Breaking ground

Part one is the railhouse. The preliminary remodel, budgeted at $30,000, is just aimed at making the building safe and habitable, including reinforcing the porch, replacing kitchen appliances and clearing out ducts and vents.

The house will have four private bedrooms and shared living space, including a kitchen, bathroom, living room and basement laundry room. Prospective tenants need to have been referred by a partner group or regional addiction recovery programs, such as Kleen Street and Community Services Northwest.

Right now, were getting everything safe and habitable so we can get bodies off the street, said Justin Crouch, general contractor for JC Remodeling and Construction, working at the site on Monday.

The goal was to by the end of February have everything livable, and were definitely going to meet if not exceed that.

A more comprehensive remodel is scheduled for the coming months, paid for in part by a $100,000 grant from Vancouvers Affordable Housing Fund, and will see the roof replaced, the existing paint stripped and replaced, and a renovation performed to transform the basement originally built to accommodate a horse and buggy into a laundry room and office space for the nonprofit.

The tenants will be a community mix, Thobaben said, meaning that the house is inclusive of all ages and genders. Sex offenders and people convicted of violent felonies are ineligible.

Rent per room would be tough to match elsewhere: $450 a month.

The 150-year-old building isnt without its charms; historic details, like carved wooden awnings and intricately engraved door hinges, survived the restoration. But it also has some quirks. Expensive quirks. Theyre already about $6,000 over budget.

If youve ever done a remodel, you peel back the wall, and you find five things you didnt know about, Thobaben said. You budget the best you can based on what you can see.

The older it gets, the harder it gets, Crouch added.

For the three-man construction crew, the project marks a kind of full cycle. Theyre all graduates of the Kleen Street recovery program, a group that helps addicts experiencing homelessness overcome their substance abuse problems and put the pieces of their lives back together.

Crouch got addicted to opioids after a back injury nearly 20 years ago. He lost his family, his job and his home, and he was living in his truck.

Every time you use could be the last time. I had five overdoses. The goal is to be able to get people through a program like Kleen Street, or through Community Roots, and get people back to the fortunate position that Ive been in, to get back to a normal life, Crouch said.

Crouch said he knows firsthand that the community a recovering addict surrounds themselves with makes all the difference. Neighborhoods like this one could go a long way.

You pick up the characteristics, to an extent, of the people around you. If youre around people that are trying to achieve the same outcome, you tend to kind of pick up those traits, Crouch said.

The major phase of the Fruit Valley development will take place over the summer.

Through a contract with Wolf Industries, a tiny home builder based in Battle Ground, the nonprofit is commissioning 21 structures for $58,000 apiece.

Derek Huegel, owner and founder of Wolf Industries, said Monday that his company can produce approximately one tiny home per week. This is a major contract for the company, which Huegel says has built about 80 houses since opening in 2016. So far, most of their business has been primarily accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, he said.

If we can scale this appropriately, then well be able to start in May, Thobaben said.

A model version of the tiny homes headed to Fruit Valley includes one bedroom, a kitchen with a refrigerator and stove, and a bathroom with a toilet, shower and sink.

Why tiny homes for an affordable housing project?

Theyre cheaper than traditional houses. But unlike trailers and mobile homes, which depreciate in value over time similar to a vehicle, tiny homes act like a miniature real estate investment.

These are built to Washington State Labor & Industry standards, Thobaben said. They are actual houses. They just happen to be able to be moved. They retain value over time.

Tenants will be able to pay down their tiny homes in a lease-to-own agreement. If they pay down their unit, theyll continue to pay rent on the land, similar to agreements in traditional mobile-home parks. But the rent will drop from $700 to $250, not including utilities, and theyll have the option of moving their home to a different location.

Thobaben said his ultimate hope is to create a model thats not only successful but replicable. The Fruit Valley community would be the first of its kind in the county, but ideally not the last.

Its not a complete solution to homelessness in Clark County, Thobaben acknowledged.

Theres the housing-first approach, which is essential, Thobaben said, citing a homelessness strategy that prioritizes housing before other issues like addiction can be properly treated. This is not that, though.

The folks we have identified out of Kleen Street are folks like Justin. They have six months to two years in the program already, theyre ready to graduate, they just need the space to do it, and they need an affordable space.

