Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mercedes-Benz of Fort Mitchell, Ky.,with help from GE, is realizing its dream of the ultimate automotive dealershipan all-LED lighting facility inside and out.

We designed the building to be intuitivethere are lights that guide you to each area. Every lumen on the property is LED. GE did more than deliver the products we neededit found solutions to the obstacles we faced, said Bernie Moreno, president of Collection Auto Group.

The dealership uses GE Evolve LED Area Lights and Evolve LED Post Tops to illuminate its driveway and inventory. Advanced optics aim light precisely where its needed and away from neighbors yards.

Dimming and on/off scheduling of all LED fixtures is managed by GEs LightSweep control system. Intelligent control also enables GEs LED area lights to be dimmed to 10 percent lumen output between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., with each fixture using just 28.5 watts of electricity. For security, the lights instantly return to full brightness when motion sensors identify a vehicle entering the lot.

Illuminating the dealerships lavish showroom, inviting offices and captivating client areas, including a caf, is a collection of GEs Lumination LED Luminaires. Throughout the service center, suspended pendants and blade-like fixtures also help cut a striking aesthetic while slashing costs along with an assortment of efficient GE LED PAR20 lamps.

GE Albeo LED High Bay fixtures deliver light across the shop floor, detail bay and parts department, meaning mechanics wont be left in the dark whether under the hood or in the pitwhere LED lighting is also installed.

The worlds first all-LED Mercedes-Benz dealership further uses GEs Evolve LED Garage Lights in an attached canopy and car wash, and Evolve LED Wall Packs to illuminate the buildings perimeter. GEs Tetra PowerGrid and LED Architectural lighting also adds visual appeal to signs among other decorative elements.

Mercedes-Benz of Fort Mitchell will use about 40 percent less lighting energy with LED than with conventional technologies, saving $46,000 a year.

We've chosen to continue our relationship with GE for several reasons: They're the standard of the lighting world, and they're a great partner, so we've embarked on a process where every dealership we build going forward is going to be a 100 percent all-LED dealership, starting with this one, added Moreno.

To learn more and to request a free lighting audit, visit http://www.gelighting.com/auto.

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Auto Dealer Achieves All-LED Aspirations with GE’s Collection of Lighting Solutions

IDEAS Boston 2013: B.K. Boley and Tamara Roy - Urban Architects

By: HeyItsIdeasBoston

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IDEAS Boston 2013: B.K. Boley and Tamara Roy - Urban Architects - Video

Architects invited to register interest in designing new Crystal Palace

12:36pm Friday 13th December 2013 in News By Robert Fisk

Designing a Crystal Palace which evokes the spirit of the original while being fit for the future is no mean feat.

But the job is up for grabs, with ZhongRong Group wanting to hear from any architects who think they can take on the challenge.

Anyone interested in creating a landmark in the spirit of Joseph Paxtons original, has until January 20 to express their interest to the property developer.

A short list of three architect teams will then be drawn up in the spring, when the trio will be invited to prepare a detailed submission including initial concept designs.

The selected architect who will be appointed in the summer, will work closely with the lead consultant Arup.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: "Creating a Crystal Palace for the 21st century is a truly unique opportunity.

"I am confident this search will attract some of the world's finest creative minds, many of whom we know are home grown talents.

"The key to the success of this exciting regeneration project, which is set to generate a significant number of jobs in London, is high quality design working in harmony with the rich heritage of this historic site."

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Architects invited to register interest in designing new Crystal Palace

Published on December 13, 2013 Optimism shaping up for 2014 retail activity

TRURO Things are shaping up for 2014 as far as the retail situation is concerned at the Truro Mall, an official says.

The former Zellers store in the Truro Mall is being renovated to accommodate multiple businesses, including an international fashion retailer that is expected to open in late 2014. HARRY SULLIVAN TRURO DAILY NEWS

Its always hard and its not always healthy to have 100 per cent occupancy, because it makes it difficult to expand and relocate tenants and get creative, said mall manager Donald Burton. But we expect to have a very healthy occupancy rate for 2014, he added.

Construction has begun in the section of the mall formerly occupied by Zellers to subdivide the area for at least a couple of new tenants.

Unfortunately were not able to make an announcement at this time, Burton said, of one of the primary tenants who will leasing within that section of the mall. But he did say the tenant will be an international fashion retailer that already has multiple locations in Atlantic Canada.

It will be a fall 2014 opening, for that business, Burton said.

As well, Mobile Snap, which markets cellphone accessories, recently opened a kiosk in the mall in time for holiday shopping and Burton has previously announced that Sally Beauty Supply and Wireless Wave are also currently under construction.

Wireless Wave could be open as early as this weekend while Sally Beauty Supply will also be opening in the short term as well, he said.

