Houston Business Journal | Photos: Churches expand with population boom northwest of Houston Houston Business Journal In April 2016, Houston's First Baptist Church broke ground on a 100,000-square-foot church on 32 acres off the Grand Parkway in Bridgeland. After a little more than a year of construction, the church opened the doors to its new Cypress campus on June 11. |
The rest is here:
Photos: Churches expand with population boom northwest of Houston - Houston Business Journal
Lebanon The white steeple that once adorned the First Baptist Church, rising above the roofs of School Street, soon could be revived under recently unveiled plans for a new church building.
A large steeple isnt the only feature architects working to design the new building borrowed from its predecessor, the remains of which were razed in the wake of an arson that destroyed the structure in December.
Renderings for the new church depict a Gothic Revival-style exterior and large windows to draw natural light, features congregants will find familiar.
But those plans are dependent on approval from the Lebanon Planning Board, which is scheduled to review the design during its Aug. 14 meeting. Planning Board approval is the final stage of city review needed before construction can begin.
There also is concern from parishioners that the church might not have enough money to construct the steeple, which is why the building is designed to stand without the feature, according to Jack Althouse of the Pennsylvania-based Althouse, Jaffe & Associates architectural firm.
My goal was to design a church that fit into the community architecturally, Althouse said of the proposed building.
Althouse, who is nationally known for designing churches, said he drew inspiration from churches throughout New England.
The new church will be built on the same downtown Lebanon site as the previous church, which dated to 1870. With the steeple in place, it would stand at a little more than 83 feet tall and would occupy more than an estimated 12,000 square feet of the roughly quarter-acre lot.
Thats roughly the same square footage as the former building, Althouse said, but it wont be a carbon copy.
The buildings footprint is more square than its rectangular-shaped predecessor, meaning Althouse was able to add several modern features.
Inside, a large lobby will greet visitors and churchgoers. The space is a growing trend among churches, Althouse said, giving congregations a place to meet and a space where people can participate in services without actually being in the sanctuary.
Often people have to excuse themselves during worship, Althouse said, adding that the lobby allows such people to remain in the building.
There are plans to do away with church pews in favor of chairs installed in a semicircle, he said. A balcony will be built in the sanctuary, and the worship platform will have enough space to accommodate live music.
It should be a really inspiring place to worship in, Althouse said.
The congregation also asked that the building include classrooms physically separated by walls and a kitchen, according to Althouse. In the old building, members were forced to use dividers to separate educational programs, he said.
Although church moderator Keith Davio hasnt yet seen the plans submitted to the city, hes been pleased with renderings brought to the congregation, which has been meeting weekly at the Lebanon Middle School since the fire.
(Althouse) seems to have incorporated the majority of what were looking for, Davio said in a phone interview on Thursday. Our building committee has put a lot of time and effort into that. Theyve got a good product.
Davio declined to say how much the building is expected to cost or how much money the church was able to collect from its insurance company after the fire. He said completion of the classrooms also might be dependent on funding.
Aside from large windows and a new exterior, there also are plans for minor landscaping and a patio on the property, according to Rod Finley of Pathways Consulting. One American elm and six crabapple trees are proposed for the site, he said.
Because the building is grandfathered, it will not be required to meet current parking standards or conform to maximum height requirements in the citys Residential 2 zoning district, Lebanon Zoning Administrator Tim Corwin said.
The proposal garnered city Zoning Board approval in June, when the church requested a special exception for its new footprint.
If all goes well, construction could begin in September and the building could be ready for use as early as next summer, Althouse said earlier this spring.
For Lebanon resident Linda Armstrong, construction would be a welcome site. Armstrongs house on Green Street sits across from the former church site, which now is fenced off.
I want to see the church put back there. I dont like looking at the hole, she said, looking out from her porch on Thursday. Its totally weird not having the church there.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.
Read the original:
First Baptist Shares Plans - Valley News
This 114-unit building is under construction on the site of the former Charity Neighborhood Baptist Church building on Bedford Avenue and Lincoln Place. View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith
CROWN HEIGHTS A church group that sold their former worship space to a Crown Heights developer says they're being cheated out of space promised to them in the new building going up where the old church once stood.
