A worker was crushed to death this morning and two others were injured after a building collapsed in Harlem, authorities said.

The construction workers were demolishing the one-story building at 604-606 West 131 Street near Broadway at 7:51 a.m. when the accident occurred, police said.

The deceased was identified as 69-year-old Juan Ruiz Sr.

His wife, Francisca Ruiz, sobbed uncontrollably at their home in the Bronx, crying out for her husband as relatives wept with her. She wasnt able to speak as family members held her shaking hands.

"He was a great person and a great father, Ruizs son, Juan Ruiz Jr., said. He was a man of his family and a man of his work. I am very sad and we are all very sad today.

The building, which is owned by Columbia University, is part of a plan on the part of the Ivy League school to expand across a section of upper Manhattan.

One shaken worker, holding a safety helmet covered in soot, said the building tumbled even before they began razing it.

I dont know what happened, said a confused Keith Henry, 54, a machine operator who was inside the building minutes before it fell. The whole thing was falling and nobody touched it.

A resident who witnessed the crash from his apartment window said it sounded like an explosion.

I saw the concrete wall just falling down on the workers, said Willy Katende, 46. Everything just crumbled. Bricks were falling. It sounded like a bomb it came down so fast.

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One construction worker dead, 2 others injured in Harlem building collapse

Posted: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:08 pm | Updated: 5:50 pm, Wed Mar 21, 2012.

MONACA -- A former elementary school building may be granted new life.

A Center Township developer has applied to Monaca Council for a conditional use permit to convert the former Fourth Ward school into an apartment building.

Phil Laird, representing Laird Construction and Kelar Properties, has been granted a public hearing at 6 p.m. March 27 in the borough building.

Kelar properties bought the building for $68,101 in November from the Central Valley School District. Laird's application says he intends to construct 11 apartments in the building, which is located at the corner of Allen Avenue and Walnut Street.

In 2010, borough council approved conditional use criteria that includes garden apartments as a conditional use for school buildings.

The Fourth Ward building was built in 1952 and closed in 1992, according to Times files.

After closing, the building was used as a classroom center for a Beaver County Head Start program, and as the Monaca Senior Center, which eventually moved to the Beaver Valley Mall.

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Developer wants to convert Monaca school

A city design commission granted final approval Wednesday for a proposed five-story apartment building, although a university planning official said it conflicts with future campus expansion plans.

The proposed 14-unit apartment complex would be located at 202 and 206 N. Brooks St. near UW-Madisons Educational Sciences building and would target student renters.

UW-Madison Facilities Planning and Management Director Gary Brown said the area should be used for academic and research facilities as outlined in the Campus Master Plan, which is a construction planning guide for the university.

In addition, Brown said the design violated guidelines which call for the building to be set at least 10 feet from the street.

Brown also said the university continues to oppose the project because it does not follow the neighborhood plan.

Despite the universitys disapproval, commission members decided the Campus Master Plan includes planning guidelines rather than strict rules for future construction projects.

The commission decided to grant final approval of the project at Wednesdays meeting and said the design would be consistent with other buildings in the neighborhood.

Being this close in vicinity to the campus, I feel like this would be a great project for students, said Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8. I see it fitting into context with the development of the neighborhood its in.

At the same meeting, developers introduced plans for a 65-unit apartment building with a design complimentary to Union South at 1323 W. Dayton St.

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City officials approve Brooks Street apartment proposal

Construction of a $55-million apartment building at Annapolis Towne Centre will start next week, but the prospect of congested parking lots has some businesses wary.

To cope with construction, workers will reconfigure the Riva Road median so motorists can turn left into the parking lot in front of Gordon Biersch. An additional security guard will be hired to work 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at that entrance to help with parking. On Thursday, a free valet stand also will be set up.

Weve done these things proactively, Greenberg Gibbons President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Fitzpatrick said.

We want (the tenants) to be successful, Fitzpatrick aid. We take this as a positive for the Towne Centre. There will be some transition while were going through construction, but at the end of the day, weve demonstrated being good operators and that we know how to manage first-class retail property.

Tenants have mixed feelings about the addition of the apartments, which are expected to be two- and three-bedroom units with rents as high as $1,600. An online petition has been launched in opposition, because Annapolis does not need further development, crowding our streets, and cluttering our skyline, according to the document at Change.org.

The planning for this addition has been going on for some time. In 2010, the Baltimore County developer announced that it wanted to increase the propertys residential units by as many as 225 apartments. The developments Mariner Bay community has 208 apartments, while Parole-based Sturbridge Homes built 150 condominiums in the GrandView building.

There is also concern that more development will make parking even tighter on the Riva Road side of the property. Pei Wei Asian Diner and Qdoba Mexican Grill will also open at that end of the property.

Its going to be a complete nightmare that is going to dramatically affect all of us, said a tenant who does not want to be identified. Mariner Bay Apartments has been in the upper 90 percent occupancy for a very long time. Theyll make a lot more money off of this building than they will off of our building.

But some said there will be a long-term payoff to the work.

Its going to hurt us for traffic on that side, when you try to get out on the Riva Road side, said Lisa Gilmore, manager of Lucy, an active wear store in the development. Itll add more construction (and) traffic, but in the long run itll bring more people.

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Annapolis Towne Centre to add 208 apartments

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Apartment building ‘stacked’ in city

Housing starts edged down in February, but economists found optimism in the new construction data as permits increased. (William Thomas Cain / Getty Images)

March 20, 2012, 11:50 a.m.

Economists brushed off a decline in new residential construction starts last month and instead looked at an increase in permits issued for houses and apartment buildings as a positive indicator that the real estate market is on the mend.

Housing starts fell 1.1% from the prior month to hit a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 698,000, the Commerce Department reported. That was a 34.7% surge from February last year.