And he said its discouraging that even with so many factors cutting down project expenses including the project manager and engineer, Ginn Group and PLS Engineering, offering services at-cost, as well as charitable donations and public funds monthly rents on the tiny homes cant go any lower than $700 a month to keep the project solvent.

Thats still a high hurdle, Thobaben said, especially for many people transitioning out of recovery programs and rebuilding their lives. The high rent is indicative of a larger problem that Community Roots Collective isnt necessarily equipped to handle solo, he added.

We need housing, and we need it in a bad way, Thobaben said.

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Renovated railhouse, 21 tiny homes heart of Fruit Valley project - The Columbian

January 28, 2020

A group of Dearborn firefighters has been forced to sleep in their trucks while on their 24-hour shifts due to black mold problems. The mold was caused by flooding that occurred in Fire Station No. 5 on Oakwood Street a few weeks ago when Dearborn faced serious downpours.

Mold, which can develop and spread in just 48 hours, was discovered on a piece of drywall that was removed on January 22 when repairs were being undertaken by the City of Melvindale following a sewer backup at the station on January 9.

Dearborn Firefighters Union President Jeffrey Lentz says firefighters were sent to other stations temporarily while Fire Station No. 5 dealt with the flood damage. However, when the repairs were finished, the cleanup crew discovered the black mold.

There was so much of it, Lentz says, that the fire station is currently uninhabitable.

Rather than send firefighters temporarily to other stations as they had before, the fire chief of Fire Station No. 5 ordered firefighters to take their trucks to the Melvindale Civic Arena. Lentz says hes happy the station was temporarily shut down but that he doesnt agree with where the firefighters were put.

Our firefighters understand with our profession, with working 24-hour shifts, that there will be times when we are tired and we are exhausted and sleep-deprived because of the 911 calls that come in and the citizens we serve, said Lentz in an interview with FOX-2 Detroit. But at the same time, we should be rested and able to perform those duties and we should not be forced to be staying up for an entire 24-hour shift and then expected to be able to make life and death decisions in a split second.

The City of Melvindale currently owns Fire Station No. 5 and is responsible for the stations maintenance. Black mold remediation will be necessary before the firefighters can return to the station.

Black mold is a toxic mold and it can be tricky to get rid of. Compared to asbestos abatement, which is a procedure used to control fiber release from asbestos, black mold remediation requires thorough cleaning and can take weeks in a building as large as a fire station. The abatement process would take up to five days in a building the size of a single-family home.

Because black mold is a toxic mold, its crucial to let professionals take care of the remediation. Symptoms of black mold exposure or black mold poisoning include:

Although theres no research to suggest that black mold can cause cancer or lung disease, its been known to cause other health concerns such as fungal meningitis of which there was an outbreak in 2012. That being said, if you discover black mold in your home, contact an abatement specialist immediately.

To prevent black mold from growing in your home, its important to control moisture and the humidity level. Your interior humidity should stay under 60%. Tinted windows can help to block up to 79% of solar heat to cut down on cooling costs and to reduce humidity.

Black mold likes to grow in homes that have been flooded, so its important to dry any wet materials quickly and to repair leaks. Dry any items in your home thoroughly before storing them away.

Ultimately, dealing with black mold quickly and efficiently is vital not only because it can cause health issues for anyone breathing it in but also because it can do serious structural damage. Any building or space like Fire Station No. 5 needs to be completely dry and free of mold before anyone can safely enter the space without a ventilator mask.

The rest is here:
Dearborn Firefighters Forced To Sleep In Trucks Due To Mold Concerns - Clare County Review

By: PuroClean | 1Shares 45Reads

January 30, 2020 // Franchising.com // Tamarac, FL. - PuroClean, a leading restoration and remediation franchise, today announced that it has - for the second consecutive year - been named a top franchise by Franchise Business Review. With all rankings based solely on franchise owner satisfaction and performance, this years ranking reflects PuroCleans commitment to its franchise owners and relentless support of their success.

Its always an honor to be recognized by industry leaders and top rankings, but this award is particularly meaningful for us because its the only list based 100 percent on franchise owner satisfaction, said Mark W. Davis, CEO and Chairman of PuroClean. We consider our franchise owners the key to our success, and we look forward to continuing to find relevant ways to be a true partner to them.

