this development," according to Barry Swenson's Libby Glass, who was heading the project.

That decision was made soon after a Jan. 12 meeting at the Simpkins Family Swim Center, where area residents were invited to come and view a new architectural design and provide feedback on the overall plans. Everyone appeared happy with the new design, but still, they said, that area is zoned for retail stores that benefit the entire community, and that's not what Barry Swenson had in mind.

Of the tenants that had expressed interest in the building, two are now located at the Live Oak Business Park. They have to move anyway to make way for the new Mid-County Sheriff's headquarters, and they appeared to be on the verge of signing pre-lease agreements. That, Glass said last month, would make it easier to obtain financing.

"The building that we had designed, in terms of dimensions and function, was really more suitable for the types of (research and development) and office tenants we had intended to relocate from Live Oak Business Park," she acknowledged in an email Thursday.

The project was only viable with those tenants as well as retail, but "once it became clear that there would be restrictions placed upon the more office types of uses in the future, we had serious concerns regarding the long term financial feasibility of the project."

But Supervisor John Leopold, whose district includes Live Oak, said he thought it was more a matter of Barry Swenson not realizing the community's particular attachment to that lot. In 2000, the Live Oak Neighbors community group formed specifically to fight a plan to build a Wendy's Restaurant there.

"That corner has a history and it was easy to identify that these issues would come up, but (Barry Swenson) went forward with the process because they could get financing for it," he said.

Follow Sentinel reporter Kimberly White on Twitter @kwhite95066.

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Plans for office building at prominent Live Oak lot scrapped

Written By:  Kristianne Fusilero
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Category: Economy

The Office of City Building Official has approved three high-rise projects worth P184.868 million since January 2012.

Acting city building official Jaime G. Adalin said two of the projects are commercial while the other one is institutional. The office approved their applications for building permits, signaling the start of the construction of the projects.

Among the projects are the five-storey commercial building of AFP Mutual Benefits Association Inc. in Maya St., Ecoland; six-storey project of Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in Bolton Street, and six-storey commercial building of Edsa 1 Real Estate Corp. in CM Recto St.

The biggest project in terms of cost is the proposal of BIR which amounts to P92.893 million.

Adalin said there are still more high-rise projects that are up for approval in the office. At present, the FTC Group of Companies Corp. has signified to construct 34-storey condominium with a leisure hotel dubbed as Aeon Towers along J. P. Laurel Ave.

“But the firm is yet to secure a building permit, pending the go signal from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Phils. on how many storeys are only allowed in the area where the project will be constructed,” he said.

Last year, the office approved 19 high rise projects.

Some of the approved projects last year were the 11-storey commercial building of Communities Davao Inc., eight-storey hotel of SM Investments Corp. in Lanang and 10-storey boutique hotel of Southcrest Hotel Ventures along the mixed-use Abreeza project in J.P. Laurel Ave.

View post:
City okays application of 3 high-rise projects

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Downtown developer/architect Steve Emerson is investing at least $5.4 million in a new downtown office building now going up on the former site of the People’s Church, 600 Third Ave. SE.

As is commonplace, Emerson is seeking economic development assistance from City Hall in exchange for his investment. Only this time, the City Council is raising questions about just how generous it wants to be.

“There ought to be something in here for us,” council member Justin Shields said this week.

The current incentive proposal put together by the city’s planning staff and Emerson calls for the city to return to Emerson’s company, Progression LC, 75 percent of the new property-tax revenue that will come in from the site over 10 years as a result of the company’s minimum investment of $5.4 million in the new building.

The city estimates that the new investment will generate $1.366 million in new property-tax revenue for the city over 10 years, and under the incentive proposal, $1.024 million would go back to Emerson with the city keeping $342,000.

The new building will retain the jobs of 106 employees and result in the creation of 9 new jobs, according to the proposal.

City Council member Scott Olson, a commercial Realtor who said he supported the Emerson project, nonetheless, wondered why the council was being asked to approve economic incentives now with a building that is already under construction. Olson said, too, that the city needed to pay attention to incentives in the downtown and how that might impact owners of other buildings vying for tenants. The city needed to be careful it wasn’t simply shuffling tenants from one owner’s building to another owner’s, he said.

Council members Monica Vernon, Chuck Swore and Justin Shields wondered why the city couldn’t make some requests of a developer as part of a development agreement in which the city is providing financial incentives.

Swore and Shields said they wanted some way to know if Emerson or other developers seeking incentives are using local contractors and local suppliers while Vernon wondered what design review the city might be allowed to have to ensure that a developer isn’t building “a pole building” in the downtown.