The Charity Neighborhood Baptist Church had operated at the historic Savoy Theater building at 1515 Bedford Ave. since 1975, members of the church said outside the lot on Tuesday, but moved out after a 2012 sale of the building for $575,000 to 1515 Bedford Avenue Realty LLC.
The church agreed to sell after signing a contract with the company stipulating Charity Neighborhood would receive approximately 5,000 square feet of ground floor space for use as a religious sanctuary, the document reads, and another 2,000 square feet in the basement for a community facility.
But the churchs leader, Bishop Kareem Evans, said the developers representative Yosi Cohen told him several months ago the church would receive space in the basement only not on the ground floor, as promised.
Now, the church community is calling out the developer publicly to right the wrong and will go to court over the issue if necessary, Evans said.
This was our building from the beginning, he said.
Calls for comment to the developers office and Yosi Cohen were not returned Tuesday.
The church has support from high-profile attorney Sanford Rubenstein, who spoke on their behalf Tuesday, members of Black Lives Matter and Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner and aunt to Evans, who has attended the church since 2009. She took issue with the developers trying to force her congregation into a basement.
Nobody would build a church in the basement, she said. We dont want them to disgrace us to dishonor us. They would have never done this in other certain neighborhoods.
Black Lives Matter activist Hawk Newsome, left, stands with Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who is a member of the Charity Neighborhood Baptist Church, slated to take space in the newly constructed building at 1515 Bedford Ave. in Crown Heights. (DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith)
BLM activist Hawk Newsome stood with Carr outside the construction site at Bedford Avenue and Lincoln Place with a sign reading, A man robs god when he doesnt honor an agreement with a church.
It takes a special kind of evil to cheat a church, he said.
Construction has been ongoing at the site since the Savoy Theater building was torn down in early 2014. The building going up on the site will be 10 stories tall and include 114 residential units when complete, building records show.
Read this article:
Developer of Church Lot Cheating Congregation Out of Space, Group Says - DNAinfo
Over the week of July 16 21, the Central Texas Conference Youth in Mission group will gather at the First United Methodist Church to stay inside the church as they set out and volunteer in construction-based mission work. This group is one of many that travel across Texas to provide community service, with groups also gathering in Crowley, Granbury, and Temple.
The CTCYM serving in Corsicana consists of individual youths and adults from five different United Methodist churches; this includes groups from China Spring, Grapevine, Weatherford, and two from Arlington.
Christina Norris, Junior High Youth Director explained to The Daily Sun what her volunteers will be going through.
Our students and adults give up a week of their summer to work hard, sweat, and sleep on the floor because they want to follow the teaching of Christ, she said. They want to be a tangible example of Christs love We eat, sleep, play, and worship together as one family.
During the day, 10 different work teams of youth and adults will head out to do construction-based mission work in the community. Projects normally worked on may be building a wheelchair ramp for someone who is unable to easily get in and out of their home.
It is difficult to adequately describe the feeling you get when you see a wheelchair-bound home owner use their new wheelchair ramp for the first time, knowing that you and your team have truly had a difference in their life, Norris said. It is always amazing to see what a group of junior high students and adults can accomplish in one week when they work together towards a common goal. We hope to inspire others to come together and share the love of Christ to those in need.
The Daily Sun will be following the CTCYM during their stay in Corsicana and provide updates and pictures of the groups' work. To learn more about the mission group, be sure to visit the trinity student ministries website found below.
OntheNet:
http://www.trinitystudentministries.org
View original post here:
Church youth mission group to provide service to community - Corsicana Daily Sun
Before the construction of Hamere Noh Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church in southwest Las Vegas, Demelash Assefas congregation held services in a rented space on University Road and South Maryland Parkway.
Before and after every service, church members would set up and take down their religious objects so the next congregation could use the space. And although Ethiopian Orthodox services are traditionally on Sundays, the churchs 500 members attended on Thursdays because the space was already claimed by another congregation during their normal time.
Now the congregation has its own space closer to where members live. The Ethiopian church was completed about two years ago and is just one of many places of worship recently constructed in the rapidly growing Southwest.
Now everything is settled; we just vacuum and go on to the next service, Assefa said.