PuroClean was placed at the top of a list of more than 300 leading franchise brands considered for this years ranking. Its franchise owners awarded the highest ratings to PuroCleans core values, franchisee community and self-evaluation of their personal enjoyment of the business and organization. Franchise Business Review, a franchise market research firm that performs independent studies of franchisee satisfaction, surveyed more than 27,500 franchise owners on 33 benchmark questions. The survey included topics related to franchise owners experience and satisfaction regarding critical areas of their franchise systems, including leadership, training, core values, and overall enjoyment of owning their franchise.

Were proud to be honored by Franchise Business Review for our efforts to support PuroClean franchise owners and their businesses, said Steve White, President and COO of PuroClean. We strive to lead by example and serve our franchise owners in every possible way, in turn, helping empower them to better serve their local communities. As we continue to expand our brand, achievements from industry-leading organizations are a definite pride point, proving that our focus on servant leadership is a true differentiator from our competitors.

One of the fastest-growing franchises in the United States, PuroClean works with individual franchise owners to build a profitable business while simultaneously giving back to the community during its times of need. Providing the necessary support systems to equip franchise owners with the tools and expertise for success, PuroClean received countless accolades for its leadership and innovation within franchising, including Entrepreneur magazines 2020 Franchise 500.

To view the full list of Franchise Business Reviews 2020 Top Franchises, visit FranchiseBusinessReview.com. For more information on the PuroClean franchise system, contact 800-351-2282 or visit http://www.PuroClean.com/Franchise.

Known as the Paramedics of Property Damage, PuroClean provides water damage remediation, flood water removal, fire and smoke damage remediation, mold removal, and biohazard cleanup to commercial and residential customers. Founded in 2001, PuroClean has a comprehensive network of 290+ franchise offices across North America. PuroClean technicians are thoroughly screened, insured, and trained in utilizing the latest in mitigation technology and procedures, while operating under a strict code of ethics. Each PuroClean office is independently owned and operated. For more information about PuroClean, contact 800-775-7876 or visit http://www.puroclean.com; for franchise information, visit http://www.puroclean.com/franchise.

Rachel Tabacnic / Julie Hong Hemsworth Communications 954-716-7614PuroCleanPR@HemsworthCommunications.com

SOURCE PuroClean

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PuroClean Named A Top Franchise By Franchise Business Review For Second Consecutive Year - Franchising.com

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Super Bowl plans fall through at the last minute? Looking for an ideal place to take in the Biggest Game of the Year, and have a cool $1.5 million to drop on you and your 19 closest friends? Well then, 1 Hotel South Beach has lined up the perfect solution with their The Big Game at 1 ultra-luxe packages. While the property offers more affordable sets (Bronze starts at $200,000), the 1 of a Kind Package will without question make you the most popular guy in the 305 (except for maybe Jimmy GQ and Patrick Mahomes).

For your stay, you and your crew will unlock 10 ocean-view homes at 1 Hotela stunning South Beach campus featuring 3,000 feet of living wall wrapping its exterior (made up of over 11,000 tropical plants), a 14,000-square-foot Spartan Gym and a fleet of white Teslas at your disposal. While in Miami youll enjoy a personal butler, dinner at the 1 Hotels rooftop sushi restaurant Watr, daily made-to-order breakfasts by your personal chef and juice drops. There are also Bamford Haybarn Spa treatments for every guest, two cabanas for your entire stay to enjoy their four poolsincluding South Beachs largest rooftop pool with a 360-degree viewand even a group yoga session. Watching playoff is stressful work.

More from Robb Report

When Sunday comes youll be chauffeured to the Hard Rock Stadium for the Big Game, where your squad will enjoy one of the most exclusive open-air suites in the stadium (located somewhere between the 30 yard lines). With $10,000 in food and booze to spend, by the time the game clock winds down to zero you and your friends may be so well-sated it wont matter what team wins.

