There was a significant drop in the number of new homes and apartment buildings under construction in the final quarter of last year.

Bureau of Statistics data show the total number of new homes under construction fell 6.9 per cent in the December quarter of 2011 in seasonally-adjusted terms.

It also found the number of apartments being built plunged 13.9 per cent.

The result came on top of a decline of 5.8 per cent in the September quarter, downwardly revised.

Housing Industry Association senior economist Andrew Harvey says the apartment sector has fared worse than private home construction in the past year.

"You've had the removal of the last bits of the government stimulus flowing through in the public sector, and that's coming off as well," Mr Harvey said.

"The public sector does have a high degree of apartment buildings, so that's flowing through there." Mr Harvey says the figures should send a signal to the Reserve Bank on interest rates, after it kept the official cash rate on hold in February and March.

"They probably should have cut at the last meeting," he said.

"We've seen a pretty weak GDP result for the December quarter, and continuing signs that much of the economy isn't as strong as it should be, and some rate relief really is needed." Although the figures reflect activity from last year, TD Securities head of Asia-Pacific research Annette Beacher says they are a key leading indicator of construction activity, and this latest result does not bode well for the sector in the near term.

"While mining, business investment and exports as a share of GDP continue to surge, dwelling investment as a share of GDP in 2011 was 3 per cent, back to levels usually associated with an outright recession," Ms Beacher said in a note on the data.

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New home construction continues to slide

A photo from the East Norwich Avenue apartment fire.

Columbus fire responded to a fire in the 100 block of East Norwich Avenue at about 5:30 a.m.

Firefighters pulled two victims, 34-year-oldChris Lennonand 31-year-old Jessica Walker, out of the burning apartment. They remain in critical condition at The Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center.

Battalion Chief Michael Fowler told NBC4 the male victim is not an Ohio State student but the female either is a student now or is an alumnus. The victims have not been identified while family and friends are told about the fire.

Brad Defauw lives next door to the apartment on East Norwich Ave. that burned Tuesday morning. He said it could have happened to him.

"But as far as, you know, a real fire during the night,I guess right now we don't even have any sort of protection at this point, said Defauw.

Thats because the two smoke detectors in his apartment are broken.

"This is right up here. This is where our smoke detector should be (pointing to a smoke detector without a cover)but obviously you can see that it's not really in place right now. We have a battery, but that battery is dead, explained Defauw.

What about the smoke detector upstairs?

"The battery has been beeping for quite some time, Defauw said.

Read the original:
North Campus Apartment Fire Has Students Thinking About Safety

The Arlington County Board has approved a loan to a non-profit that would fund the construction of an 83-unit affordable-unit apartment building on Columbia Pike.

The Board voted 4-0 to lend up to $6 million to the non-profit developer AHC Inc., which is headquartered in Arlington. The building would be located at 5511 Columbia Pike and replace a Shell gas station, part of a parking lot, and some other undeveloped land.

Funding for the project would come from the county's Affordable Housing Investment Fund, as well as from the AHCMultifamily Revolving Loan Fund, which is made up of federal Community Development Block Grant funds.

It is through public-private partnerships like this that the County is working to preserve affordable housing opportunities on Columbia Pike as the corridor redevelops, County Board Chair Mary Hynes said in a statement. This is an important investment that will help ensure that Columbia Pike, even as it is revitalized with more ground-floor retail, more public spaces and new housing, remains affordable for working people.

The six-story structure would include nineteen apartments affordable to families making 50 percent of the area's median income ($53,750 for a family of four). 64 units would be affordable to families earning 60 percent of the area median income ($64,500 for a family of four).

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Arlington Approves Affordable Housing Loan

MYFOXNY.COM - John Street between Broadway and Nassau Street in Lower Manhattan has five major construction projects all going on simultaneously. The trucks, saws, and cement mixers are loud.

Barbara Minsky's apartment building has a crane next to it. Pace University is building a dormitory on the corner of John Street and Broadway. Across the street the MTA is restoring a landmark building connected to the future Fulton Street transfer station. A hotel is under construction on John. Con Edison is putting in new gas lines beneath the street. And the city is putting in new sidewalks and water lines by John and Nassau.

Who allowed so many projects? Answer: the city's Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center and Department of Buildings. A spokesman said DOB gave permission for construction work from 6 a.m. to midnight at 182 Broadway by John Street. But the spokesman claims DOB has received no complaints.

Catherine Hughes, the vice chair of Community Board 1, said dozens of people angrily complained at Tuesday's board meeting. Hughes said some concessions have been made. Con Ed will finish in two weeks, and deliveries will begin at 7 a.m. -- not 6 a.m.

Local small businesses are hurting. Roxy Diner has been on John Street for 40 years, and now the construction has driven away customers. Thomas Tsolomytis, the owner, said he worries he may have to close the shop. He said business is worse than after 9/11.