Las Vegas growth, especially in the southwest, has made church construction the bread and butter of general contractors such as George Boghos. On a Monday morning at a construction site on West Post Road, Boghos walked through the open entry of what will soon be St. Michaels Antiochian Orthodox Church, a member of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.
I designed this and Im building it from the ground up, he said. Boghos, an architect, said he does a lot of research before embarking on each project. For St. Michaels Antiochian, he worked with the congregations priest, Father John Nicholas, to create a design faithful to the churchs ancient roots in the Middle East.
St Michaels parish was established in Las Vegas in 1965 and was originally in northeast Las Vegas, and when Father John arrived in 2001, its congregation had no more than 60 families.
Now he has 195 families.
No one lived around the church (in the northeast), Father John said. The new location is absolutely centrally located. Its very convenient for everybody, including the northwest people, Green Valley, Henderson and all that.
Boghos likely will return to the site of the Ethiopian church in the next few years to build a banquet hall and community center on an adjacent vacant lot. Assefa said his congregation is still growing; with about 500 members, the building already is at capacity. On holy days, between 800 and 1,000 people of Ethiopian descent show up for services and celebrations, he said.
Most Ethiopians live in south and southwest Las Vegas, Assefa said. We still need more space. We have a large community.
Every Sunday, more than 200 children show up for Bible study and Ethiopian-language classes, he said. An average of two baptisms are held in the church every week, Assefa said, adding to his constantly growing congregation.
From the parking lot of St. Michaels, the red roof of St. Geragos Armenian Apostolic Church is visible in the distance. The 5,800-square-foot church, which Boghos also built, sits next to an accompanying 8,000-square-foot banquet hall and community center. The church took about seven months to build and was blessed in May 2016.
The churches he has built have become part of Boghos life, too. When his eldest daughter married her husband, a Lebanese man, the couple chose St. Sharbel Catholic Church on Rancho Destino Road in southeast Las Vegas (St. Sharbel was a monk and priest from Lebano in the mid-19th century).
St. Sharbel was one of the first churches Boghos built in Las Vegas; it was completed in 2008.
Boghos has a few other projects in the works, including Govindas Sanctuary, a Hindu temple in the southeast valley that will include a worship area, a reference library with Vedic literature, living quarters, gardens and meditation sites, and rooms for yoga classes. And directly next door to St. Michaels Antiochian is the future site of Korean Areumdawoon Church, a member of the Christian Reformed Denomination.
Boghos is Armenian Catholic and added hes happy to help build houses of worship for any faith.
I believe in the good book, Boghos said. The good book says be nice to people So if youre Orthodox, if youre a Protestant, youre a Catholic. It doesnt matter.
Contact Madelyn Reese at mreese@viewnews.com or 702-383-0497. Follow @MadelynGReese on Twitter.
By the numbers
According to the UNLV Center for Democratic Culture, Nevada ranked fourth in 2015 with the greatest number of immigrants as a total share of the population after California, New York and New Jersey.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, foreign-born residents made up more than 20 percent of Clark Countys population, compared with 13 percent of the rest of the U.S. population.
Further Clark County Census data show that of Las Vegass foreign-born residents, 58 percent were from Latin America, 27.6 percent from Asia, 8.6 percent from Europe, 3.3 percent from Africa, 1.8 percent from Northern America and 0.6 percent from Oceania.
Read this article:
As southwest Las Vegas grows, so does number of churches - Las Vegas Review-Journal
Sunlight filtered through stained glass windows at the former Cascade Presbyterian Church on Monday morning as community leaders and other attendees gathered to bid farewell to the churchs former role and welcome its new function as a place for homeless teens.
St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County broke ground Monday on its Youth House at the site. In coming months, the nonprofit organization will remodel the church to provide housing and social services for homeless girls ages 16 to 18.
The Youth House will be as much like a home as possible, according to St. Vincent de Paul spokesman Paul Neville.
A manager will live on-site, and the girls will be able to remain, rent free, for up to two years as long as they remain in high school and until they graduate. The house will include a community space, kitchen, laundry, counseling office and computer lab. Each student-resident will be assigned a mentor. A full-time caseworker will help the students connect to social services and work with mentors and school officials to create individualized plans for steps after high school.