Of course, not everyone will be lucky enough to get into the game. But if youre already in Miami, there are still appealing options for taking in Super Bowl LIV. Check out these alternative locations to watch Kansas Citys unstoppable offense collide against San Franciscos immovable D:

Say hello to the only Super Bowl party fed by a Michelin-starred chef, in this case Alfio Longo. Located on Island Gardensa billion-dollar project featuring Deep Harbour, the first marina built for megayachts (fitting up to 50 550-foot superyachts)the exclusive waterfront Deck is where Miamis well-heeled sailing crowd meets for cocktails and elevated dining. On Sunday theyre hosting a Super Bowl viewing party, making one of their 10 waterfront cabanas a surefire HQ to watch the game while indulging in everything from Maine lobster rolls and oysters to baby back ribs and Wagyu sliders. The $5,000 Touchdown package includes a half-dozen bottles of Perrier-Jouet Rose, a magnum of Grey Goose and one bottle of Don Julio 1942 (other Champagne Parades range from $1,000 to $2,250). Each waterfront table and cabana features its own private TV, so groups up to 30 can watch the game and either celebrate or drown their sorrows with the superyacht set deep into the nighttill 3 am if you choose.

Swan restaurant, co-owned by Pharrell Williams and LIV founder David Grutman, is no stranger to seating Miamis chicest clientele. Located in the red-hot Design District, the restaurant and its sister lounge Bar Bevy are offering tables on the patio for a minimum of $10,000. The Mediterranean-inspired eatery emphasizes sustainability and fresh, locally sourced ingredientsbut surely this celebration will be anything but restrained.

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Need Last-Minute Super Bowl Tickets? For $1.5 Million, This South Beach Hotel Has You (and 19 Friends) Covered - Yahoo Lifestyle

Richmond Hill

134 Birch Ave. (Bathurst Street and Carville Road)

Asking price: $3,249,999

Sold for: $2,816,666

Taxes: $16,336 (2019)

Bedrooms: 4+1

Bathrooms: 6

Square footage: 5,300

Garage: 2

Parking: 6

Days on the market: 162

After the Raptors made NBA history by beating the Warriors last summer, showings at 134 Birch Ave. increased significantly. Listing agent Voula Argyropoulos says its because potential buyers noticed that there is a basketball court on the property.

The 60236-foot lot, deeper than most properties in South Richvale, she says, also has tons of room for a pool and cabana.

Other than Raptors fans, a mix of buyers were drawn to the 5,300-square-foot brick-and-stone house, including young families looking for a large lot close to amenities and good schools. There are a range of schools public, private, Montessori, Catholic and other religious-based schools nearby, she says.

We had lots of interest. There were a number of comparable homes listed at the time. Buyers had options and they took their time house shopping and comparing, Argyropoulos says.

The sellers bought the spec home from a builder because it fit their criteria and their needs at the time. She says the home was built in 2012 with upgraded finishes, 10-foot ceilings and a two-storey great room with enormous windows letting in tons of light. The gourmet kitchen has high-end appliances and a walkout to backyard.

The dining and living rooms have wainscoting and coffered ceilings. The main floor also includes an office.

A fireplace, one of many throughout the home, graces the master suite. There is also a laundry room on the second floor.

The homeowners have two children and Argyropoulos says they are a very active and social family. They created an outdoor space that can be used and enjoyed by all members. They created two other seating areas for dining and entertaining. Its a great space to enjoy with family and friends.

In addition to the basketball court, she says, The sellers built a lanai (a Hawaiian covered patio) that is heated and set for outdoor entertaining. It has a large screen TV and lots of seating.

The attached garage is equipped with a car lift. My seller loves fast cars and having a two-car garage wasnt going to cut it. He installed a car lift for his sports car and decided to include it with the sale of the home, a feature the buyer also loved.

Listing Broker: Hammond International Properties Limited (Voula Argyropoulos and Jerry Hammond)

Originally posted here:
What it went for... $2.8 million - National Post

Despite being twice delayed, a new 15-story apartment building soon should be coming to Duluth's downtown skyline.

Adam Fulton, deputy director of Duluth's planning and economic development division, expressed optimism the project will be ready to go soon, beginning with the demolition of the Voyageur Lakewalk Inn, the former Hacienda Del Sol restaurant and a building that was formerly home to the First Oriental Grocery store.

"The City has been in close conversation with the development team on this project, and we anticipate they will be finalizing financing over the next few weeks. As far as next steps, we anticipate that demo, site prep, and construction will begin in the spring of 2020," he said Thursday.