Also in recent months, Christmas Discounters and Pearl & Daisy opened retail locations in the mall.

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Construction underway to fill space vacated by Zellers at Truro Mall

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Shares of Restoration Hardware (RH) plunged more than 12% in after-hours trading after the high-end home furnishings retailer announced the surprise departure of co-CEO Carlos Alberini as third-quarter comp sales missed expectations.

Alberini, 58, who has been in Restoration Hardware's C-suite since 2010, has accepted an offer to become chairman and CEO of Lucky Brand, which has been acquired by Leonard Green & Partners from Fifth & Pacific (FNP). The deal is expected to close next year.

Alberini will remain on at Restoration Hardware until Jan. 31, continuing to serve as a member of the board of directors and remain a significant shareholder in the company. Alberini currently holds a 3.2% stake in Restoration Hardware, according to Bloomberg data.

"On behalf of myself, the board and the entire RH team, I want to express our deepest thanks to Carlos for the numerous contributions he has made as Co-Chief Executive Officer," Gary Friedman, chairman and co-CEO said in a statement. "His leadership has been invaluable, and we are delighted with his continuing service as a member of our Board of Directors."

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Restoration Hardware Plunges as Co-CEO Departs

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Callers' home concerns range from common to unique

By Brian Westover

The Planar PXL2790MW brings WQHD (2,560-by-1,440) resolution to the desktop in a 27-inch IPS monitor that offers solid color and grayscale performance and an attractive cabinet design. There's no shortage of video ports with this monitor, but it doesn't have any USB ports and it doesn't offer the level of ergonomic adjustability that you get with similarly priced WQHD models.

Design and Features With its bezel-less design and edge-to-edge glass, the PXL2790MW is one fine looking monitor. Its 27-inch WQHD (Wide Quad High Definition) panel is housed in a sleek looking matte black cabinet sporting a curved back panel and a depth of only 1.7-inches. The 13.2 pound cabinet is attached to a black metal wedge-type stand that lets you tilt the cabinet 5-degerees forward and 25-degrees backward but lacks the height, swivel, and pivot capabilities that you get with models like the Dell UltraSharp U2713HM and Asus PB278Q. You can remove the stand if you wish to use the VESA mounting holes to hang the monitor on a wall using an optional VESA mounting bracket.

At the back of the cabinet you'll find virtually every video input you could want, including VGA, DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort inputs. There's also an audio input and a headphone jack back there but no USB ports like you'll find on the Dell U2713HM. The down-firing 2-watt speakers provide decent volume but lack bass.

There are four touch-sensitive buttons and a power switch on the lower front edge of the cabinet. The buttons are used to navigate the various OSD (on screen display) menus containing picture and audio settings. There are five Color Vision Modes (picture presets) including standard, cinema, scenery, game, and text as well as six color temperature settings and a user defined temperature setting. Other picture settings include brightness, contrast, gamma, Eco (power saving), and clock and phase (for analog signals). Audio adjustments are limited to volume and mute.

The PXL2790MW comes with a DVI dual link cable, a DisplayPort cable, and audio cable, and a user guide. It also comes with a three year warranty which includes Planar's 2-Day Advanced Replacement service.

Performance The PXL2790MW is a strong performer. It had no trouble displaying every shade of gray on the DisplayMate 64-Step Grayscale test and showed good highlight and shadow detail in my test photos. It also handled text wonderfully; the smallest text from the Scaled Fonts test was clean and easy to read.

Out of the box color accuracy was good but not perfect. As shown on the chromaticity chart below, red (represented by the colored dot) is very close to the CIE standard for red (represented by the box), while green and blue are a tad heavy but still within an acceptable range.

As far as picture quality goes, the PXL2790MW delivered well-balanced colors, and there was no noticeable tinting or over saturation. Viewing angles were wide with no discernable shift in color quality or luminance when viewed from a side or top angle.

The PXL2790MW consumed 48-watts of power during testing with Eco mode turned off, which is rather high for a 27-inch IPS panel. The Dell U2713HM used 32 watts and the HP Envy 27 used 30 watts. Oddly, enabling the PXL2790MW's Eco mode made no difference whatsoever.

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Planar PXL2790MW

The second installment of Peter Jackson's interminable trilogy proves, again, that more is less.

There are two obvious ways a director can go wrong in adapting a work with a large and ardent pre-existing fan base. He (or she) can feel so constrained by expectations that he makes his adaptation too literal, a book-on-film. Or he can get carried away riffing on the original story, pulling in references from related works and assuming that fans appetites for additional material are, for all intents and purposes, insatiable.

