By Roberto A. Capili

Real Estate Updates

Sunday, February 26, 2012

(Speech delivered by the author during the monthly general meeting of the Philippine Institute of Architects – PIA – Manila Section February 24, 2012 in Pasig City, Metro Manila)

FIRST of all, allow me to extend my deep appreciation for this invitation. It is indeed my great honor and rare privilege to be with you – the cream of the crop of Architects – in this meeting of the Philippine Institute of Architects (PIA), Manila Section, a prestigious organization in the forefront of the Architectural profession. On our part and as our humble share in increasing awareness in various disciplines allied with your profession, we shall share with you the latest developments as regards the real estate industry in general and the professional real estate service practice in particular.

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

Personally, I have had many acquaintances and had actually worked with Architects in several projects which we jointly undertook and handled. I am greatly amazed and hold in high esteem their dedication and professionalism in their chosen field of expertise. The truth is, Architecture and Architectural practice shares a lot in common with Real Estate and Real Estate Practice.

Basically, both fields of Architecture and Real Estate serve as pillars in fulfilling one of the Basic Needs of Man – and that is Shelter. Along the service that we render in this endearing endeavor is the assurance that: Man and the populace lives in a livable and habitable dwelling, moves around in a place or neighborhood that is safe, peaceful and enjoyable and proud of a community that is well-planned and offers all the amenities and facilities that is needed: commercial centers; schools and educational institutions; hospitals, clinics and health centers; government centers and institutions and many others to mention a few, designed by Architects for the welfare of all. I can go on and recite all common grounds which Architects and Real Estate Practitioners share. But that is not what I am here for.

Which brings me to the main purpose of my presence here today with you. The updates on Real Estate. More than two (2) years ago, July 30, 2009 to be exact, a landmark legislation in the real estate business, the Real Estate Service Act (or in short RESA) by virtue of Republic Act No. 9646 was implemented.

The main purpose of the law was to professionalize real estate practice by requiring future practitioners to undergo a four-year college course in real estate and to pass a licensure examination conducted by the Professional Regulatory Board of Real Estate Service (or PRB-RES) in coordination with the Professional Regulation Commission (or PRC). As some of you know, real estate practice was then supervised and regulated by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) before RESA was implemented.

As a recognized profession under our Professional Service Act, Real Estate Service Practice is the newest calling under the wings of PRC, where you as Architects, had long been a standing and recognized member of the community of professionals. The objectives of the new real estate law are:

1. To promote the real estate market, stimulate economic activity and enhance government income from real property-based transactions.

2. To develop and nurture a corps of technically competent, responsible and respected professional real estate service practitioners.

3. To assure the development of real estate practitioners whose standards of practice and service shall be globally competitive through proper and effective regulation and supervision.

4. To promote the growth and development of the real estate industry.

The highlights of Resa could be summarized as follows:

The categories of real estate service practitioners are:

• Real Estate Consultant

• Real Estate Appraiser

• Real Estate Assessor

• Real Estate Broker

• Real Estate Salesperson

> THE CREATION OF A PROFESSIONAL REGULATORY BOARD OF REAL ESTATE SERVICE (PRB-RES) composed of a Chairperson and four (4) Members appointed by the President of the Philippines. It shall have the over-all supervision and regulation of the real estate service practice in the Philippines.

> LICENSURE EXAMINATION. Every applicant seeking to be registered and licensed as a real estate service practitioner, except a real estate salesperson, shall undergo an examination to be given by the PRB-RES. (to be continued)

-o0o-

(The writer is a Certified Public Accountant and president of the Baguio Realtors Board, Inc. Apart from being a recognized Real Estate Practitioner as a Real Estate Broker and Educator, Lecturer and Resource Person, he is likewise a Business Management/NGO/Cooperative Consultant, Project Development Consultant, Financial Advisor/Loan Broker and Columnist. For comments and more information of Real Estate Updates and Studies, you may get in touch with him at No. 04 Old Forestry Compound, Baguio City 2600, Tel. No (074) 427-1971/ Cell Nos. 09109302753/09163188274 or email: bert_capili@yahoo.com/ bertcapili65@hotmail.com).

Published in the Sun.Star Baguio newspaper on February 27, 2012.