“We ought to have some say,” Shields said. “What do you get for a million dollars?”

In response to the council’s questions, Mayor Ron Corbett asked Jim Flitz, the city attorney, to provide the council with an analysis of what the council may or may not ask of developers.

The council then moved the incentive package ahead for further negotiations between the city and Emerson before the council votes on a final development agreement for the project later this month.

On Wednesday, Emerson said he is not alone among developers in beginning a project even as City Hall is working on an incentive package with the developer. The package now under review by the City Council has been in the works for some time, he said.

Emerson said he needed to start building the new building, which should be open in September, to meet the deadlines of his new tenants.

In terms of the amount of his request, Emerson said he has presented a financial plan to the city that shows the size of the property-tax help he needs in order for the project to “financially make sense.”

“If I don’t get the money, I’m still building the building,” Emerson said. “But if I lose that money out of the project, it will just prevent me from doing developments for the next eight years in downtown Cedar Rapids. Which is not my intent. I intend to keep doing developments down there.”

In answer to Olson’s comments, Emerson said his new building will not simply result in shuffling existing downtown tenants into a new building. One of the new building’s tenants had intended to leave the downtown, one is outside of downtown now and one had left downtown after the 2008 flood and is coming back, he said.

He added that the city’s incentive will be used to pay off the extra upfront costs that have come with building the building. The incentive will not be used to lower tenants’ rents. They will pay “market-rate” rents, he said.

Emerson said all the contractors working on the project are local ones and many of the suppliers are in the downtown already.

“I’m a downtown freak,” he said. “I will use anybody associated with downtown if I can. … I don’t have contractors or suppliers coming from out of town. That’s not at all what I’m trying to do.”

Emerson said the city’s development staff has seen the design of the building, which he called a “very high-end, class A building,” and he said he would be glad to show council member’s what it will look like.

“But I don’t’ think the City Council wants to get into dictating design elements and telling architects what is good or not,” he said.

Emerson’s other projects in the downtown include the Town Centre building, the Paramount office building, the building that houses Principal and the Blue Strawberry coffee shop, the building that houses.

View original post here:
New Office Building Coming to Downtown Cedar Rapids

Last Updated: February 16, 2012 11:10am ET

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Hollon: Building sustainability is more
than about environmental protection.

Read Victoria Hollon’s views about the future of sustainability in the upcoming issue of Better Buildings Magazine.

HOUSTON-While the 1.3-million-square-foot Pennzoil Place, an office building in the CBD was being retrofitted, 700 toilets were removed. Rather than discard the older toilets in landfills, however, the apparatuses were cleaned, the porcelain crushed, and sent to the Gulf Coast to help refurbish oyster beds.

Though this is an extreme example of “going green,” it does outline where the green building movement is headed. Soaring energy costs, combined with environmental concerns, tenant demands and even municipal regulations mean commercial real estate property managers and owners are being encouraged to consider ways in which they can get more mileage out of buildings.

According to Victoria Hollon, Transwestern’s senior vice president, innovation and quality assurance, making a building more energy efficient is a powerful money saver. With energy costs being a huge chunk of an office building’s budget, it makes sense to build sustainability initiatives into operations. Furthermore, there is the environmental factor; a building that operates more efficiently is less likely to spew all kinds of junk into the air.

This is why Transwestern joined the White House’s Better Building Initiative last year. As a partner with this initiative, the locally headquartered Transwestern committed to incorporating sustainability practices in the 442 office buildings the company manages, for a total of 78 million square feet. The goal of this initiative is to cut energy consumption by 20% by 2020. Transwestern, in fact, helped spearhead the Pennzoil Place retrofit.

But it hasn’t been an easy message to sell.

“For the past seven or eight years, we’ve been focused on energy efficiency because of an increase in energy prices,” Hollon tells Globest.com. “Years ago, we became active with the EPA; through its Energy Star program, we were aware of which properties might be consuming more than they need for a particular amount of square footage.” This, in turn, has allowed sharing that information with office building owners to encourage those owners to make some changes. However, “our owners haven’t always felt the same way we did,” Hollon acknowledges.

The good news, however, is that Transwestern and others are getting some help in hammering home the message. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), established in the late 1998s, came out with its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, which provides rating systems for the design, construction and operations of properties. LEED, Hollon points out, was a good first step and still remains the benchmark tool for measuring sustainability. It’s also caught on with a great many builders and designers – at one time, LEED certification of existing and even new buildings was more the exception than the rule. But these days, it’s rare to find a building going north that isn’t applying for some kind of LEED certification.