The remodel will cost an estimated $1.85 million, but the organization already has raised about 70 percent of the overall construction cost via donations grants from the Oregon Community Fund, as well as the Collins, Chambers and Autzen foundations.
Earlier this year, local philanthropist and community activist Tom Bowerman announced a $50,000 challenge grant from the OCFs Barbara Bowerman Fund, and donors since have fully matched the grant. Banner Bank has approved a construction loan for the project.
Mondays event which officials described as a ground shaking instead of a groundbreaking was emotional. About 100 people attended the event at the former church at 33rd Avenue and Willamette Street in south Eugene.
The hourlong event included remarks from community leaders, including Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis, Springfield Mayor Christine Lundberg, Bethel School District Superintendent Chris Parra and Dave Williams, the executive director at Hosea Youth Services.
It was not a typical groundbreaking ceremony; there were no shovels, no dirt and no sledgehammers. Instead, it featured musical instruments a guitar, a cowbell, a tambourine and maracas.
Following a series of short speeches, local musician Rich Glauber played guitar and led the group in a song that featured some key phrases and ideas expressed by those who spoke at the ground shaking event:
Put the suitcase down/youre home in this town, Glauber sang. This is a ground shaking/hope is in the making/its earth-changing.
St. Vincent took on the project in the summer of 2016 after the south Eugene-area neighborhood association contacted the nonprofits executive director, Terry McDonald. The neighborhood association wanted St. Vincent to acquire the former church to serve the communitys growing homeless population.
St. Vincent bought the building in December 2016 for $585,000 after the Eugene-Springfield Home Consortium provided a $625,000 federal HOME grant. Although St. Vincent spearheaded the effort, it had some help from several other organizations, including Hosea Youth Services, which will operate the Youth House; the Eugene, Springfield and Bethel school districts; The 15th Night Coalition; and the Eugene-Springfield Home Consortium in an effort to address one of the areas largest issues: homelessness.
On any given night in the Eugene-Springfield area, nearly 400 homeless high school students ages 16 to 18 struggle to find a place to sleep, according to Neville.
Many of them end up couch-surfing with acquaintances, and some end up on the streets, where they are vulnerable to violence, drugs and a thriving human-trafficking trade the along the Interstate 5 corridor, he said.
The most recent data, for the 2015-16 school year, indicated a higher number of K-12 homeless students in Oregon than during the Great Recession, according to data from the state Department of Education.
Last school year, 21,340 homeless students were enrolled in K-12 public schools, or about 3.7 percent of Oregons public school population.
The Department of Education reported the number of homeless pre-kindergarten students in Oregon as 1,929.
Just imagine for a second that youre a 15- or 16-year-old kid, carrying suitcases of your bedding and clothing, and then your backpack with a couple of books, said Janet Thorn, a homeless-student liaison for the Springfield School District. How are you supposed to concentrate on schoolwork?
Thorn said the people gathered at the former church on Monday who have made the Youth House possible have increased the odds of a better future for homeless youth.
This is going to give them an opportunity to change that cycle, Thorn said.
Follow Alisha on Twitter @alisharoemeling. Email alisha.roemeling@registerguard.com .
More Local News articles
Read this article:
Ceremony marks start of church's evolution into Youth House | Local ... - The Register-Guard
PLATTSBURGH Road crews are busy again around Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties with many projects as the season gears up.
General maintenance operations are ongoing on roads throughout the region, including maintenance, ditching and guiderail repair. Traffic is controlled by flaggers when needed.
Fines are doubled for speeding in work zones, and officials urge drivers to be cautious.
Take a look at some of the projects happening now:
CITY OF PLATTSBURGH
Lorraine Street: Water-line and street reconstruction underway.
Oklahoma Avenue: Slope reconstruction at Old Base Marina area.
Bridge Street: Demolition of Highway Oil building continuing with small city park planned.
Maine Road: Getting ready for water-main pipe replacement.
Saranac River Trail: Phase 2, which will include the two bridges at Saranac Street and Durkee Street Extension, will be starting this year. Will continue through 2018.
