Miami, FL (PRWEB) April 02, 2015

The architecture and design firm ADD Inc, now with Stantec, has completed the first phase of the $40 million dollar renovation of the bayfront Southgate Towers residential building located at 900 West Avenue in Miami Beach. The completed North Tower includes a new faade with glass rails, 242 newly redesigned units, lobby, fitness center with yoga room and the addition of restaurant and retail space.

The residences at Southgate Towers, including penthouses, one- and two-bedroom and studio apartments, have new carpeting in the bedrooms, porcelain tile in the living areas and bathrooms, recessed lighting fixtures, European-style cabinetry, washers/dryers and hurricane-proof windows. Modern amenities such as Wolf/Sub Zero appliances, stone kitchen counters and whirlpool tubs have been added to the three-bedroom penthouses.

The second phase of the Southgate Towers revamp, which is scheduled for completion in December 2015, includes the South Towers new faade and 253 redesigned units. Both towers will share the new resort-style pool with cabanas and a spa pool plus a waterfront restaurant and bar and a private marina with boat slips. The main lobby, located between the two towers, will be revitalized with a glass wall, stylish furniture and hospitality lounge. http://www.southgate-apartments.com

Originally built in 1960 by developer Nathan Gumenick, Southgate Towers was among the tallest residential building in the Miami area at the time it opened. Today, the third generation of the Gumenick family is actively engaged in the company. Southgate Towers is owned and managed by Gumenick Properties based in Henrico, Virginia. For more information, http://www.gumenick.com

About ADD Inc, now with Stantec ADD Inc, an award-winning architecture, interior design, planning and branding firm with offices in Boston and Miami, has joined Stantecs Buildings Group, a team of more than 2,500 design and allied professionals working in over 90 offices across North America. This evolution of ADD Inc gives our talented designers access to Stantecs world-class resources and multi-disciplinary expertise, which will enhance the design creativity and capability we bring to projects and position our team to work in locations worldwide. ADD Incs strong reputation for design excellence and our deep expertise in multi-family housing, workplace interiors, commercial/mixed-use buildings, college and university projects, hospitality and branding enhance Stantecs existing capabilities in the Northeast and Gulf Coast. Through this partnership, we can go anywhere to support our clients dynamic needs in even more creative, collaborative, and personalized ways. http://www.addinc.com

About Stantec We're active members of the communities we serve. That's why at Stantec, we always design with community in mind. The Stantec community unites more than 15,000 employees working in over 250 locations. Our workprofessional consulting in planning, engineering, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, surveying, environmental sciences, project management, and project economicsbegins at the intersection of community, creativity, and client relationships. With a long-term commitment to the people and places we serve, Stantec has the unique ability to connect to projects on a personal level and advance the quality of life in communities across the globe. http://www.stantec.com

# # #

Read the original here:
ADD Inc, now with Stantec, Completes Phase One of Southgate Towers $40 Million Dollar Renovation in Miami Beach, FL

Published: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at 7:25 p.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at 7:25 p.m.

Spartanburg-based Pinnacle Hospitality announced Tuesday it signed an agreement with Marriott International to build a new 104-room Residence Inn at Westgate Center behind WestGate Mall.

Company officials said work will begin on the hotel this summer, and they expect construction to be completed next spring. The target audience will be extended stay and leisure travelers.

Westgate Center includes the Hampton Inn & Suites, Holiday Inn Express and Suites, Summit Pointe Conference & Events Center, Spartan 16 Theater and City Range restaurant.

We are thrilled to add the Residence Inn to our growing Westgate Center Development in Spartanburg as we look to expand our hospitality portfolio in the Upstate, Sachin Shanbhag, managing director of Pinnacle Hospitality, said in a statement. The Residence Inn is a leading performer and proven industry innovator.

Pinnacle Hospitalitys new hotel will be in addition to the 88-suite Residence Inn at 9011 Fairforest Road operated as MCR Development LLC.

In January, MCR Development announced it completed an extensive renovation of that hotel, which has been a fixture in Spartanburg Countys hospitality industry since Bill Marriott Sr. personally hung the hotels first sign in 1985.

Pinnacle Hospitality said the new Residence Inn will feature Marriotts amenities, such as spacious rooms, full kitchens and comfortable furnishings. Those will be coupled with the companys Activated Gatehouse design, which offers zones for relaxing indoors and outdoors, an upgraded hot breakfast and free Wi-Fi.

We are very excited about Pinnacle Hospitalitys announcement, said Chris Jennings, executive director of the Spartanburg Convention and Visitors Bureau. The new Residence Inn will be a great addition to the local hospitality industry and great for visitors. We couldnt be happier.

