Akron council members not only approved a controversial new apartment building for veterans, the homeless and the disabled in North Hill on Monday they voted to make it larger than originally proposed.

Joel Testa, the developer, initially asked for 40 units, but bumped his request up to 60, based on the need in the community. He said Continuum of Care, which surveys the homeless in the area, estimates 388 additional beds are needed to service the homeless. He argued against putting off the project, as one councilman suggested, because of the need.

People are going to die, he told councils Planning Committee Monday afternoon, referring to the homeless who could perish in the cold because of a lack of housing.

Council members were persuaded by Testas argument, voting 11-1 to move forward with the plans for the second phase of the Commons at Madaline Park, which will be built on Brownstone Avenue, south of Longshore Avenue.

Council member Russel Neal Jr., however, voted against the proposal, saying he thought the city should see how the first phase of the project goes over before signing off on an expansion. The first 60-unit Commons at Madaline Park is currently under construction and is expected to open in March.

I have no problem with the project, he said. I have a problem with us rushing without knowing how this will impact the neighborhood and those who live there. They want to do the second phase before they finish the first.

Council member Linda Omobien, who works for Community Support Services, which will be the co-owner of the apartment buildings, abstained from the votes.

Council member Jim Hurley, who represents Ward 2 that includes the development, backed the project after expressing concerns when it was initially proposed earlier this year.

A facility for the vets I have a hard time saying no to that, he said. In my heart, I think its a good idea.

Councilman Jeff Fusco, who chairs the Planning Committee, reminded council members that they needed to vote based on the best use for the land and not based on who will be living there.

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Akron City Council approves 60-unit apartment building for veterans, homeless, disabled in North Hill

The Chinn Construction crane currently working on the LA Fitness/Apartment site in West Seattle is decorated for the holidays and affords an amazing view of West Seattle and beyond.

The 150 foot tall construction crane currently in place at the site of the construction of the L.A. Fitness and apartment building at the intersection of 39th S.W. Alaska Street S.W. and Fauntleroy Way S.W. is now decorated for the holidays. But it's also a remarkable vantage point to see around the area from a unique perspective.

The crane now sports two 16 foot tall "trees" of lights, a 7 foot in diameter Christmas wreath and two 12th Man LED signs for the Seahawks that are about 4 feet to a side.

Chinn Construction LLC, using lulls in the construction process, decorated the crane in stages finally completing the lighting process this week. James Casal, Superintendent of Chinn Construction LLC said, "The supplier of the operator and what we call a 'bell man' on the ground supplied by Garner Construction stepped up, supplied, and installed with our help all the Christmas lights, the wreath and the 12th man lit sign boards. There's another hoist on the crane that we use to haul the lunch up or a backpack with gear or we hook on to the crane itself with a long rope on it and he pulls it up. Then we take the lights and from the top, dangle them down the side. A guy then just works his way down attaching them to the tower. The boom has a catwalk on it and they walk along it with safety harnesses clipped on to a cable and install the white lights that go out the boom's edge. It's taken them a few days and we've got to keep running too."

The holiday lighting will stay up through new year's eve but the 12th man signboard will likely stay up much longer though, "everyone on the crew is after me to let them take it down and put it up at their house," he said laughing.

The construction project is expected to be complete by February, 2015 and will have 500 parking spaces, and 240 apartments in two buildings plus the L.A. Fitness Center.

ABOUT THE PHOTOS By David Rosen

I was invited by Mr. Casal, to climb up to the top of the crane around 7am. I made sure I had my steel toe shoes on and a good pair of work gloves as well as a safety hard hat. I signed a waiver and then once on the crane, I slowly began my climb up a caged metal ladder straight up to 150+ feet. It was a good climb up and I stopped at every platform to check out the scenery for a brief moment but once I reached the very top platform where the crane's cab was, I was blown away by the spectacular view of West Seattle.