Initially, Northstar Development Interests LLC was to have started work on a sleek glass-paneled apartment building in August of last year, but the Duluth Economic Development Authority twice amended a development agreement for the $75 million project, extending the deadline to commence work first to Dec. 31, 2019 and then to April 30 of this year.

Lakeview Tower at 333 E. Superior St. is expected to boast 204 apartments, with commercial space on the ground floor, perhaps even a grocery store.

The project involves Duluth-based Titanium Partners LLC and Madison-based Landmark Development. Brian Forcier, Titanium's managing partner, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The development is expected to proceed with the help of $6.2 million in tax-increment financing a form of subsidy that uses new property taxes generated by a project to cover certain qualifying development costs.

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Final preparations in works for construction to begin on downtown Duluth high-rise - Duluth News Tribune

For a building still behind construction fencing, with plywood strewn around because of the mud, Station House on Capitol Hill sure is a popular place.

Though the 110-unit apartment building isnt set to open for another five weeks, its already received 1,300 rental applications which equals more than 10 people or families lining up for a shot at each apartment, sight unseen.

Three hundred applications were filed in the first ten minutes, like show tickets going on sale. It reached a thousand in the first day, says Capitol Hill Housing, the developer of the building at the corner of E. John St. and 10th Avenue East.

Were in the thick of an affordable housing crisis, and this is what it looks like, said Yiling Wong of the nonprofit developer.

The building is subsidized to be affordable to renters making 60 percent of Seattles median income meaning the most you can make to live there is $66,000 for a family of four (family median income here now tops $110,000). The buildings rent for a one bedroom maxes out at $1,210 a month. That may not sound that cheap, but its about 40 percent below Capitol Hills average one-bedroom market rent of $2,100.

This is how its going whenever affordable housing opens around Seattle. Last week the online site Crosscut reported that a new nonprofit building in the Central Area drew 850 applications for just 74 spots.

Its quite the contrast to where I work, down in Seattles crane-pocked crater where the prosperity bomb went off. In South Lake Union and also downtown, its been common during the past year to see signs begging renters to apply.

UP TO 8 WEEKS FREE! says a deal right now at West Edge, a new luxury tower downtown.

Resident-Only Exclusive Memberships to SLUs Hottest Social Club, says a leasing deal at The Marlowe, in the Amazon jungle.

The four-quarter average of vacancy rates in South Lake Union is 12 percent meaning about one of every eight apartments has been empty over the last year, according to figures from Apartment Insights/RealData, which surveys landlords here quarterly. Thats better than it was a year ago, when 18 percent were vacant.

The rents in some of these new buildings are astronomical. The West Edge, for example, is advertising that21 units are available immediately (out of 339). The average rent for these 21 units is $7,000 per month (it ranges from $2,500 for a one bedroom on the second floor to $19,000 a month for a 38th floor penthouse).

The luxury building boom downtown is driving rents to San Francisco heights. Apartment Insights surveyed the buildings that are going through lease-up (which typically means theyve opened in the past 12 months), and found that in these new buildings the average rent in South Lake Union was $3,241. In downtown Seattle, it was even higher, at $3,489. The most rarefied neighborhood of all, downtown Bellevue, saw the average rent in new buildings hit an altitude-defying $4,580 a month. Two Lincoln Tower in Bellevue currently has one empty apartment going for $21,700 a month or more than a quarter-million dollars a year, just for rent.

In New York, which is well ahead of us in hollowing out its middle class soul, theyve coined a term for this: bluelining. In the redlining of 50 years ago, the financial industry deprived entire neighborhoods of resources. Here the worry is the opposite: That certain parts of town are being deluged with so much investment aimed only at the uber-wealthy (the blue bloods) that entire neighborhoods are becoming off-limits to anyone else. Plus, money chasing ever more luxury causes shock waves of higher rents down the line.

New Yorks example is extremethe squeezed middle class, shrink-wrapped into tiny bedrooms, beneath a canopy of empty sky palaces, The Atlantic magazine wrote about the phenomenon.

That is extreme here our sky palaces arent exactly empty (the Apartment Insights report said theres a very healthy appetite in Seattle for $5,000 per month apartments). But we are well on our way to becoming what inequality activist Chuck Collins calls a swanktuary city. When you have 1,300 people lined up for a shot at a modest apartment building, but its the sky palaces that keep rising in huge waves of development, something is getting seriously out of whack.