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Capili: Sharing real estate with the architects (I)

The Irish Times - Monday, February 27, 2012

FRANK McDONALD

THE WORK of Dublin-based Heneghan Peng Architects will be showcased at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.

“As an emerging international practice, they demonstrate the direction in which Irish architecture can evolve in the future,” said John McLaughlin, curator of Ireland’s presentation at the biennale and former director of architecture with the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.

He said Heneghan Peng was working across four continents on a “wide range of competition-winning projects”.

“Several of these are in sensitive and symbolic sites that include three Unesco world heritage sites,” Mr McLaughlin added.

The practice, established in 1999 by Róisín Heneghan and Shih-Fu Peng, won its most significant international competition in 2003 to design the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, within sight of the pyramids. Work is expected to start on the project this year.

In 2005, Heneghan Peng won an international open competition to design the Giant’s Causeway Visitors’ Centre – the second world-heritage site project to be awarded to the practice. The centre is under construction and is due to open in June.

The practice also designed Kildare County Council’s headquarters in Naas; pedestrian bridges on the site for the London 2012 Olympics; and a library and school of architecture for the University of Greenwich.

Other projects include a bridge over the Rhine in the sensitive Lorelei stretch of the river, although the architects are in dispute with their client over this project, and a masterplan for the Palestinian Museum at Birzeit University near Ramallah.

Ireland’s participation in the Venice Architecture Biennale, which opens in late August, is sponsored by Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council.

Ireland’s commissioner for the biennale, Elizabeth Francis, is an Irish-born architect based in Bologna, Italy.

Culture Ireland chief executive Eugene Downes said the presentation of Heneghan Peng’s work at the 2012 biennale would “promote the high quality, dynamism and strong reputation of Irish architects around the world”.

Read the original post:
Emerging architects get Venice showcase

By  Steve Wartenberg

The Columbus Dispatch Sunday February 26, 2012 6:24 AM

ED MATTHEWS | DISPATCH

A bike race on cobbled Town Street is seen through the arch at the Annex at River South apartment complex Downtown.

Architects are opinionated when it comes to the future of Columbus and the surrounding suburbs — and also quite optimistic.

And those opinionated optimists say the next decade should be interesting and present a lot of opportunities, especially Downtown and in the surrounding historic neighborhoods as more people move in and the vacant spaces are filled in with new projects.

Six prominent local architects from the American Institute of Architects Columbus recently shared their views during a wide-ranging discussion: Keith Myers of MSI-KKG; James Bresler and David Brehm of Braun & Steidl; Michael Bongiorno of DesignGroup; John Kelleher of NBBJ; and Jonathan Barnes of Jonathan Barnes Architecture & Design.

They weren’t focused at all on the design of specific buildings and didn’t share whether they liked the look of the new hospital buildings at Ohio State or Nationwide Children’s or the proposed statue for the Scioto Mile riverfront park.

They were in full city-planning mode, and were more interested in sharing their dreams of what could and should be in and around Columbus.

“We realize that the cumulative efforts of what we do changes neighborhoods and cities, so we are thinking on that scale when we design buildings,” Barnes said.

Downtown and infill came up several times during the discussion.

In the not-so-distant past, the trend was to tear down the old buildings Downtown, which gradually became devoid of residents as people moved farther and farther out. These days, the trend is to preserve what’s left and then fill in the empty spaces with new projects, including a plethora of residential units that are bringing people back to live Downtown.

Downtown will continue to evolve — and these six architects have a vision of how they would like it to evolve.

“Enough with the red brick buildings,” Bongiorno said.

He didn’t mean exactly that. He was exaggerating to make his point: Review boards and planning commissions need to be more open-minded and accepting of new styles of architecture. A diverse sea of different, quality architectural styles will only enhance Columbus, he said.

“There’s a misplaced attention on style rather than quality,” Barnes said.

Everyone agreed that Columbus is filled with wonderful old neighborhoods — and it’s important to retain what’s here and add interesting, quality and sustainable new buildings.

While the future of Downtown and many historic neighborhoods looks promising, there could be problems farther from the center of the city.

Meyers and Kelleher said they are concerned about “the next ring out.”