I have never done this before and to get this great opportunity was awesome. The crane operator named Vance Allred was super nice and had a lot of stories to tell me about his past projects he had worked on. I also can't forget Rich Olson who is a great and funny guy who helped hang the lights up on the crane. Overall I had the time of my life and I loved the views and photos that I got to take when I got up there. The morning started out cold and foggy but started to warm up and the fog started to clear by the late morning. You defintely get a good workout that's for sure, though it only took about 5 minutes in total to climb.

Continued here:
SLIDESHOW: The view from the top: Chinn Construction crane is decorated and provides a West Seattle vantage point

Despite heavy opposition from the Glendale Historical Society, a 142-unit building in the San Fernando Road Corridor, known as the Link, was given final approval by the City Council this week.

The nonprofit dedicated to preservation opposed the roughly $25-million project on a roughly 1-acre site at the corner of Central Avenue and San Fernando Road because it would require the demolition of a commercial building built in 1930 that the historical society considers a historic landmark.

Historical society representatives said they did not oppose development altogether, but asked that the developer, George Garikian owner of Kareco Inc. to rehabilitate and incorporate the 1930 structure into the design.

This is a link to our past, said nearby resident Marty Bracciotti. Theres no reason [the developer] cant incorporate this in and mix modern and new.

Doing that, though, would be economically infeasible, according to a city report. Garikian described the building as old, out-of-context and unsafe.

We are not the sleepy community we used to be and we will never be that again, he said, adding that his project signifies the progress Glendale has made.

About 20 opponents spoke during more than an hour of public comment and described the building as a historical landmark and pleaded with the Council to block the proposed design.

The Link is just one of many apartment buildings coming to Glendale. As a development boom has taken hold in the city, roughly 3,800 units are either recently completed, under construction, entitled or in the entitlement process.

Both the developer and the historical society hired consultants to determine if the building at 3901 San Fernando Road should be considered a historic landmark, with each side coming up with a different answer and then describing their opponents defense as flawed and erroneous.

The historical societys consultant, Christine Lazzaretto of Historic Resources Group, claimed the building deserves to be preserved because its a rare example of Mediterranean Revival architecture applied to a commercial building and the builder, Lloyd H. Wilson, brought many industrial businesses to Glendale.

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'Link to our past' not enough to block the Link

A small office building at 54 Sasco Hill Road would be replaced by a mixed-use office and apartment building if a new application wins Town Plan and Zoning Commission approval.

The TPZ began a public hearing on the application filed by Love Where You Live, LLC, on Tuesday night, but the hearing was continued to January.

Raymond Rizzio, the lawyer representing the applicant, said the 2,700-square-foot building, while on largely residential Sasco Hill Road, is in a designed commercial district. "We want to add to the property," he said, and build a mixed-use project.

The new building would be elevated, provide additional parking and comply with Federal Emergency Management Agency standards. The first floor would be office space and the second floor would be an apartment. Both spaces, Rizzio said, are expected to be occupied by the building's owner, Love Where You Live, a local construction company. He said, however, it would be used for office purposes and the property would not house construction equipment.

On one side of the property is a large office building that fronts on the Post Road, and on the other is a private home that uses the driveway at 54 Sasco Hill Road through an easement.

It is expected that the new building would add two more cars to the traffic on Sasco Hill Road during peak hours, according to the applicant.

Landscaper William Kenny said the project calls for marsh area behind the building to be restored, with invasive species and a lawn area removed.

Rizzio said the building would be white-washed brick, clapboard siding and large expanses of glass, taking advantage of the water views of the Mill River. He said while the proposed building would be two and a half stories -- there is a small loft area on the third level and an enclosure for mechanicals -- it would not appear taller than nearby structures because of the lot's low elevation. The first floor would have 3,250 square feet of office space, while the second floor apartment would have 2,819 square feet. The loft area would be comprised of 327 square feet.

The property in question, Rizzio said, sits lower than Sasco Hill Road. "From the street, there's a 7-foot shift in grade," he said.

A mixed-used building, he added, would provide a transition from the abutting commercial district on the Post Road to the residential district on Sasco Hill Road.

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Mixed-use building proposed on Sasco Hill Road

Published: Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013, 3:41a.m. Updated 12 hours ago

An apartment complex for seniors is in development in North Versailles.