More subsidized housing (which likely means more taxes) is one obvious answer. But at some point society may also have to grapple with the meaning of housing altogether: Is it for people to live in, or our money?

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Swanktuary city: No vacancy in Seattle, except at the top - Seattle Times

ST. PETERSBURG Moss Construction has finished work on ICON Central, a 15-story luxury apartment building at 855 Central Ave. in downtown St. Petersburg.

Developed by Miami-based The Related Group, construction of the 368-unit project included the total renovation of the 1926 Union Trust Bank building. The buildings residential units range in size from 542 to 1,470 square feet.

According to a press release, the developer and builder also added 15,000 square feet of street-level retail space to the landmark buildings footprint, bringing its total retail capacity to 19,000 square feet.

We took a previously underserved site that housed the stunning and historic Union Trust Bank building and transformed it into the catalyst for the neighborhoods transformation into a vibrant and walkable community, states Jessica Melendez, vice president of development for The Related Group, in the release. Not only are we seeing impressive leasing activity, but there is also significant interest in the retail space that we look forward to debuting soon.

To maintain the building's historical look and feel, the release states, the project design called for a contemporary federal architecture style that wraps around the structure.

This project was not only about creating and delivering the luxury experience that the ICON brand is known for, but also preserving and incorporating St. Petersburgs historical architecture, Moss Senior Vice President John Bowden states in the release. We are proud to have been able to bring Mosss years of industry experience to ICON Central, and we could not have done it without our great team, our subcontractors and suppliers.

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Builder completes work on 15-story luxury apartment building - Business Observer

The warning from the New York City building inspector was blunt. The facade of the apartment building in the Bronx was crumbling and a corner was separating. The playground outside a day care center in the building had to close immediately.

That was in 2001. Nineteen years later there is still a three-foot gap in the brick facade and the playground, for the centers 50 children between 2 and 4 years old, is still off limits.

The buildings owner has ignored at least 19 violations, failed to pay $49,000 in fines and has not shown up for seven hearings on the dangerous conditions.

Yet the city has been unable to force the owner to make any repairs.

Instead, a 150-foot stretch of scaffolding that envelops the front of the building was put up in 2011 to protect pedestrians and remains there today.

Across the city, about 1,400 buildings are wrapped in wood-and-steel sidewalk sheds not for construction, but because their facades are a serious safety threat. The sites have major structural problems, including corroded masonry and fractured terra cotta, which could come loose and hurt or kill people on the ground.

[The addresses of the 1,400 buildings are at the end of this article.]

Many line the citys most heavily trafficked sidewalks, from luxury condo towers near Central Park to office buildings in Midtown Manhattan.

Others are miles from Manhattan, tucked on impoverished and overlooked streets.

Nobody pays attention. Nobody does anything about it, said Alexander Perez, who lives next to the Bronx day care and whose two daughters attended the center, a half-mile from Yankee Stadium.

Scaffolding in New York often stays up for years without any repairs being done.

Despite rigorous city building laws and a string of high-profile accidents, including the death of a woman killed by falling terra cotta in December, an examination by The New York Times found that building owners routinely flout rules and enforcement actions with no repercussions.

Over the past decade, landlords have ignored more than $31 million in fines over unsafe facades, according to an analysis by The Times. Repairs at buildings have been slow-walked or not started at all. During that period, more than 6,000 buildings higher than six floors did not inspect their facades or failed to file their findings, as required by law.

One building, the Esplanade Manhattan, reported to the city in 2011 that its facade was safe, even though the site was never inspected. Four years later a 2-year-old girl was killed by falling terra cotta from the building.

Critics call the fines too small and say the city does not aggressively deploy the tools it has to impose financial consequences, such as threatening a landlords credit.

The citys building inspectors charged with enforcing the rules can impose fines of $1,000 a year for missing facade inspections and $1,000 for each month that an unsafe building goes unrepaired.

The most powerful tools in their arsenal, such as emergency orders to vacate, are applied only in extreme cases.

City officials acknowledged the shortcomings but said they were moving rapidly to beef up the fines, punish negligent landlords, including charging them criminally in court and adding more facade inspectors.

Were taking aggressive action, Melanie E. La Rocca, the buildings commissioner, said, so that these owners make the needed repairs to their buildings, so that these sheds can be taken down.