Starts were down 5.9% from the prior month in the West and 12.3% in the Northeast. They were up 1.5% in the South and 3.0% in the Midwest.

Building permits told a different story, up 5.1% above the revised January rate and 34.3% above February last year. Economists looked at the increase in permits as a sign that the economy was improving.

In a note, economist Patrick Newport of IHS Global Insight said, This report is one of the more encouraging new construction reports we have seen in the last four years.

He said apartment building is picking up across the U.S., and that home-building was on the rise in the South, which accounts for about half of single-family home construction. Even while starts were down last month, they were at their third-highest level since October 2008, he noted.

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Economists optimistic on new construction numbers

Enlarge Paul Sakuma/AP

The housing market still has a long way to go before a full recovery is under way. The current pace of construction is barely half the rate considered healthy.

The housing market still has a long way to go before a full recovery is under way. The current pace of construction is barely half the rate considered healthy.

U.S. builders started work on slightly fewer homes in February. But they began laying the ground work for a turnaround later this year by requesting the most building permits in any month since October 2008.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that builders broke ground on a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 698,000 homes last month. That's down 1.1 percent from January's revised level of 706,000, also the highest since October 2008.

Building permits, a gauge of future construction, jumped 5.1 percent last month to 717,000. Two-thirds are for single-family homes, which are critical to a housing recovery.

It can take up to 12 months for a builder to obtain a permit and construct a single-family home.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said he expects further gains over the next few months, based on a measure of builder confidence that has increased in five of the past six months.

"Housing will add to growth all year, and beyond," Shepherdson said.

Seasonally adjusted annual rate, in thousands

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Home Construction Slows, But Building Plans Surge

ELKO The permitting of two new buildings in the Rabbit Brush Run apartment complex helped boost the City of Elkos February fees for building permits up roughly six and a half times what they were a year ago $283,887 compared with $44,505 in February 2011.

The two buildings amounted to a total of 14 permits issued, at $2.2 million in valuation, according to figures released by the City of Elkos building department.

The residential is whats helping us at this time, said Building Official Ted Schnoor.

The number of permits issued in February was 146 nearly double the 75 permits issued during the same month last year.

The 146 permits had a valuation of $4.1 million, compared with 75 permits with a total valuation of $1 million in February 2011.

Single-family dwellings amounted to $1.4 million in permit valuations, and $81,627 in permit fees for the city.

Fifty-six permits were issued for the construction of eight new homes. Five new houses in Brookwood Estates were permitted, as well as three in the Spanish Gardens II subdivision.

The residential growth is not expected to slow down anytime soon, as Schnoor estimates March will end with similar results.

The trend is continuing. ... It looks like were going to be issuing quite a few residential permits.

With a higher than average number of applications coming through, there is at least a six-week wait on permits.

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Going Up ...More buildings at Rabbit Brush Run apartments

ELKO The permitting of two new buildings in the Rabbit Brush Run apartment complex helped boost the City of Elkos February fees for building permits up roughly six and a half times what they were a year ago $283,887 compared with $44,505 in February 2011.

The two buildings amounted to a total of 14 permits issued, at $2.2 million in valuation, according to figures released by the City of Elkos building department.

The residential is whats helping us at this time, said Building Official Ted Schnoor.

The number of permits issued in February was 146 nearly double the 75 permits issued during the same month last year.

The 146 permits had a valuation of $4.1 million, compared with 75 permits with a total valuation of $1 million in February 2011.

Single-family dwellings amounted to $1.4 million in permit valuations, and $81,627 in permit fees for the city.

Fifty-six permits were issued for the construction of eight new homes. Five new houses in Brookwood Estates were permitted, as well as three in the Spanish Gardens II subdivision.

The residential growth is not expected to slow down anytime soon, as Schnoor estimates March will end with similar results.

The trend is continuing. ... It looks like were going to be issuing quite a few residential permits.

With a higher than average number of applications coming through, there is at least a six-week wait on permits.

Read the rest here:
More buildings at Rabbit Brush Run apartments

Spain is littered with vacant lots and half-built apartment complexes, where developers ran out of money when the construction bubble burst.

But in one Madrid barrio, neighbors are putting an abandoned tract of urban space to creative use.

Behind a chain link fence, in a dusty weed-filled lot between two soaring apartment blocks, Emilio de la Rosa is planting vegetables.

"Different types of products garlic, beans, tomatoes, lettuce," he says. "We're teaching our children where tomatoes come from not from the grocery store, but the ground."

A generation ago, this was farmland just outside Madrid's city center. But Spain's economy boomed in the 1990s, and municipalities sold off land to developers. Credit and labor were cheap, and condos went up fast.

Then the bubble burst, leaving Spain littered with half-built houses, or land cleared for construction that never began. That's allowed de la Rosa and his neighbors to obtain a one-year permit to create an urban garden, on land slated for development.

"The idea is, with this type of land OK sure, it might be built on tomorrow, but today it's not going to be, because look around at all the empty housing here," he says. "So this is a timely project. This land has spent a ton of years empty. So fine, if they want to build a commercial center here, go for it. Just give me one year to grow my seeds."

More Houses Than Families

People here joke that Spain's construction boom left the country with at least two houses for every family. More than 600,000 homes are for sale nationwide. But the real surplus could be much larger. Most aren't on the market. They're owned by banks, or developers who've gone under.

Jesus Maldonado, who teaches urban planning at a university in Madrid, uses this example of open land and half-built houses to teach his students what not to do in the future. "With the already-built houses, if developers can no longer pay, they get transferred to banks, which will eventually sell them," he says. "Sure, they'll lose money on the deal. But it's better to lose a little bit even half your money than the whole thing."

Continued here:
After Spain's Construction Bust, Gardens Bloom