The challenge, then, is retrofitting the older buildings to operate in a more sustainable fashion. The good news here is retrofitting doesn’t necessarily mean tearing out entire HVAC systems or rewiring lighting components. “Most of the buildings in Texas are nearing their 20-year mark, and the ownership, management and caretakers have changed so many times, the controls in the building have gotten out of whack and aren’t functioning as they should,” Hollon explains. Simply studying those controls and making some minor fixes can make a huge difference on a building’s energy performance.

As such, a good first step for building owners is to get their properties benchmarked through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program. Once the buildings receive an Energy Star score, “you can gauge where you are, then take steps to reduce consumption,” Hollon says.

Taking steps to reduce that consumption is becoming more important, and not just to save costs. Municipalities are incorporating sustainability elements in their building codes. In Texas, Austin has led the way with its own green initiatives, and Dallas and Houston are starting to follow suit, especially because design sustainability means a better quality workplace as well as fewer pollutants in the air. This is especially an issue during Texas summers, when pollutants combine with hot, stagnant air to create “ozone alerts.”

And tenants are demanding greener offices, too. “A couple of years ago, we couldn’t say that tenants were demanding LEED certification or sustainability,” Hollon remarks. “But now we can say they are.” The federal government especially wants LEED-certified buildings for tenancy. “Anyone with a government tenant in their buildings needs to make changes if they want to keep those tenants,” Hollon says.

Furthermore, data is now available about the relationship between dollars and energy consumption. “We can show a situation in which someone invested $400,000 in a chiller change-out, with payback less than two years. We can show where that change-out reduced energy consumption by 15% on an annual basis, and reduced annual costs by about $100,000 a year,” Hollon says. “The proof is always in the putting, when you can show the results of investment and payback, the question then becomes do we have the funds to do it.”

And finally, the next generation is concerned about sustainability. Generation Y, also known as the Millennials, grew up recycling and caring for the environment, and these folks are now entering the workplace. And they’re demanding workplaces that follow sustainable initiatives, all the way down to lighting sensors.

“We have people interviewing for property management positions at Transwestern who are asking: ‘What are you doing for sustainability? What are you doing for energy efficiency?’” Hollon says. “These are the people who will be making decisions for commercial real estate in the future.”

Categories: Southwest, Office, Development, Green Buildings, Online Exclusive, Texas, Houston

Read the original:
Building Sustainability Moves from "Optional" to "Must Do"

The Nation February 17, 2012 1:00 am

Earlier this month, the Central Administrative Court ordered the demolition of the hotel because the width of the soi was not at least 10 metres throughout the entire stretch. The law requires a soi width of at least 10 metres for buildings as tall as the Aetas Hotel.

Available documents have shown that Chalor Jamroonkarn, an assistant director of the Pathum Wan District Office, told the Larp Prathan company in 2005 that the width was 10 metres.

"I will look into the issue," Deputy Bangkok Governor Thirachon Manomaipiboon said yesterday.

To date, the Pathum Wan District Office has not yet ordered Larp Prathan to demolish its building because the company was appealing the court's verdict.

"I think the legal battle will drag on for years," Thirachon said, "I will ensure justice to all sides".

According to Larp Prathan, the physical dimensions of the soi varies continually, as plots along the soi frequently change hands and the subsequent encroachment on public areas may reduce the width to less than 10 metres at some points.

Latest stories in this category

Read more:
Illegal building case still up in air

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

ORIX Public Finance, a specialty provider of financing for public and not-for-profit entities, announced a $5.7 million financing for the construction of an office building in Monroe, Georgia, leased to Walton County for use by the Georgia Department of Children and Family Services and the Department of Child Support Services. The 31,250 square foot office facility is being developed by Walton Development Partners, LLC; construction is expected to be complete by November 2012.

Andrew Garvey, Managing Director of ORIX Public Finance, said, “ORIX is pleased to continue helping public entities, such as cities, counties and states, as well as non-profit organizations fund facilities and infrastructure. As these needs arise and clients prefer not to issue public debt or seek bank financing, ORIX Public Finance is prepared to be a responsive source of creative and flexible funding programs that can be tailored to fit specific needs.”