Construction of the 40-unit Primrose Apartments is expected to get under way in February or March, with a targeted occupancy date of early 2015, according to developer Hudson Group Inc. of Hermitage.

It's intended to create a community of senior citizens within a building where they live independently in a safe and secure environment, Hudson's director of government services Dana Frankenburg said.

The project is being funded with a $6 million grant, awarded in 2011, from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Section 202 program for elderly housing.

The Community Action Partnership of Mercer County is the sponsor, and will own the building when it is completed. Frankenberg said the project constitutes good use of federal tax dollars.

There is a high need for this type of housing in the North Versailles area, Frankenburg said.

Allen Wagner, who is code enforcement officer for North Versailles, said he sees the facility as a good fit for the township. Wagner noted that approximately 42,000 seniors live within a five-mile radius of the township's Wal-Mart.

The whole Mon Valley is senior citizen rich, Wagner said.

The three-story apartment building will be built on five acres of the old Fillar estate on Denning Way. It's a location that puts it in close proximity to the Giant Eagle and other businesses along Route 30. Wagner, who through marriage has family ties to the previous owners of the land, said the property sat vacant for years and was thought to be undevelopable because of an abandoned petroleum line crossing the site.

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Developer proposes senior complex in N. Versailles

The Reserve Bank has exempted new homes from its LVR regulation. Photo from NZ Herald.

While welcoming the exemption, the Labour Party criticised Westpac bank's decision yesterday to charge higher interest rates for low-deposit borrowers, claiming the Government had created a ''two-tier home lending market''.

Reserve Bank deputy governor Grant Spencer announced yesterday that the central bank, having consulted the building industry and other banks, would exempt new residential construction loans from the LVR restrictions, which were introduced on October 1.

The LVR sought to keep overall bank mortgage lending to people who had less than a 20% deposit, at 10% of banks' lending portfolios, putting first-home buyers at a further disadvantage.

''While high LVR construction lending is only around 1% of total residential lending, it finances around 12% of residential building activity,'' Mr Spencer said in a statement.

''This exemption means that low deposit lending will fall outside the 10% speed limit if it is financing the construction of a new house or apartment.''

Labour's Housing spokesman Phil Twyford said recent evidence from the Registered Master Builders Federation, that the LVR was putting thousands of new builds at risk, ''blew a hole'' in the Government's policy of trying to increase housing supply.

Warwick Quinn, chief executive of the Registered Master Builders Federation, said he had no doubt it was research from independent consulting company for the building industry, Branz, released late last month, which influenced the policy change.

It showed 5000 new houses, not the previously estimated 3000, could be jeopardised by applying LVRs to new house construction.

''The information the banks keep on how much lending they do on new house construction is not great,'' Mr Quinn said.

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LVR exemption for building welcomed

Although the term "apartment" is an American invention from the late nineteenth century, Americans were slow to accept this style of multi-unit, horizontal living.

In Europe, the Industrial Revolution in the early nineteenth century boosted the popularity of multi-family buildings, by offering convenient, affordable, and fashionable housing for the burgeoning urban middle and upper classes. This was particularly true in Paris and Vienna.

Parisians had embraced apartment living since the seventeenth century. In a multi-use pattern that would gain popularity in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s, a typical French apartment house included a street level with commercial tenants and residential apartments on the upper floors. In this pre-elevator era, wealthier tenants lived on the first floor level, or bel tage, above a mezzanine, or entresol, and the higher the level, the more modest the apartment. Attic space bedrooms were reserved for servants.

With the exception of Scotland, where private "flats" (from the Scottish word, "flaet" meaning "story" or "floor") for Edinburgh's wealthy classes dated back to the sixteenth century, Britain's middle and upper classes shunned multi-unit living until the early twentieth century.

"french Flats" in America

Nineteenth-century middle-class Americans preferred a private, multi-story, detached house to a one-level flat in a building shared with strangers. Until the late nineteenth century, multi-unit housing was also tinged by the image of "tenements," multi-unit residences for working class and immigrant families.