In addition to Westgate Center, Pinnacle Hospitalitys portfolio includes three hotels in Greenville and a restaurant in Duncan. Its partner brands include, Hilton, InterContinental Hotel Group, Marriott and Wyndham Worldwide.

Originally posted here:
New Residence Inn planned for area near WestGate Mall

FRANKLINVILLE Last June 5, Ontario Knife Co. held a groundbreaking outside its Empire Street plant for a 28,000-square-foot addition designed to make the company more efficient and competitive.

The move into the completed $4.4 million expansion is underway, and some machines including stateof-the-art equipment are already up and running.

The addition also houses shipping and assembly operations, which were formerly located on the second floor of the factory.

Robert Breton, executive vice president and chief manufacturing officer at Ontario Knife, said the addition will house some manufacturing, as well as shipping and receiving. The companys kitchen line and machetes were assembled on the second floor.

This makes for a better production flow and other efficiencies, Breton said during a tour of the new facility Monday.

Instead of having to haul parts up to the second flood for assembly and shipping, then back to the first floor, it will all be done on the first floor. The addition brings the total factory space to about 100,000 square feet, Breton said.

Reconfiguration of manufacturing and shipping operations within the existing factory and the expansion is the key to efficiencies and future growth, he said.

Were trying to be as efficient as we possibly can, said Breton, who has been with the company for 40 years. Weve still got room for expansion.

One state-of-the-art piece of equipment has been installed in the addition a laser used to etch Ontario Knife and its logo into knife blades. Another that is waiting to be installed is a computer-assisted grinder.

Well be able to do multiple grinds with more consistency, Breton said.

See original here:
Ontario moving into $4.4M addition

By Rick Charmoli

CADILLAC Updates for the Wexford County Civic Center and the maintenance department may be on the agenda, but so is a request that could make Wexford County meetings more comfortable for everyone.

Commissioner Michael MacCreadyhas made the request to install overhead fans in the commissioners room and that item will be discussed on Thursday. No recommendation was made prior to Thursday's meeting, and it has not been determined if the matter will be forwarded to the full board.

The Recreation and Building Committee is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. Thursday in the Commissioners Room on the third floor of the Historic Wexford County Courthouse, 437 E. Division.

Comments posted to cadillacnews.com are the responsibility of the individuals posting them and the comments are not the views or opinions of the Cadillac News or its employees. If you believe a comment violates the Cadillac News terms of use please mark it as offensive and explain why. Click here to see or terms of use. Frequent violators of the Terms of Use could have posting privileges suspended.

Please note by clicking on Post Comment you acknowledge that you have read the Terms of Service and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms.

Why do telemarketers continue to badger me with phone calls day after day even after I've put my number on the National Do Not Call Registry?

That is a question many ask themselves every ti...

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

1. NUCLEAR TALKS GO INTO OVERTIME

More here:
Addition of ceiling fans part of Wexford Co. committee meeting

The cherry on top is that Stanford also announced it was expanding financial aid. The university said that no parents with an annual income and typical assets of less than $125,000 will have to pay a single cent toward tuition. The threshold for this aid was previously $100,000.

Stanford also said it will offer free room and board -- in addition to free tuition -- for those making less than $65,000, raised from the previous $60,000 threshold.

Without financial aid, annual costs for a typical Stanford student run about $65,000, including yearly tuition at more than $45,000.

Related: 100 students refuse to pay their loans

"Our highest priority is that Stanford remain affordable and accessible to the most talented students, regardless of their financial circumstances," Stanford provost John Etchemendy said in a statement.

As it stands, the school said that 77% of its undergraduate students graduate with no student debt.

Stanford, which came in fourth place in U.S. News and World Report's national university rankings, admitted just about 5% of applicants. A record 42,487 students applied. About 16% of the admitted class are the first in their families to go to college.

Related: Private colleges with the biggest payoff

Stanford isn't the only elite school to offer such financial aid packages. At Harvard, parents making less than $65,000 are not expected to contribute. Families making between $65,000 and $150,000 contribute from 0-10% of their income.

Like Harvard and Stanford, Yale parents making less than $65,000 do not have to contribute to tuition. Beyond that, Yale subtracts a family contribution from the cost of tuition, room and board, books and personal expenses, and will meet 100% of demonstrated financial need.

Read the rest here:
Stanford offers free tuition for this group

The cherry on top is that Stanford also announced it was expanding financial aid. The university said that no parents with an annual income and typical assets of less than $125,000 will have to pay a single cent toward tuition. The threshold for this aid was previously $100,000.