About ORIX Public Finance

ORIX Public Finance uses its experience, resources and trading capabilities to be an active investor in and proprietary lender to the public and non-profit sectors. The group is located at ORIX USA’s headquarters in Dallas, Texas. ORIX USA is a financial and investment conglomerate with more than 1,400 employees and primary offices in Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Columbus (OH) and Minneapolis (MN). ORIX USA holds approximately $6 billion of assets and manages approximately $25 billion through various subsidies. ORIX USA invests across the spectrum of commercial, real estate, venture and municipal finance and has operating subsidiaries in investment banking, multifamily agency lending and hedge fund management. ORIX USA (www.orix.com) is the wholly owned subsidiary of ORIX Corporation, a Tokyo-based, publicly owned international financial services company with operations in 27 countries. ORIX Corporation is listed on the New York (NYSE:IX - News) and Tokyo (8591) Stock Exchanges.

Follow this link:
ORIX Public Finance Provides Financing for Office Building Leased to Georgia Department of Human Services

This rendering shows plans for a building project under way at the former Peoples Church site, 600 Third Ave. SE. (Credit: Aspect architecture:design)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Downtown developer/architect Steve Emerson is investing at least $5.4 million in an office building now going up on the former site of the Peoples Church, 600 Third Ave. SE.

Emerson is seeking economic development assistance from City Hall in exchange for his investment. It’s a common request, but this time the City Council is raising questions about just how generous it wants to be.

“There ought to be something in here for us,” council member Justin Shields said.

The incentive proposal, put together by the city’s planning staff and Emerson, calls for Cedar Rapids to return to Emerson’s company, Progression LC, 75 percent of the new property-tax revenue that will come in from the site over 10 years. The city estimates that the new investment will generate $1.366 million in new property-tax revenue over 10 years. So under the proposal, $1.024 million would go back to Emerson with the city keeping $342,000.

The new building will retain the jobs of 106 employees and result in the creation of nine more, the proposal says.

City Council member Scott Olson, a commercial Realtor who said he supported the Emerson project, nonetheless wondered why the council was being asked to approve economic incentives now with a building that is already under construction. Also, he said, officials needed to pay attention to incentives in the downtown and how they might impact owners of other buildings vying for tenants — in other words, the city needed to be careful it wasn’t simply shuffling tenants from one owner’s building to another’s.

Colleagues Monica Vernon, Chuck Swore and Shields, meanwhile, wondered why the city couldn’t make some requests of a developer as part of a development agreement in which the city is providing financial incentives. Swore and Shields said they wanted some way to know if developers seeking incentives are using local contractors and local suppliers, while Vernon wondered what design review authority the city might be allowed to have.

“We ought to have some say,” Shields said. “What do you get for a million dollars?”

Mayor Ron Corbett asked Jim Flitz, the city attorney, to provide the council with an analysis of what it may or may not ask of developers.

The council then moved the incentive package ahead for further negotiations before it votes on a final development agreement for the project later this month.

Emerson said he is not alone among developers in beginning a project before incentives have been finalized. The proposal now under review by the City Council has been in the works for some time, he said.

He said he’d needed to start construction on the building, which should be open in September, to meet the deadlines of his new tenants.

In terms of the amount of his request, Emerson said he has presented a financial plan to the city that shows the size of the property-tax help he needs in order for the project to “financially make sense.”

“If I don’t get the money, I’m still building the building,” Emerson said. “But if I lose that money out of the project, it will just prevent me from doing developments for the next eight years in downtown Cedar Rapids. Which is not my intent. I intend to keep doing developments down there.”

In answer to Olson’s comments, Emerson said his new building will not simply result in shuffling existing downtown tenants into a new building. One of the new building’s tenants had intended to leave the downtown, one is outside downtown now and one is coming back downtown after leaving in the wake of the Floods of 2008, he said.

Emerson said all of the contractors working on the project are local ones, and many of the suppliers are in the downtown already.

“I’m a downtown freak,” he said. “I will use anybody associated with downtown if I can. … I don’t have contractors or suppliers coming from out of town. That’s not at all what I’m trying to do.”

Read more from the original source:
Council ponders development incentives for new office building

Notable new construction projects in 2010 included the Hilton Garden Inn, the Johnson County Public Works Office Building, a major addition to the Johnson County Adult Detention Center

Olathe, KS - infoZine - The City's Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) is currently being updated and a series of public input development workshops will kick off this month. The UDO implements PlanOlathe, which was adopted in 2010. The UDO will include new standards for zoning, building design, site planning, infrastructure, landscaping, parking, nonconformities and vested rights, and uses (such as home occupations, cell towers, etc.). It will also update the process for approving new development.