Rising costs for urban property after the Civil War prompted builders to market apartments as a respectable alternative to boarding houses. These early apartments were modeled after Parisian apartments and were referred to as "French flats" to distinguish them from tenements. One of the earliest was the 1869 Stuyvesant Apartments on East Eighteenth Street in Manhattan, designed by the Paris-trained American architect Richard Morris Hunt.

Architects adapted French flats to American middle-class requirements with modern plumbing, bedroom closets, storage space, and large, fully equipped kitchens. By the 1870s, the urban housing crunch created such a boom in apartment house construction that, in Manhattan, alone, 112 apartment houses were built in 1875.

By the 1880s, apartment living not only had shed its negative connotations, but also had become a fashionable choice for wealthy families in search of luxury living at prestigious urban addresses. The introduction of the first electric elevators in the late 1880s, along with fireproof steel frame construction, pushed apartment houses skyward from their previous six-and seven-story limits.

Manhattan's Central Park, opened to the public in 1859, created a boom in luxury apartment buildings along the park's western edge. The most famous was the Dakota at Seventy-second Street and Central Park West, completed in 1884. With its sixty-five suites, some with as many as twenty rooms, the Dakota came with a wine cellar, a gymnasium, and croquet and tennis courts, and included central heating, elevator service, and its own electric generator.

Originally posted here:
apartment building: Definition from Answers.com

It is a very simple method and can be repeated over and over again to increase your paycheck and takes very little out of pocket expenses only time. This is a process that we have done over and over again and it works. It will take time and commitment but can produce amazing returns. You will be using other peoples money and that is the magic of the whole thing. You don't need money and in today's world people are afraid to put their money in the stock market so this gives them a perfect alternative to diversify.

Step 1 Find a piece of property that is zoned multi-family. Any Realtor can help you do this.

Step 2 Download a set of 4plex, apartment or condo plans from SDS-CAD Specialized Design Systems Click here for a set of apartment plans that I have used several times to repeat this process. Only $99 You may need to have the plans engineered for your area.

Step 3 Find 4 investors or buyers to help you fund the construction. This is actually really easy. Just put an add in the local paper or online or start talking to people you know who have money to invest and give them your presentation of how they can make 15 to 25% on their money over the next year. This is how it worked the last time I did it. The buildings cost approximately $400,000 to build so we found 4 investors to put in $100,000 each to basically finance the construction of 1 unit each. after 6 months we had completed the building and put each unit on the market for $150,000 each. After all 4 units were sold for and average price of 148,000 we had made a profit of $192,000. we divided the profits. I took the $100,000 off of the top as my commission for arranging and overseeing the construction project and after Realtor fees of $25,000 had $67,000 left to divide amongst the investors which gave them a 16.75% return on their money. You can also take less of a commission and give back more to your investors. WE have done this were people want to be owners so they just get equity in the project when it is done. We have also found people who just want to have the entire building as an investment property and will finance the whole thing for 50% of the profits.

Step 4 Find a contractor to Build the buildings

Step 5 Sell the Buildings and divide up the profits

Step 6 If you want to make more you just repeat this process over and over and make as much money as you need.

Download the plans and start the process today.

Click here for a set of apartment plans that I have used several times to repeat this process. Only $99

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How to Make $100,000 Building a 4-plex Apartment Condominium ...

A tower block, high-rise, residential towers,[1]apartment tower, office tower, apartment block, or block of flats, is a tall building or structure used as a residential and/or office building. In some areas they may be referred to as "MDU" standing for "Multi Dwelling Unit".[2]

High-rise buildings became possible with the invention of the elevator (lift) and cheaper, more abundant building materials. The materials used for the structural system of high-rise buildings are reinforced concrete and steel. Most North American style skyscrapers have a steel frame, while residential blocks are usually constructed of concrete. There is no clear definition of any difference between a tower block and a skyscraper, although a building with fifty or more stories is generally considered a skyscraper.[3]

High-rise structures pose particular design challenges for structural and geotechnical engineers, particularly if situated in a seismically active region or if the underlying soils have geotechnical risk factors such as high compressibility or bay mud. They also pose serious challenges to firefighters during emergencies in high-rise structures. New and old building design, building systems like the building standpipe system, HVAC systems (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), fire sprinkler system and other things like stairwell and elevator evacuations pose significant problems. Studies are often required to ensure that pedestrian wind comfort and wind danger concerns are addressed.