“Land had been more valuable for homes the past few decades on the edges of the area,” Barnes added. “But it’s changing, and in some areas that land is now more valuable as farmland.”

Older residential and commercial developments in outlying areas could actually be plowed under and turned back into farms.

How’s that for reversing a trend?

These architects probably wouldn’t shed many tears if some of these suburban projects go back to farmland.

“Some of the builds in the last 20 to 30?years out there were built to throw away; there’s no quality,” Bongiorno said.

There was also agreement that many of these big suburban projects didn’t do a good job of integrating the residential units into the community.

This type of development is happening in the city — and everyone seemed to agree there are several opportunities to reinvigorate many long-suffering neighborhoods:

“Nationwide Children’s Hospital is expanding — how will it affect the area?” Kelleher wondered.

“Franklinton is on everyone’s radar,” Myers said.

The area around the new Hollywood Casino Columbus is another hot spot — and development around this project could reutilize this section of the city.

Grandview Yard is another development the group believes has an interesting future.

And so is Ohio State, where several student-housing projects are planned.

Brehm praised Ohio State for “creating a high-quality neighborhood community for students with redevelopment of their North Campus housing district.”

In other words, there’s a lot to be optimistic about.

“But we need leaders who are well-informed and make the kind of decisions that make us a better city,” said Gwen Berlekamp, executive director of the American Institute of Architects Columbus.

swartenberg@dispatch.com

Excerpt from:
Architects see promising decade ahead for Columbus

By  Tim Feran

The Columbus Dispatch Sunday February 26, 2012 9:54 AM

FILE PHOTO

Circuit City closed 567 stores when the consumer-electronics chain was liquidated in 2009. Other retailers have moved into those vacant stores to improve their markets.

 The number of vacant stores in Columbus could reach a five-year low in 2012, but the reasons don’t exactly add up to good news.

 The prediction is included in a report, by Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services, which attributes the shrinking vacancies to several factors. Tops among them: Retailers are still slowly filling up space that was built before the recession.

At the same time, the report says, construction of new retail space is expected to remain well below the historical average.

Right now, real-estate companies are focused on filling spaces vacated by other retailers, said Erin Patton, director of the national retail group for Marcus & Millichap.

 “That’s really a trend you’ll see nationwide,” Patton said. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing, because of the market we’re coming out of. We lost a lot of different stores, a lot of concepts, that couldn’t keep up with their rent. It’s a very good thing to stabilize the retail real-estate market.”

The expectation of below-average new construction doesn’t surprise one commercial real-estate veteran.

“Columbus is actually kind of over-retailed,” said Rob Click, senior managing director of CBRE Brokerage Services. “We have a very significant amount of retail space for our population. The number of bodies can just support only so much retail.”

Many of the large retailers that recently signed leases in central Ohio have chosen areas with healthy population growth and relatively high household incomes, including Polaris, Easton and Westerville.

Last week, for example, the outdoor retailer Cabela’s announced that it will open an 80,000-square-foot store — its first in Ohio — in the Polaris area.

“The biggest impact is going to be the Cabela’s deal recently announced,” Click said. “That’s probably the single biggest retail addition that’s going to happen this year.”

Grocer Earth Fare’s move into a 30,000-square-foot space at the Gemini Place Towne Center in Polaris will be another confirmation that the neighborhood is one of the top retail areas in Columbus, Patton said.

The Marcus & Millichap report says that the home-improvement retailer

Menard’s move into a 240,000-square-foot space at the site of the former Northland Mall last year should help revitalize the Morse Road corridor. It also notes that a WalMart opening in Westerville by midyear should increase traffic in that area, too. Both moves should attract smaller tenants to vacant spaces nearby.

The large number of vacancies that arose as Circuit City, Linens ’n Things and other chains closed stores led other retailers, including discounters, to move up to better locations, the report says, adding that . that trend should continue, albeit at a slower pace.

“It was a very opportunistic time for Big Lots or

Ollie’s, among others, to gain market share,” Patton said. “There are still opportunities out there for players who want to do it. The vacancy rate is still fairly high.”

tferan@dispatch.com

More here:
Regional retailing vacancies fill slowly

Last Updated: February 27, 2012 12:05pm ET

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Only about 300,000 square feet
of retail space will come online
in Charlotte in 2012.