Some construction workers say these projects means hundreds jobs for them and when completed would aid in he economic recovery of Lower Manhattan after 9/11.

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Lower Manhattan Construction Noise

A new downtown Akron apartment building is taking shape and soon its roof will take shape, too.

The upscale apartment complex, named 401 Lofts, is being built on 2.2 acres at Main and Cedar streets on property that formerly housed the Parrish McIntyre auto repair store.

The lofts are being built by Middleburgh Heights-based Richland Communities the same development company that built the neighboring 22 Exchange.

But unlike 22 Exchange, which requires residents to be students at an accredited university, 401 Lofts will be geared toward students and young professionals.

These are upscale, high-end apartments located in downtown that we think will attract not only students, but young professionals and others who have that desire to live in downtown Akron, said Michael Weiss, project manager for 401 Lofts and 22 Exchange.

401 Lofts will include amenities such as a full fitness center, computer lab, printing stations, free tanning beds, a resort-style heated pool, on-site parking, conference rooms, a yoga studio and a 15-person movie screening room.

Theres a little bit of everything, Weiss said.

Construction is on pace to open the building for occupancy by August 2013, Weiss said. The J-shaped building has been framed and part of the building will be under roof shortly, he said.

The $12 million complex will be similarly priced to 22 Exchange, which rents by the bedroom, starting at $600 a month. Rents havent been set yet for 401 Lofts, but will mostly likely be around $700 a month, Weiss said.

Units at 401 Lofts also will be rented by the bedroom, each of which includes a bathroom. There are 189 units and 323 beds. The project also will have some studio apartments, which are not available at 22 Exchange.

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New downtown Akron lofts taking shape

ABU DHABI -- In 2008, Jane Strachan and her husband, Andrew, bought an apartment in the Empire Tower, a 230-meter building that was still under construction. Tired of paying Abu Dhabi's notoriously high rents, the South African expatriates wanted to make the apartment their home.

Four years later they are still waiting for their apartment, which was marketed at 3.5 million dirhams, or about $953,000. Construction on the project has stalled and they have been unable to get a refund of the 1 million dirhams they paid to the developer, who is not returning calls.

"We feel robbed," Ms. Strachan said. "We feel exploited and absolutely helpless."

Stories like Ms. Strachan's are common in Dubai, the neighboring emirate. After one of the biggest construction booms in history, there is a glut of luxury apartments in Dubai, prices have fallen more than 50 percent and thousands of people who paid for homes before construction are stuck with investments in half-built developments.

Now Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich capital of the United Arab Emirates, is experiencing many of the same problems.

"You would have thought Abu Dhabi would have paid attention to what happened in Dubai," said Paul Preston, managing director of Elysian Real Estate, a U.A.E. property company. "But that is not the case."

Abu Dhabi's ruling family did not open the market to international buyers until 2005, three years after Dubai. In the wake of the decision, the government announced plans to spend billions of dollars on new developments, generating a surge in buying.

"Frenzy is a good way to put it," said Craig Plumb, head of research in the U.A.E. for Jones Lang LaSalle, the property consulting firm. "People were paying more for projects that weren't built than projects that were built."

Developers were offering attractive deals with low down payments to entice buyers. Some projects sold out in one day, primarily to investors.

"Instead of just buying one apartment and putting 50 percent down, they were buying five apartments and putting 10 percent down on each," Mr. Plumb said.

Read this article:
Once Sky High, Abu Dhabi's Prices Tumble to Earth

By JOY BROWN

STAFF WRITER

Demolition of the Argyle apartment building began Thursday, two weeks after a fire made it structurally unsound.

Organized by general contractor Charles Construction Services of Findlay, crews began using aerial equipment to start tearing down the four-story downtown building. Work had been delayed Wednesday by high winds.

Findlay Service-Safety Director Paul Schmelzer said demolition and subsequent containment of debris will take about a week. The 500 block of South Main Street then can be reopened.

Razing is expected to be done carefully to protect adjacent buildings, particularly one that houses the Wine Merchant. Those two buildings share a common wall, Schmelzer said.

Picking apart most of the Argyle building in relatively small pieces is also necessary for asbestos containment. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has deemed the whole building contaminated because some of the building materials, containing asbestos, caught fire. The asbestos became "friable" or broke into pieces, investigators determined, which enabled the fibers to become airborne and travel to other areas of the building.

Asbestos cleanup at a demolition project typically requires spraying water to ensure containment, and bagging debris in plastic. The materials are then hauled to state-approved landfills that can dispose of them properly.

"The whole building is a hazardous waste product that has to get abated," Schmelzer said. Asbestos handling alone will cost $1 million, he said.