Public input is critical to the UDO update process and the implementation of the City's new comprehensive plan. A public forum is scheduled for Wednesday, February 29 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at Olathe City Hall, 100 East Santa Fe. The session will begin with a 20-minute presentation, followed by an open discussion and comments. A public workshop is also scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on February 29. Lead consultant Mark White of White & Smith, LLC, will facilitate the forum. Mr. White is preparing an analysis of the existing UDO and an outline that we will use as a blueprint for the new draft. Public input will help shape these products and the City's new UDO.

Interested participants can RSVP by contacting Sharyn Mueller at (913) 971-8750 or

smueller at olatheks.org. 2011 Development Year In Review Now Available

The City of Olathe 2011 Year In Review provides detailed statistics on the permitting and development activity that occurred during 2011.

Notable new construction projects in 2010 included the Hilton Garden Inn, the Johnson County Public Works Office Building, a major addition to the Johnson County Adult Detention Center in downtown Olathe, and a number of major church and school additions. Residential unit figures totaled 322 in 2011, down from 364 in 2010, but up from 306 in 2009. The average value per unit for single-family residential has increased from $272,924 per unit in 2010 to $288,907 per unit it 2011.

Related Olathe 2011 Year In Review Link
http://www.OlatheKS.org/Development/LongRange/DandD

Continued here:
Olathe Development Workshops & Year in Review

Thursday, February 16, 2012

AFTER 11 years, the Mandaue City Government finally finished the construction of a three-storey building that now houses the Department of Education Mandaue City Division Office.

The City formally turned over the building to the division office last Tuesday.

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“It’s better late than never,” Mayor Jonas Cortes said, speaking to reporters. The construction of the building, he said, was hampered by some issues the City had to settle with the Commission on Audit.

Though it had been left unfinished for some years, engineers have assured the building is safe, said the mayor.

Benjamin Tiongzon, Mandaue City Division administrative officer, said the cost of constructing the building was P12 million.

A portion of the amount was taken from the Priority Development Assistance Fund of Sens. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and Franklin Drilon.

“We’ve waited for more than a decade. We cannot wait for another year,” he told reporters at the turnover ceremony.

Also last Tuesday, the Aboitiz Foundation turned over 12 computer units and 300 armchairs to the Canduman National High School.

Tiongzon said a portion of the old building of the division office will be demolished in favor of a parking lot. They moved to the new building last Feb. 2.

The office’s frontline transactions, he said, are done in the building’s ground floor.

The building also has a training center equipped with an audio-visual room.

The city engineering office and DepEd officials in the city recently inspected school buildings following the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck Cebu and Negros last Feb. 6.
The inspection team recommended that a school building in Umapad Elementary School and another one in Opao Elementary School be abandoned after large cracks were found on these buildings.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on February 16, 2012.

Sun.Star on social media

More:
Mandaue, DepEd inaugurate new 3-storey building

KUALA LUMPUR: The Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) is proposing an eco-friendly label on construction materials.

The plan is part of the national eco-labelling scheme with the participation of the relevant certification bodies.

"Eco-labelling has to be introduced to encourage the use and demand for environmentally preferable building products and construction methods and techniques," said CIDB construction technology and innovation development sector manager, Emasria Ismail.

CIDB plans to come up with a document criteria for eco-labelling as part its strategic recommendations for improving environmental practices in the construction sector.

It is learnt that CIDB has already developed document criteria for panel boards, carpets and wood composites.

Speaking at the Green Construction Conference 2012 here yesterday, Emasria said the board was now finalising the document criteria for steel, with plans to kick start the pilot project in July.

Meanwhile, Kaarin Taipale, a world expert in urban sustainability, said eco-labelling, or green labelling, was a good start in turning the industry green.

She believed in the motivational instruments - sticks (regulations), carrots (incentives), and tambourines (measures to attract programme) - that she said were needed in getting the stakeholders to go green.

"The carrot for contractors is very small, so we are thinking about that, too. However, the "stick" should be equally big, too. We must continue raising the benchmark," said Taipale, who is with Finland's Energy Ministry.

The prime minister's office in Putrajaya would be a model of sustainable building, which can be easily emulated by others.

The central administrative office is slated to undergo a refurbishing exercise to turn the property into an energy efficient building.

Roger Frechette, who is instrumental in the sustainable designing of Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and in collaboration with KFM Holdings Bhd, is involved in the conceptual design that would help improve energy use at the prime minister's office.

The plan is to reduce the building's energy use by 40 per cent from the current baseline use.

The two-day Green Construction Conference 2012 conference brings together visionaries and leading companies in building technology, design and construction. The event is jointly hosted by the Works Ministry and CIDB.

Read the rest here:
Call for eco-friendly labels on construction materials