CHARLOTTE—Slowly recovering, that’s the word on the retail front in Charlotte, according to the Marcus & Millichap’s 2012 Market Outlook.

Limited construction and large lease signings will allow the Charlotte metro to post positive absorption in 2012, M&M predicts. Meanwhile, the firm expects multi-tenant velocity to pick up thanks to out-of-state sellers handing off stabilized shopping centers and risk-averse buyers targeting single-tenant properties.

“With little movement on the development front, smart owners of existing centers are utilizing capital to retain signature tenants and attract new retail concepts,” Susan McGuire, principal at CNL Crosland, tells GlobeSt.com. “They are making their asset stronger and working with tenants to ‘right-size’ their space.”

Indeed, only about 300,000 square feet of retail space will come online in Charlotte in 2012, expanding the inventory by a meager 0.3 percent, M&M reports. Vacancy rates will dip 60 basis points to 8.4% in 2012 while rents climb 1.6% to $17.56 per square foot.

M&M predicts institutional operators looking to reposition assets will list performing shopping centers with a national anchor and solid tenant roster at cap rates near 7.5% while REITs and private buyers seeking higher cash-on cash returns will finance these investment-grade products to expand their portfolios.

Finally, as conditions tighten, owners will invest in minor upgrades to facilitate higher rents over the next five years, according to Marcus & Millichap’s report. At the same time, the firm expects 1031-exchange buyers to disperse their equity into single-tenant buildings near major transit corridors as a hedge against inflation.

For more thought leadership from Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services, check out "StreetSmart," a blog by Hessam Nadji, the firm's managing director of research and advisory services. The blog provides Thought Leadership positions on a variety of commercial real estate-related issues. Click here to watch Nadji on CNBC's "Realty Check" program talking about multifamily and the housing crash. For more information on the Thought Leadership program, contact Scott Thompson at sthompson@alm.com.

Categories: Southeast, Retail, Acquisitions/Dispositions, Development, Leasing, Marcus & Millichap, Analysis, Charlotte

Go here to see the original:
Charlotte Retail Sector Continues Slow Recovery

SALT LAKE CITY — Next month Salt Lake City is expected to finally celebrate the grand opening of the state's most highly anticipated retail project in more than a decade. City Creek Center is scheduled to open its doors March 22.

During an exclusive tour for the Deseret News and KSL on Thursday, work crews clad in orange and green vests with hard hats stood on ladders and wielded tools — the sound of saws, drills and hammers echoing throughout the property. The workers could be seen moving in and out of the area as they bring in interiors for the retail stores now under construction.

While the vast majority of the construction work is complete, crews are still busy building out the individual retail spaces and putting the final touches on the remaining unfinished public areas from early in the morning to late at night.

Retailers who have taken out improvement permits with Salt Lake City

Stores:

1. ???77kids

2. ???Abercrombie & Fitch

3. ???Aldo Shoes

4. ???Allen Edmonds

5. ???American Eagle

6. ???Ann Taylor

7. ???AT&T

8. ???Banana Republic

9. ???Bauers Fashion Eyewear

10. BCBG

11. Bebe

12. Bose

13. Brighton Collectibles

14. Brooks Brothers

15. Cache

16. Chico's

17. Claires

18. Clark's Shoes

19. Coach

20. Cotton On

21. Disney

22. Express

23. Fanzz

24. Footlocker

25. Forever 21

26. Gap

27. GNC

28. Godiva

29. Gymboree

30. H&M

31. J. Crew

32. J.Jill

33. Kay Jewelers

34. L'Occitane

35. Lenscrafters

36. Lids

37. Loft

38. Love Cultures

39. Lush

40. Macy's

41. Michael Kors

42. Microsoft Retail

43. Mr. Mac

44. N3L

45. Nordstrom

46. OC Tanner Rolex

47. Pandora Jewelry

48. Papyrus

49. Porsche

50. Restoration Hardware

51. Rocky Mountain Chocolate

52. Salomon

53. Steve Madden

54. Sunglass Hut

55. Swarovski

56. The Gym

57. The Limited

58. Tiffany

59. Tricked Out

60. True Religion Jeans

61. Tumi

62. Vans

63. White Box Space

64. White House Black Market

65. Yankee Candle

66. Zaggs

Restaurants:

1. ???Big Sal's

2. ???Blue Lemon

3. ???Cheesecake Factory

4. ???Chick-Fil-A

5. ???Kneaders

6. ???Sbarros

7. ???Suki Hana

8. ???Teavana

9. ???Texas De Brazil

City Creek general manager Linda Wardell said that despite the long hours, there is a great deal of enthusiasm and anticipation from staff and workers about the impending grand opening.