CLINTON COUNTY
Arthur Road, Chasm Road, Town of AuSable: Paving work continuing on Chasm and Arthur roads. Anticipate some delays.
Prospect Street, Town of Champlain; Chapman, Church streets, Rouses Point: Contractor is nearing completion of work on both streets as part of construction of the Northern Tier Multi-Use Path. Next, the work will shift to Church Street in the Village of Rouses Point. The project also includes the Town of Champlain over the course of the project. Estimated completion date is Dec. 1.
Lamberton Road, Town of Mooers: Replacement of the Lamberton Road Bridge is underway, and detour routes are in place and will be maintained through the construction period. Estimated completion is Oct. 31.
Jarvis Road, Town of Peru: Replacement of the Jarvis Road Bridge underway. Detour routes will be in place and be maintained through the construction period. Estimated completion is Oct. 31.
Route 374, Town of Dannemora: Installation of 5.8 miles of new water line is continuing between the Village of Dannemora and the hamlet of Chazy Lake. Completion is scheduled for Dec. 31.
ESSEX COUNTY
Route 22, Town of Essex hamlet of Whallonsburg:Closed between County 12 (Jersey Street) and County Route 22M (Middle Road)until 5 p.m. today for culvert repair and replacement.Car detour is County Route 55 (Whallons Bay Road) out of Whallonsburg and County Route 22M (Middle Road).Trucks detour is County Route 80 (Lake Shore Road) between the hamlets of Westport and Essex.
Hulls Falls Road, Town of Keene: Road repair on stretch still damaged from Irene, when road sloughed off into the river. Road is open where Hulls Falls Road meets Route 73, but still shut to all traffic at site of repair work. Project is expected to take all summer.
Trout Brook Road, Minerva: Work starts this week to replace the bridge. A temporary span will be in place through the duration of the project.
Route 9N, AuSable Forks, town of Jay, Essex County: Route 9N bridge replacement over West Branch of the Ausable River. Bridge reduced to one alternating lane controlled by traffic signals. Tractor-trailer truck detour using Silver Lake Road (Clinton County Route 1), Bonnieview Road, Route 86 and Route 9N.
Northway (I-87), North Hudson, Essex County: Traffic reduced to one lane in each direction at Exit 29 for bridge rehabilitation over the Branch River in the Town of North Hudson, Essex County. Additionally, the on ramp at Northway Exit 29 from Blue Ridge Road to the southbound Northway is closed during construction. Motorists will be detoured south on Route 9 to the southbound on-ramp for the Northway at Exit 28 and Route 74.
FRANKLIN COUNTY
U.S. Route 11, Malone: Durable pavement marking placement will be performed 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Traffic controlled by flaggers. Expect minor delays. Completion expected by Friday, July 14.
Route 11B, Malone:Durable pavement marking placement will be performed 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Traffic controlled by flaggers. Expect minor delays.Completion expected by Friday, July 14.
State Route 30, Malone:Durable pavement marking placement will be performed 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Traffic controlled by flaggers. Expect minor delays.Completion expected by Friday, July 14.
Route 86, Town of Brighton: Work continuing between the hamlet of Gabriels and Donnellys Corners. One-way traffic controlled by flaggers.
County Route 4: Westville into Fort Covington. Paving continuing on first 4 miles off State Route 37, heading west to State Route 95. Flaggers in place; delays possible.
Lane Street bridge, Malone: Closed deck replacement expected to take five months. Detours in place.
County Road 25 bridge, Malone:Closed deck replacement expected to take five months. Detours in place.
Compiled by News Editor Suzanne Moore
See the article here:
Road Construction Roundup: July 11, 2017 - Plattsburgh Press Republican
Traffic patterns in a small portion of North Augusta will undergo a major change in a few days, with the start of the annual Nike Peach Jam.
The basketball tournament, featuring the country's top teen talent, comes this year in the midst of a massive construction project designed to add two gyms, to give Riverview Park Activities Center a total of six. Play is to start Wednesday and run through Sunday.
At the helm is Rick Meyer, director of the North Augusta Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism. Referring to construction, he said, "It stops Tuesday, but what you'll see Monday will be very limited. There won't be anything major going on. They'll push a little bit of dirt around, and it's ... finishing the cleanup, to make the site look as neat as possible when Wednesday rolls around."