Some building owners have not even taken the basic step of putting up sidewalk sheds or netting, leading to deadly consequences.

In April, city inspectors told the owner of 729 Seventh Avenue, a 17-story building just north of Times Square, that terra cotta pieces were missing from its facade and ordered the owner, Himmel + Meringoff Properties, to pay a $1,250 fine and put up a sidewalk shed.

It didnt and eight months later, Erica L. Tishman, 60, an architect, was killed when she was hit by a falling piece.

A sidewalk shed was installed hours after Ms. Tishman died, and the company plans to remove all of the decorative terra cotta. A spokesman for Himmel + Meringoff said repairs were not made earlier because the severity of the April violation had been downgraded by a judge who determined that the facade was not unsafe.

The vast number of faulty facades reflects, in part, the citys successful effort to systematically assess the condition of building facades prompted by the death of a Barnard student in the early 1980s from falling concrete. Eleven other cities, including Chicago and San Francisco, have adopted similar facade rules.

But the proliferation of sidewalk sheds illustrates the weakness in enforcement.

[You can find more information about violations in New York City by searching this Department of Buildings website.]

In New York, sheds around unsafe buildings stretch for a total of 81 miles eyesores that obscure first-floor businesses, collect trash and, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio, are great for criminals as a place to hide.

Even one of the most notorious buildings, a 12-story apartment tower at 601 West 115th Street owned by Columbia University, still has had problems.

In 1979, Grace Gold, a freshman at Barnard, was killed by a falling 1-by-2-foot piece of concrete from that building. Nearly four decades later, an inspection in 2017 found that there were still cracking and crumbling bricks. A sidewalk shed was installed and the university paid $4,150 in fines.

There is no sense of urgency, and the fines are a joke, said Ms. Golds sister, Lori Gold, who has advocated for safer buildings since her sisters death.

A spokeswoman for Columbia University said the facade was fixed in November and that the university would ask the city to sign off on the repairs so the sidewalk shed could be taken down.

In addition to lax enforcement, inspectors have been accused of not acting swiftly enough to inspect facades when there are clear warnings. A city investigation after the death of Greta Greene, the 2-year-old killed outside the Esplanade Manhattan, faulted the Buildings Department for not acting on a tip eight months earlier that the facade had a scary crack that warranted getting someone over pretty quick on this.

In recent months, however, the Buildings Department has stepped up its targeting of negligent building owners.

In October, the department filed misdemeanor charges of noncompliance in Criminal Court in Manhattan against the owners of the seven buildings with sidewalk sheds older than a decade, which includes those used for construction and to shield against unsafe facades. A guilty verdict could bring a one-year jail sentence and fines up to $25,000.

Sidewalk sheds are a critical tool for protecting the public against the dangers of falling debris, said Ms. La Rocca, who was appointed commissioner last May. They can also be a nuisance when building owners let repair work languish, keeping their sheds up far longer than necessary.

The department has also brought charges against individual tenants, including the board president at 409 Edgecombe in Upper Manhattan, a 13-story apartment building, whose shed has been up for 14 years, longer than any other in the city.

Days later, building officials told the city that the facade would be fixed.

Now the department plans to press criminal charges against owners of all buildings with sheds older than three years, a list that includes about 570 properties, according to two people familiar with the agencys actions. The agency is doubling the size of its facade inspection team to 22 members and will soon enact significantly higher fines for facade conditions.

In the days after Ms. Tishman was killed, the department also conducted surprise inspections of roughly 1,330 buildings previously deemed unsafe and found that 220 of them had no pedestrian protections.

The building commissioner is not messing around, said Ben Kallos, a Councilman who has urged the department to do far more to take on negligent building owners. Regardless of who owns the building, they have to keep it safe and the city should be helping out.

Yet sidewalk sheds remain a common sight across the city.

In the Bronx, parents of children at the Mid-Bronx CCRP Early Childhood Center, the first-floor day care in the building where scaffolding has been up for over eight years, said they had not been told the facade was unsafe and believed that the shed was there for construction.