Stanford also said it will offer free room and board -- in addition to free tuition -- for those making less than $65,000, raised from the previous $60,000 threshold.

Without financial aid, annual costs for a typical Stanford student run about $65,000, including yearly tuition at more than $45,000.

Related: 100 students refuse to pay their loans

"Our highest priority is that Stanford remain affordable and accessible to the most talented students, regardless of their financial circumstances," Stanford provost John Etchemendy said in a statement.

As it stands, the school said that 77% of its undergraduate students graduate with no student debt.

Stanford, which came in fourth place in U.S. News and World Report's national university rankings, admitted just about 5% of applicants. A record 42,487 students applied. About 16% of the admitted class are the first in their families to go to college.

Related: Private colleges with the biggest payoff

Stanford isn't the only elite school to offer such financial aid packages. At Harvard, parents making less than $65,000 are not expected to contribute. Families making between $65,000 and $150,000 contribute from 0-10% of their income.

Like Harvard and Stanford, Yale parents making less than $65,000 do not have to contribute to tuition. Beyond that, Yale subtracts a family contribution from the cost of tuition, room and board, books and personal expenses, and will meet 100% of demonstrated financial need.

Follow this link:
Stanford offers free tuition for families making less than $125,000

George and Amal submitted plans for a 12-seater cinema, as part of upgrades to theirBerkshire mansion Property expert says media rooms 'expected' in homes over 10million andcan cost anything up to 100,000 Clooneys will need to choose lighting, interior, seating and an AV system for their cosy space

By Naomi Greenaway for MailOnline

Published: 02:28 EST, 1 April 2015 | Updated: 05:06 EST, 1 April 2015

10 shares

40

View comments

George and Amal submitted plans to their council for a 12-seater home cinema

They're newlyweds settling down in their dream home, and this weekend it was reported that George and Amal Clooney have submitted plans to improve their 10million Berkshire mansion - which include the addition of a 12-seater cinema.

While this may seem extravagant, according to industry experts, a cinema room is now an 'expected' luxury in properties worth over 10million.

Robert Osborn, co-founding director of top luxury property developerConsero London explained: 'Home cinemas are a growing requirement, particularly for brand new or newly refurbished properties.'

Read the rest here:
The real cost of George and Amal Clooney's home cinema in their 10m mansion

Metros book of safety rules for rail operations runs more than 700 pages, a manual so thick that some transit employees refer to it by a nickname: the Brick.

In January after a deadly smoke event in a subway tunnel revealed problems with Metros emergency preparedness a fat new paragraph was added.

The insert warns, in part:

While in the control center, persons should refrain from shouting or becoming involved in loud cross-chatter between consoles/workstations.

The 108-word insert was directed at employees of the Rail Operations Control Center, or the ROCC, where workers monitor the second-busiest U.S. subway, governing the movements of trains.

During a crisis such as the event in which scores of rail passengers were caught in a smoke-filled tunnel outside LEnfant Plaza, the ROCCs role is to calmly and proficiently help direct Metros immediate response.

On Jan.12, however, the center apparently contributed to the chaos.

Moments after a Virginia-bound Yellow Line train left the station at LEnfant Plaza that afternoon, it encountered heavy smoke in the tunnel and stopped. Amid a subsequent cascade of mechanical and communications failures, the six-car train remained stationary as sickened riders, coughing and gasping for air, waited more than 30minutes for help to arrive. One passenger, 61-year-old Carol Glover, died of smoke inhalation.

How the controllers and supervisors based in the ROCCs Landover offices conducted themselves that day, after an electrical malfunction on the tracks generated a massive volume of smoke, is one of many aspects of the crisis under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Although the NTSB and Metro officials have declined to comment on the performance of the ROCC whose director retired in February the instructions added to the Brick on Jan.21 suggest there were problems that day:

More here:
Addition to Metro safety manual suggests problems at control center

UK Provinces continue to overshadow

HotStats UK Chain Hotels Market Review February 2015

Hotels in the UK Provinces continued to post positive year-on-year movements across all key performance indicators in February, with the largest increase recorded in gross operating profit per available room (GOPPAR). Once again, this growth outshined London's results which showed a general decline with average room rate (ARR) being the only exception, according to the latest data from HotStats.

The North East was among the best performing regions and contributed to the positive bottom-line performance of the Provinces by registering a 20.7% increase in GOPPAR. A combined surge in occupancy of 2.6 percentage points and 5.6% in ARR resulted in an uplift in revenue per available room (RevPAR) of an impressive 9.3% to 53.28. With non-rooms revenues also climbing, total revenue per available room (TRevPAR) rose by 6.4% to 93.74, compared to the same period last year.