"We've been working on this project for a long time and to know that it is just ... days away from opening," she said. "We're just so excited!"

The architectural details in the public areas show an artistic design that incorporates the unique natural beauty that signifies Utah — use of large red rock to create a comforting desert landscape where visitors will enjoy scenic sky-lit views whether the retractable roof is open or closed.

In the coming weeks, the various fountains will be tested, including one that will have a fire feature as well. Wardell said the center's giant granite fireplace is also ready.

She said the feature, set just inside the South Temple entrance, was designed to serve as one of the major meeting areas of the center. People will say, "Lets meet by the fireplace," Wardell predicted.

As for the retail space, shopping center officals said leasing for the downtown mall is now 92 percent complete. Taubman Inc., the company that manages the retail portion of the project, said it will  release the names of the approximately 80 stores that will be in the shopping center on March 1, in anticipation of a month-long marketing campaign marking the center's opening.

But 66 stores and 9 restaurants are publicly listed with Salt Lake City seeking building improvement permits at the City Creek site.

High profile retailers such as Coach, Brooks Brothers, and Tiffany & Co will join well-known chain eateries like Cheesecake Factory and Texas de Brazil Brazilian steakhouse at the estimated $1.5 billion, 700,000-square-foot shopping and entertainment center.

Other companies listed with the city are Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, Ann Taylor, Banana Republic and BCBG — clothing companies bookended by anchor retailers Macy's and Nordstrom.

Disney will be there, and J.Crew, Express and Fanzz. Footlocker and Aldo will offer footwear; Forever 21 will appeal to — those who are forever 21. Restoration Hardware is moving from Trolley Square, and  Rocky Mountain Chocolate has taken out a permit. Employees of Mr. Mac were moving merchandise from its store on South Temple to its new location in City Creek.

Taubman showed the first signs of its marketing campaign last week as it unveiled billboards and building wraps on display in and around the downtown area. It's a strategy designed to "generate the most buzz" about the historic project, Linda Wardell, City Creek Center general manager, said.

City Creek Center has drawn the attention of retail analysts nationally and internationally as one of the only major retail projects going online in the U.S. in 2012.

Even with the global eye of the retail world watching, Wardell said she does not feel burdened by pressure. She said she is buoyed by the support offered by staff as well as the project's development partner, City Creek Reserve — the for-profit development arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"I'm confident that we can deliver a world class (center) to Salt Lake City," she said. "There are hundreds of people working on the start-up for the center. And that will continue for the next 30 days."

Although a number of retailers are leaving The Gateway for City Creek Center, Wardell believes both shopping centers will be able to coexist.

"I think it's natural that some retailers are attracted to this project and are going to want to move here from other locations," Wardell said. "What makes Salt Lake City such an attractive place to shop is that there are two downtown locations where people can choose to shop and dine. And we've said all along that there are some things that Gateway is going to have some things that City Creek Center won't offer."

She said the Gateway would still draw consumers for the Clark Planetarium, IMAX theater, Discovery Gateway children's museum and its proximity to Energy Solutions Area.

"Certainly, City Creek Center and Gateway are synergistic." she said.

Opened in Nov. 2001, the $375 million Gateway project, built by Salt Lake-based The Boyer Co., included 400,000 square feet of office space, 675,000 of retail and entertainment space, along with high-end condominiums and apartments.

At the time, critics argued that the new open air shopping center would pull business away from the independent "Main Street" shops, putting even more pressure on the already struggling central city shopping district. Now, the roles are reversed.

A spokesperson for The Gateway said despite some of the recent turnover, the development has successfully positioned itself as the premier shopping and dining destination in the Salt Lake region.