With the park's landscape having changed, new parking plans are in place. "I think the biggest change you'll see is that we will designate parking areas for different groups, due to the construction. We haven't done that too much, because there was plenty of ... room to get around."
Meyer, offering examples, said there will be one designated area for NCAA coaches, and another one for volunteers, workers and staff.
As usual, valet parking will be offered for the teams and "a handful of Nike VIPs," he said.
"We'll have a traffic cop," he added, confirming plans for the North Augusta Department of Public Safety to have a representative on hand for the afternoon and evening sessions, when traffic is normally heaviest. Other municipal employees will be on hand during other hours, to help keep traffic flowing.
Helping with the indoor hospitality is Mike Chavous, who is also in parks, recreation and tourism. He leads culinary outreach to the teams (53 the most in the event's history) and coaches alike.
The volunteer corps, representing First Baptist Church of North Augusta and TrueNorth Church, numbers 126 "136 with the guys who do the grilling," Chavous said.
Rooms were set up Friday and Saturday, "and Monday, we'll be cutting peaches," he added. "Tuesday, the food comes in. Wednesday is the banquet."
Several teams play Wednesday evening, but most start Thursday. The championship game is set for Sunday at 2 p.m., with live coverage to be on ESPNU.
Go here to see the original:
Riverview Park taking construction break - The Star
F.C. SCHOOL BOARD chair Lawrence Webb (right) made the case for the $120 million proposed for a new high school to the F.C. Planning Commission Monday night. Looking on is Principal Planner Paul Stoddard. (Photo: News-Press)
The Falls Church City Managers office last week issued a blockbuster updated Mixed Use Development Fiscal Impact Report showing that eight completed mixed-use (combined residential and retail) projects that have been built and occupied in the City since The Broadway launched the trend in 2003 collectively have given an enormous boost to the City.
The projects, taken together, generate a net $3.8 million a year to the City, equal to almost nine cents on the real estate tax rate, compared to $571,000 a year that their combined 18.5 acres were generating for the City before.
The net revenue takes into account the projects added cost to the City, including to its schools. The gross tax revenues they generate are $10.6 million annually, and the net $3.8 million sum deducts the cost of operational support costs to the City, including the cost of educating the approximately 200 (the estimated range is 174 to 219 as two of the newest projects, 301 West Broad and the Lincoln at Tinner Hill, are not yet fully occupied) students that live in their residences.
The new evaluation also does not include the most recent development, that Target has signed a lease to occupy 26,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor of the Lincoln at Tinner Hill. The report notes, however, that the addition of Target will incentivize other smaller retailers to rent spaces in that building or nearby.
Some of the biggest proposed mixed-use projects are still in early stages of gaining approvals for construction from City Hall, as well. Notably, there is the long-awaited 4.3-acre Founders (formerly Mason) Row at the northeastern corner of the W. Broad at N. West Street, the Insight Development project for 2.5 acres at the northeastern corner of the intersection of W. Broad and N. Washington and, the biggest of them all, the 10-acre portion of the 36-acre George Mason High School and Henderson Middle School site, the development policy for which is now under deliberation.
So far the Citys new developments have all been seven stories or less, although there is a push to allow up to 10 stories, or even more, at the campus site, pending a rezoning and subsequent establishment of an overlay district.
With buildings recently completed and under construction in nearby Tysons Corner topping 35 stories, the plans for Falls Church remain relatively modest. In referenda since this latest construction trend began, Falls Church citizens have repeatedly rejected attempts to rein in mixed-use development in the Citys thin commercially-zoned corridors (mostly limited to Broad and Washington Streets).
In the proposed November school bond referendum, the issue will come down to the net cost of the new school to taxpayers, and the promise of a robust development of the 10 acres of the school site for mixed use, including its sale (in the form most likely of a long-term ground lease) for $40 million or more, will be seen as an important, even game-changing. mitigating factor.
In the Citys latest mixed use impact report, it is shown that with the exception of one of the projects Pearson Square on S. Maple net revenue yields to the City would be significantly higher than they are.