This increase in revenue performance was further enhanced by effective payroll management and efficient operating cost control, with departmental operating profit per available room (DOPPAR) surging by 9.6% to 49.13. Although overheads per available room rose by 2.7%, profit conversion went up to 22.0% from 19.4% delivering this impressive GOPPAR growth.

RevPAR rises, profits drop in Heathrow hotels

In February, Heathrow hotels demonstrated once again that RevPAR alone can be a misleading indicator of hotel health with a rise of 1.5%, as TRevPAR and GOPPAR levels fell by 0.5% and 0.6% respectively, according to the latest data from HotStats.

A surge in demand of 0.9 percentage points with a 0.3% increase in ARR delivered the RevPAR growth. In addition, travel agency commission per occupied room reduced by 4.3% to 4.72. However, a general decrease in non-rooms revenue per available room from food (-6.0%) and beverage (-0.2%) led TRevPAR levels to decline to 82.84 (-0.5%). While hoteliers managed to marginally lessen payroll costs, a 1.0% increase in overheads per available room further impacted the GOPPAR decline of 0.6% to 24.55, representing a gross profit conversion of 29.6% for the month.

Manchester performs

Manchester hotels recorded a strong February with TRevPAR and GOPPAR levels rising by 12.9% and 30.3% respectively, according to the latest data from HotStats.

Follow this link:
HotStats UK Chain Hotels Market Review February 2015

Yvette Cormier claims she suffered emotional damage after sharing a gym locker room with a trans woman who entered briefly to hang up her coat.

Carlotta Sklodowska (left); Yvette Cormier

Yvette Cormier, the Midland, Mich., resident who received national attention after her Planet Fitness membership was revoked following repeated complaints about seeing at trans woman in the women's locker room, is suing the fitness chain, reportsThe Saginaw News.

Claiming, among other assertions, that she experienced emotional harm, damage to her reputation, invasion of privacy, and breach of contract, Cormier is seeking more than $25,000 in retribution in Midland County Circuit Court. Her suit relates to the March 4 cancellation of her gym membership, a decision the Planet Fitness Midland location's management made in line with its "no judgment" nondiscrimination policy which includes allowing gym-goers to use the locker room that accords with their "sincere, self-reported gender."

Cormier, 48, says she was unaware of this policy when she spotted someone she thought was a "man" local transgender woman Carlotta Sklodowska in the women's locker room February 28. After being informed by her gym's staffas well as the Planet Fitness national headquarters that the woman in question had not violated any policies, Cormier returned to the gym the for four consecutive days to "warn" other cisgender (nontrans) women that trans women were allowed to share the women's facilities. On the fourth day, Cormier was told by staff that, due to her behavior, she no longer had a membership.

Planet Fitness's decision made headlines nationally, prompting Sklodowskato come forward to The Saginaw News to clarify that she meant no harm. "I'm not actually a member. I was there was a guest of my friends," she said, adding that she had asked whether she could use the women's locker room prior to entering and had only used the facilities to hanging up her coat and purse. The gym's policy would still have protected her had she used the locker rooms to change clothing.

Responding to Planet Fitness's claim that her behavior had been "inappropriate and disruptive to other members, [in] violation of the membership agreement," Cormier told the media she acted of concern for her own safety and that of other cisgender women and children a claim she repeats in her lawsuit.

"I feel [the policy] is kind of one-sided. I feel I am the one who is being punished," she explained to theNews,noting that she wished the policy had been made explicit to her when she signed up for a gym membership. She later added to CNN, "I didn't go out to specifically bash a transgender person that day. I was taken aback by the situation. This is about me and how I felt unsafe. I should feel safe in there."

Cormier's safety claims draw on imagery often decried by trans advocates as inflammatory and baseless: that of predatory trans women who enter public women's facilities to threaten others' safety or privacy. In reality, however, trans people far more often face serious safety issues in public bathrooms and locker rooms and are more likely than their cisgender peers to be harassed or physically attacked in gender-segregated facilities.

Cormier's lawsuit was filed by Kallman Legal Group the same week the the Michigan Civil Rights Commission endorsed model legislation for statewide nondiscrimination protections that would include sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, notes Zack Ford atThinkProgress. The commission had already begun urging legislators in November to add sexual orientation to Michigan's Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act a move the House considered in December (in addition to a bill that would add gender identity protections as well), but ultimately failed to pass, according to ThinkProgress. Cormier's lawyers state in a press release that her case "further illustrates the potential harm caused by adding the proposed new categories of sexual orientation/gender identity" to the Civil Rights Act.

Here is the original post:
Michigan Woman Sues Planet Fitness Over Trans-Inclusive Locker Room