Demolition of the front of the Argyle can be viewed live at http://www.livestream.com/argylebuilding, thanks to TCM Architects, which placed a camera on the Blackford Building across the street.

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Argyle demolition under way

HANK SCHOUTEN

A luxury apartment block, with harbour-view units selling for up to $5 million, is set to rise on the site of Wellington's old market building near Te Papa.

The $50m-plus One Market Lane is an 11-storey development on the vacant site beside the former John Chambers building between Cable St, Jervois Quay and Taranaki St.

An earlier $200m apartment and hotel development planned on the same site by Donald Stott's Land Equity Group failed in 2009 when financing fell through.

Willis Bond bought the block in 2010 and has since refurbished and tenanted the old John Chambers building and scaled back previous plans.

Project director David McGuinness said there had been substantial early interest. "People are still leaving big homes in the suburbs who are looking for smaller city pads, and people from the Hawke's Bay and Kapiti are looking for Wellington boltholes."

The cheapest of the 40 apartments, lower-level 85-square-metre ones with city views, were being sold off the plans for $650,000. All apartments on the harbour side would be more than $1m, with the 310sq m four-bedroomed penthouse priced at $5m.

This is less than half the price and half the size of the penthouse in the proposed Watermark development on the same site, which reportedly sold off the plans to a London investor for $12m.

That apartment was 750sq m and was to have included four bedrooms, a swimming pool, guest suite, separate one-bedroom studio apartment, wine cellar, climate-controlled balcony and garaging for four cars. Mr McGuinness was reluctant to make comparisons, saying it was a different era, but said even the modified penthouse was at the high end.

Most apartments in the new block were going for $1m to $2m. The developers were holding back two levels so apartments on those floors might be modified or even made smaller if market demand showed a buyer preference.

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Luxury apartment block to top $50m

March 8, 2012 in Washington Voices

Lars Neises stands in one of two yoga studios he is building as part of a complex that also includes fiveapartments. (Full-size photo)(All photos)

The neighbors affectionately call it the Haystack Building, because of the rock formations around it. Its been under construction since 2009 but it wasnt until mid-January that the project finally cleared permit requirements at Spokane CityHall.

Its located just west of the South Perry Business District and is unlike other buildings in the neighborhood: its a combined yoga studio and apartmentbuilding.

Owners Rebecca Laurence and Lars Neises are building the Haystack Building at the far northern end of the property where theylive.

Lars always wanted to build a yoga studio, said Laurence about how they got the idea for the building. Most yoga studios are in old refurbished buildings. Sometimes they are not ideal. He always wanted to build the perfectstudio.

When the Haystack Building is done, it will feature two second-story yoga studios with a joint reception area and five one-bedroom apartments four on the ground level, and one at the top level. The building is nestled in the landscape in such a manner that the upstairs yoga studios have easy wheelchair access via a flat ramp in theback.

The Haystack Building is obviously not a cookie-cutter project had the builders realized how difficult it would be to get all the permits they needed, they probably wouldnt havetried.

We could have built a 42-unit apartment complex here just like that one, said Neises, pointing to a neighboring complex. That would not have been as difficult as building this building, but thats not what we wanted todo.

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Haystack Building faced myriad obstacles - Thu, 08 Mar 2012 PST

BERKELEY -- A spectacular two-alarm fire gutted an apartment building south of the UC Berkeley campus early Thursday morning, displacing as many as nine people and forcing the evacuation of nearby homes, the Berkeley Fire Department said.

And it's midterm week to boot.

The accidental fire -- blamed on a set of water heaters -- flared up at 4:13 a.m. at a three-story, six-unit building on Dwight Way near Fulton Street. It took nearly four hours for a squad of 32 firefighters to methodically extinguish it, with tactics quickly shifting to a defensive fight from the outside after the roof and upper floor collapsed and made it unsafe to be inside, said Deputy Fire Chief Gil Dong.

The occupants escaped safely, Dong said. Additionally, residents from adjacent apartments and homes were evacuated amid fears that parts of the fire-ravaged building might break off onto adjacent structures.

Imran Khan, a 26-year-old mechanical engineering graduate student, lives behind the charred building and was forced to flee with cell phone in hand and a blanket around his waist.

"A noise awoke me and then I saw the building on fire through my window," Khan said, holding a pair of blue jeans in his hand. "I grabbed my pants, but did not have time to put them on."

Later in the morning, Khan and other tenants were escorted by firefighters to retrieve things like laptop computers and shoes, but were not immediately allowed to reinhabit their

Khan had a more forgiving midterm schedule, with an exam set for 5 p.m. Thursday, but he could be forgiven for not seeing that silver lining.

"We'll see how it goes the rest of the day," he said.

A team of fire investigators probed the blaze, which displaced at least nine occupants. Dong said not all of the units in the building were rented out.

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Fire guts apartment building near UC Berkeley