In fact, more than 18 years after a building inspector first noted the walls separating at the corner of the buildings exterior, another inspector, in Nov. 2019, cited the same problem during a review. SUBSTANTIAL VERTICAL CRACKS, the inspector wrote in a citation carrying a $6,250 fine, which has not yet been paid. A partial vacate order, prohibiting access to the playground, was taped to the day care door.

Olga Toledo, who had worked at the day care for 17 years, including as the director, said she quit in 2014 in part because of the landlords refusal to fix the property.

You could see the stuff coming off and falling on the ground, Ms. Toledo said.

Walter Puryear, an administrator at Mid-Bronx Senior Citizens Council, a nonprofit that owns and operates the building, blamed the city for the faulty facade.

The building, he said, was not in a very good condition when the city gave the property to Mid-Bronx in 1993 as part of former Mayor Edward I. Kochs affordable-housing plan to convert city property into residential units.

The nonprofit has wanted to fix the facade, Mr. Puryear said, but could not afford it without financial aid from the city.

They are taking us to court like we are landlords who dont want to do repairs, Mr. Puryear said. The city is aware of that but instead of taking a more proactive initiative of how we can work together, the city instead fines us continually.

An official at the citys Housing and Preservation Department said it had no records showing that Mid-Bronx had sought help.

Two days after The Times started inquiring about the buildings facade, Mid-Bronx hired a contractor to start repairs, at an estimated cost of $659,000.

The nonprofit, Mr. Puryear said, was taking out a loan to help pay for it.

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

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Facades on 1,400 Buildings in New York Are a Threat to Pedestrians - The New York Times

Theres a whole lot more housing heading for the booming Western Avenue corridor of Allston, this time on the site of the Boston Skating Club.

The Davis Cos. on Friday filed initial plans with the city for a 535-unit apartment building on the site of the Skating Club, along with a hotel and condominium project on the site of a hotel Davis owns next door. It would be the latest, and at 22 stories by far the largest, new building on a stretch of Western Ave. that has exploded with new development in recent years, where apartment and increasingly lab buildings are replacing old gas stations and auto shops from Barrys Corner near Harvard Stadium to the Arsenal Street bridge to Watertown.

Theres a lot of really exciting developments going on to the east, and to the south of here, said Stephen Davis, managing director of The Davis Cos. We thought this was the best time to move forward.

Davis Cos., which built and recently opened the Telford 180 condo building next door, bought the Skating Club site in 2018 for $26.25 million. Eighteen months prior, it had paid $14.2 million for the old Days Hotel next door. The two properties combined give it more than three acres to work with on a site along Soldiers Field Road overlooking the Charles River.

After the Skating Club moves to its new complex in Norwood which is expected to be finished this summer Davis wants to build a 535-unit apartment building, with a 220-space underground garage, on the site. In the projects second phase, Davis would knock down the Days Hotel which it revamped last year as the bright and arts-themed Studio Allston and replace it with a new building with 255-room hotel and 120 condos. In between the buildings would be a large strip of open space that Davis said is designed to improve connections between Western Avenue and the Telford Street overpass to Herter Park and the riverfront.

The way were laying out the buildings has a very specific pedestrian connection to the bridge, Davis said. Youll be able to access the river, as a pedestrian, in a better way.

The filing on Friday was was the first step in what will likely be months of review, and Stephen Davis said he wasnt yet sure when they might start construction. More detailed plans will be filed in the coming weeks, followed by community meetings. Its a part of town thats undergoing massive change, and some residents worry about the impact of new commercial development on rents for existing older housing, and on traffic and bus service along ever-busier Western Avenue.

Last fall, the Boston Planning & Development Agency kicked off a planning study that could ultimately rezone much of the corridor.

Davis said his company has been participating in those conversations and decided to push ahead now before the rezoning is complete in part to meet the plans likely objectives, such as more open space and housing. And while the building will reach 22 stories along Soldiers Field Road, Davis said he envisions it being about the same height as other, shorter, buildings in the works along Western Avenue. Regardless, when its done, he expects there will be a lot of interest in living there.

Increasingly, this is a neighborhood that appeals not only to the traditional Allston-Brighton renter base but to young families and people who want easy commuting access to the city of Boston, he said. We want to create a meaningful option for them."

Tim Logan can be reached at timothy.logan@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @bytimlogan.

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Developer wants to build 535 apartments on the Boston Skating Club site in Allston - The Boston Globe