Apartment blocks have technical and economic advantages in areas of high population density, and have become a distinctive feature of housing accommodation in virtually all densely populated urban areas around the world. In contrast with low-rise and single-family houses, apartment blocks accommodate more inhabitants per unit of area of land and decrease the cost of municipal infrastructure.

Various bodies have defined "high-rise":

High-rise apartment buildings had already appeared in antiquity: the insulae in ancient Rome and several other cities in the Roman Empire, some of which might have reached up to ten or more stories, one reportedly having 200 stairs.[8] Because of the destruction caused by poorly built high-rise insulae collapsing, several Roman emperors, beginning with Augustus (r. 30 BC 14 AD), set limits of 2025 meters for multi-story buildings, but met with limited success,[10][11] as these limits were often ignored despite the likelihood of taller insulae collapsing. The lower floors were typically occupied by either shops or wealthy families, while the upper stories were rented out to the lower classes. Surviving Oxyrhynchus Papyri indicate that seven-story buildings even existed in provincial towns, such as in third century AD Hermopolis in Roman Egypt.[14][14]

In Arab Egypt, the initial capital city was Fustat. It housed many high-rise residential buildings, some seven stories tall that could reportedly accommodate hundreds of people. Al-Muqaddasi, in the 10th century, described them as resembling minarets, while Nasir Khusraw, in the early 11th century, described some of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top story complete with ox-drawn water wheels for irrigating them.[15][16] By the 16th century, Cairo also had high-rise apartment buildings where the two lower floors were for commercial and storage purposes and the multiple stories above them were rented out to tenants.[17]

The skyline of many important medieval cities was dominated by large numbers of high-rising urban towers, which fulfilled defensive but also representative purposes. The residential Towers of Bologna numbered between 80 to 100 at a time, the largest of which still rise to 97.2 m. In Florence, a law of 1251 decreed that all urban buildings should be reduced to a height of less than 26 m, the regulation immediately put into effect.[18] Even medium-sized towns such as San Gimignano are known to have featured 72 towers up to 51 m in height.[18]

Tower blocks were built in the Yemeni city of Shibam in the 16th century. The houses of Shibam are all made out of mud bricks, but about five hundred of them are tower houses, which rise five to sixteen stories high,[19] with each floor having one or two apartments.[20][21] This technique of building was implemented to protect residents from Bedouin attacks. While Shibam has existed for around two thousand years, most of the city's houses date from the 16th century. The city has the tallest mud buildings in the world, some more than 30 meters (100 feet) high.[22] Shibam has been called "one of the oldest and best examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction" or "Manhattan of the desert".[21]

Currently, the tallest high-rise apartment building in the world is Chicago's John Hancock Center, constructed under the supervision of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and completed in 1969. The building has 100 stories and stands 344 meters tall.[23]

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Tower block - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How much does it cost to build an apartment building?

What does it cost to build an apartment building? There are a huge number of variables in such a question. For one thing, apartments come as low-rise, mid-rise and high-rise. For the purpose of this discussion we will look at the mid-rise buildings with five or more units in each. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the size of the average apartment is 861 square feet which assumes a "footprint" of approximately 24'x35'.

The building of single mid-rise complex would never be a "DIY" project and usually requires a knowledgeable contractor, an architect, a team of subcontractors, and cooperative owner to get the job done in a calendar year.

For the building of an apartment building with twelve units, the typical costs include:

What is included:

The basic structure of this building would be best if left in an uncomplicated "four square" design. Most owners rely on both an architect and a contractor, and the architect will require approximately 10 - 17% of the total building budget;

Costs to build an apartment building may vary depending on the state or city. To get free estimates from local contractors, please indicate yours.

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Cost to build an apartment building | Estimates and Prices at Fixr.com