Pearson Square was originally approved as a 230-unit condominium development but as its construction was underway in 2006, the condo market in the region tanked (it has still not fully recovered). The City approved a request to convert the condos to rental units in 2007 just as the Great Recession was hitting.
(Another victim of the Recession in that period was the ambitious City Center development project with a value of $315 million that reconfigured a good section of the blocks in the immediate S. Washington and W. Broad area. It involved moving the bowling alley, a hotel and more, and had won all the necessary approvals from the City government, but when the recession suddenly dried up access to development funding, it died a swift and unholy death.)
In the case of Pearson Square, however, the larger residential units originally designed as condos in the project turned rentals made it a magnet for families with school aged children, eager to take advantage of the stellar reputation of the Falls Church schools.
Of the eight projects completed since 2003 The Broadway, the Byron, Pearson Square, the Read Building, the Spectrum, Northgate, 301 W. Broad and the Lincoln at Tinner Hill Pearson Square accounts for 56 percent of all the school-aged children the projects have enrolled in City schools. Thus, while originally projected to yield a net $684,196 annually to the Citys tax coffers, it has turned to become the only negative yield project of the eight, costing the City $428,329 a year.
But this is an anomaly compared to the robust net yields of all the other projects, and that also extends to the new ones still on the drawing boards, as they are all designed with smaller rental apartments aimed at attracting a combination of a younger (singles and couples with very young children not yet of school age) demographic and over 55 active seniors.
So far, according to the report, the student population in the newest units, the 301 W. Broad and Lincoln at Tinner Hill, is trending below the modelled low pupil coefficients per housing unit.
Meanwhile, in addition to the net positive tax impact of these projects, their developers have provided the City with considerable concessions, including a total of $7,036,403 in contributions to the schools and 69 affordable dwelling units.
It is also pointed out that the population growth in the Little City associated with these projects also contributes to the Citys tax revenue base by providing local retailers and service businesses with more customers, needed to make these businesses survive and prosper.
The new Mixed Use Development Fiscal Impact Report was slated to be posted to the Citys website this week, according to reports.
comments
See the article here:
New Report Cites Robust Fiscal Gains of Mixed Use - Falls Church News Press
CINCINNATI -- When a Fairfield mother of four was deported to Mexico in April, one of her biggest advocates was the Catholic Church.
In the end, the church couldn't stop Maribel Trujillo Diaz's deportation -- but that doesn't mean Tri-State churches have given up the fight, one they say is rooted in compassion.
We have a biblical command to advocate for the immigrant and stranger in our midst, said David Meredith, pastor of Clifton United Methodist Church.
Meredith is part of the newly-formedCincinnati Sanctuary Congregation Coalition. The coalition is made upof more than 20 area congregations of Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions and aims to help undocumented immigrants find sanctuary in Cincinnati.
We are called by Christ and Moses to be advocates for the widows, strangers, poor and vulnerable," Meredith said. "If we didnt address this issue, we would be allowing children to become orphans and women to become widows.
The coalition is forming a plan to also help the broader immigrant community that is living in fear under the current escalated crackdown on finding and deporting undocumented residents. Even recent immigrants who earned United States citizenship are frightened, say some advocates.
The coalitionincludes Temple Shalom, Clifton Mosque, St. Johns Unitarian Church, Mt. Auburn Baptist Church, Quakers and several other Christian denominations. They've started pooling resources and hope to provide immigrants with furniture, appliances, food, clothing and other services.
Clifton United Methodist Church is investing more than $15,000 in construction cost alone to convert a section of the basement into an apartment large enough for a family of four or more who has a family member at risk of deportation due to his or her legal status in the country. The apartment is expected to be ready for its first occupants in September, Meredith said.
"God does not view us by our nationality or race. We are all the same in his eyes," Meredith said. This is no different than the church housing a refugee."
There is no law preventing the government from entering a church that claims sanctuary for an individual or family, but traditionally officials will not enter a church.
WCPO Insiders can find out why a church would make public the fact that it's housing immigrants and what attorneys say about this group.
See more here:
These local churches want to give undocumented immigrants sanctuary in Cincinnati - WCPO