"We will continue to be an active lifestyle center serving the public seven days a week,' said director of marketing Heather Nash. "New retailers that will be opening soon include Bettie Page, Francesca's Collections and Epic Board Shop, and our leasing team continues to meet with local and national retailers and we will make announcements as these deals are finalized."

As for the progress of City Creek Center, Wardell said the project is on schedule for its expected March 22 opening date.

"It's sort of like waiting for Christmas to come when you're a child," she said. "We can hardly wait to get there."

Email:jlee@ksl.com,Email:hschwarz@desnews.com

Here is the original post:
City Creek retail spaces nearly filled, construction wrapping up

COMMENT

Traditional security measures are inadequate in virtualised environments. So you just have to do things differently when moving to the cloud, says Rik Ferguson.

Despite the obvious commercial and technological benefits of the cloud, enterprise adoption is still in its infancy.

In survey after survey, the primary barrier at an executive level to the adoption of cloud services is security. Executives are concerned that provisioning data and servers from a third-party datacentre will mean compromising their present level of security, their control and their access to logging and audit information.

So what is really powering the cloud? Datacentre virtualisation, virtual desktop infrastructure, shared storage, and IaaS, PaaS and SaaS have changed the architectural game, possibly more than any other innovation in the past 15 years.

None of the traditional security concerns disappears — although they often have to be addressed in new ways — but new security challenges arise, many of them at an architectural level, which do not have a counterpart in their physical forerunner.

Firewalls at cloud providers must operate as lowest-common-denominator security devices, configured for the least secure customer, but perhaps not for you. Cables, switches, bandwidth, virtualisation platforms and SANs must all be considered a shared resource and as such, untrusted.

Many aspects of traditional infrastructure are collapsed into the hypervisor or the abstraction layer of the virtualised SAN and much security technology and security provisioning becomes an unacceptable bottleneck and business disabler, crowbarred into an unforgiving infrastructure. This situation inevitably undermines both confidence and compliance of potential customers.

Colocation of virtual instances and data with that of strangers, competitors and possibly even malicious actors — we have already seen criminal activity being hosted in Amazon's EC2 cloud, for example — brings a host of new challenges.

How do you maintain confidence that a dormant virtual machine is free of infection or that it will not be grossly out of date and at risk when you bring it online? How do you manage traffic between virtual machines from a security standpoint?

Traffic that travels from machine to machine on the same hypervisor does not touch your physical network and as such, traditional security techniques and technologies will be blind to any risk.

How can you deal with emerging threats such as malware capable of breaking out of a virtual machine to infect the host operating system? What mitigation exists against insider attacks, and how can you ensure that...

Read this article:
Cloud security: How to make the switch

DYESS, AR (KAIT) - The family of Johnny Cash visited Region 8 Sunday afternoon to celebrate the life of the country music icon with his fans on what would have been Cash's 80th birthday.

The family also came to invite Dyess residents to continue the legacy cash left in his small hometown of Dyess, Arkansas. The family is partnering with Arkansas Heritage Sites office at Arkansas State University to restore the home and community where Cash lived with his parents and siblings for 15 years of his life.

"It's just hard to believe that one man could come out of a little town this like and go nation, worldwide," said Charles Tanner.

The Johnny Cash Boyhood Home restoration is part of a master plan to preserve another piece of history the cash family was part of in 1935 during the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal relocated families to the Dyess Colony, an agricultural settlement. Ray and Carrie Cash moved their four children, Roy, Louise, Jack and J.R. (Johnny Cash) from their home in Kingsland, AR, to a new house, with 40 acres of land, a mule and farming seed.

Cash's parents had three more children, and Cash lived in the home with his family until 1950 when he graduated from Dyess High School and joined the Air Force.

Dyess mayor Larry Sims hopes the double dose of history will revitalize his town of 410 people.

"The census we just had went from 515 down to 410, so we know we're going to have to do something and this I think will start bringing people in."

ASU project coordinators say the project costs $7.4 million and is expected to create 110 tourism-related jobs after it is completed in 2013. Infrastructure restoration and construction will total $3.4 million, and includes the Cash home and outbuildings (barn, smokehouse, chicken coop, outhouse), visitor services, the Dyess Colony Theater, Dyess Colony Administration Building, a walking/biking trail and signage.

Endowment funds included in the restoration project total $4 million for scholarships, educational programs and building preservations.

The Cash family believes the project is a huge honor to the legacy of Cash, as well as his parents Ray and Carrie.  

"My sister Joanne and I are the last two siblings, and we're just overjoyed about what's going on, and the restoration of our old home place is very exciting for all of us," said Tommy Cash.

"My parents would really be proud that we're being honored this way and I couldn't help but think about them all day today and how much they would've enjoyed being here."

For more information about the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home Restoration project, visit the Johnny Cash web site here.

Copyright 2012 KAIT. All rights reserved. 

See more here:
Johnny Cash family in Region 8

CORONADO, Calif. -- Developers are proposing major changes for a Coronado landmark home marred by tragedy.

The investment group that owns the Sprekles Mansion has proposed a restoration project on its original 1907 design.

The oceanfront mansion made national headlines after Rebecca Zahou, girlfriend of millionaire Jonah Shacknai, was found naked, hanging from a balcony at the oceanfront property last summer.  Investigators ruled her death a suicide.

“It’d be nice to change the conversation, less sensationalism about the recent tragedies and more about what the house represents as far as a significant piece of architecture here in Coronado and a significant property in itself,” real estate broker Scott Aurich said.

Aurich is working with the firm that is selling the remodeled home. The group would like to replace the slanted tile roof with a flat roof for a sun deck.

The finished design would resemble the Glorietta Bay Inn, architect Harrison Albright’s famous design.

“It’s a significant historical asset.  It was built by John Sprekles, the guy who basically built the [Coronado] Island,” Aurich said. “Taking it back to that original architectural style preserves the integrity and the rich history of the house.”

It may be easier said than done. The sight is protected under the Mills Act, which means the city’s Historic Resource Commission has to approve any changes to the exterior.  It took the previous owner years to get approval for adding awnings to the windows and French doors to the living and dining rooms.

The plan will come up for discussion during a hearing March 7.

See original here:
Sprekles Mansion restoration underway

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — A fire destroyed a large century-old house Sunday morning on Bainbridge's south end.

A man thought to be in his 40s suffered smoke inhalation and was flown to Harborview Hospital in Seattle shortly after firefighters were called to the scene at 6:15 a.m., according to the Bainbridge Island Fire Department. No other injuries were reported.

Five people were staying overnight at the home's property, which is part of a large gated community at the end of Country Club Road on Restoration Point. The approximately 3,500-square-foot house's two occupants were able to escape. Three people were sleeping in a neighboring guesthouse, which suffered no significant damage.

Bainbridge Fire Chief Hank Teran said the main house is a total loss. It overlooks Seattle from a high bluff.

The smoke was visible across Puget Sound.

"We received a number of calls, including one from a ferry," Teran said.

Kate Jacobson was sleeping in the guesthouse when her dogs woke her.

"The dogs were doing something. I looked out, and I screamed over (at the main house) and ran outside," she said.

Her sister, Nancy Jacobson, was sleeping in the main house with her fiance, Matt Sullivan.

"I heard crackling and screaming," Nancy Jacobson said with tears in her eyes and a blanket around her shoulders. "It was mainly in the chimney. There was a lot of smoke."

Teran said it's too early to know what caused the fire.

That it might have been caused by a fireplace or chimney fire is "hearsay right now, but we're looking into it," he said.

About 20 firefighters from the Bainbridge, Poulsbo and North Kitsap fire departments were at the scene. The Leschi fire boat came from Seattle and floated on standby for several minutes. It was sent back after firefighters contained the blaze.

Nancy Jacobson, 29, of Seattle said the house is owned by her parents. She and her friends were staying over the weekend. The house is usually unoccupied.

She and Sullivan planned to marry at the house in a few months.

"We sent out the save-the-dates two days ago," Sullivan said.

Nancy Jacobson said the house was built by her "great-great-grandfather."

"And his great-great-grandchildren will rebuild it, right?" Kate Jacobson said to her sister.

Most of the fire was extinguished by 8 a.m.

Continue reading here:
Fire destroys large, century-old home on Bainbridge's Restoration Point