Peter Jackson's Violent Betrayal of Tolkien

As a general rule, I think the former temptation, over-fidelity, is the greater hazard. But Peter Jacksons The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is proof that when you go the other wayreally, really far the other waythe result can be genuinely egregious.

Last years The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first installment of Jacksons Hobbit trilogythe very phrase hits me like a wave of depressiontook Tolkiens slender childrens novel and reimagined it as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. Characters from the latter work (Galadriel, Saruman, Radagast) were imported for cameos, and the entire production was juiced upover-written, over-orchestrated, over-CGId, over-everythingedto be more epic and grownup.

This time out, Jackson goes further still, producing a film that plays less like LoTR prequel than LoTR remake. The film opens in the town of Bree, where a small-statured traveller stopping at the inn of the Prancing Pony finds himself under watchful, unfriendly gazes until a mysterious figure comes to his aid. (Get it?) This time out, the traveller is Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and the mystery man is Gandalf (Ian McKellan). But the sense of dj vu, however deliberate, is suffocating.

And yes, before we go further, Im well aware that this meeting is cited in The Hobbit, and that many of Jacksons other additions and digressions are part of the larger Middle Earth canon. But despite the fact the Tolkien went back to amend The Hobbit more than once, he never chose to cram in all this supplemental material, because the book was not intended as a sweeping, multifaceted epic, but rather as a more personal, hobbits-eye-view adventure story.

Not so, alas, in the hands of Jackson, who is so titillated by his various subplots and foreshadowings that he even loses track of his protagonist, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), for considerable stretches. Orcswhich played no role at all in Tolkiens novelplay an even larger role in this installment than in the previous one, the better to supply the many impalements and beheadings Jackson feels compelled to display. Forget cameos by LoTR veterans: In this film, Legolas (likewise never mentioned in the book) reappears as a principal character. (Its hard to shake the suspicion that Orlando Blooms asking price must have come down considerably from its inflated, post-LoTR high.) And the identity of the mysterious necromancer who has begun forming his armies of darkness, fiercely implied in the first movie, is made all too painfully explicit by the midpoint of this one.

A brand-new character is thrown into the mix in the form of a woodland elf named Tauriel (played by Evangeline Lilly, or Kate from Lost), who quickly becomes the crux of an interspecies love triangle. And Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans) has been semi-demoted to Bard the Bargeman (the movie spends a lot of time in Laketown), though theres little doubt that hell be given the chance to earn his loftier nickname using a newfangled Dwarvish anti-aircraft crossbow in the trilogys next installment.

Yes, next installment. Though Bilbo and the dwarves do make it at last to the Lonely Mountain to encounter the dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch), the great worm will have to wait until the final movie to intersect with his arrow of destiny. Instead, he spends the latter part of this film contending with a borderline MacGyveresque plot by the dwarves to bring about his destruction deep in the halls of Erebor. (I hope Im beyond the point where I need to note that this, too, is a Jackson invention.)

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The Hobbit 2 Is Bad Fan Fiction

Chapel Hill, NC (PRWEB) December 13, 2013

SEN Design Group is proud to announce that for the second year in a row, one of its members was named as one of the National Kitchen and Bath Associations 30 Under 30.

Courtney Rogers of Renewal Design-Build in Decatur, GA has been named one of the 30 entrepreneurs, CEOs and designers who are the next generation of kitchen and bath professionals according to the NKBA. The award-winning designer has had projects featured in numerous publications such as Professional Remodeler Magazine as well as on Houzz.com. Rogers was the recipient of the 2013 Chrysalis Award as well as a 2011 Calla Award, given by the NKBA-GA Chapter.

Courtney is an incredibly gifted designer. Her ability to balance form and function, synthesizing a client's taste with their budget, is unparalleled. She is continuously researching products and trends to ensure that her clients receive the best solutions possible, always with a smile and a professional warmth and caring that turns her clients into friends. I have no doubt that Courtney will be receiving this award again when its her turn for the next decade of 40 under 40, stated Peter Michelson, CEO of Renewal Design-Build.

The 30 Under 30 professionals will spend two days exploring the 2014 KBIS show for innovations, new technologies, and emerging business models before presenting their findings at the end of show. This opportunity allows the recipients to learn about new products and immerse themselves into the upcoming trends, promoting their growth and development.

About the SEN Design Group: The SEN Design Group is the industrys first kitchen and bath buying and business development group. As an 19-year-old professional organization, SEN has over 200 members nationwide and more than 70 quality vendors in cabinetry, appliances, plumbing fixtures, decorative hardware, closets, lighting, bathroom products, flooring, tile, business services and accessories who offer their products/services to the membership at group rates. Additionally, SEN offers over 40 business development services to its membership, including financial planning, business coaching, business management training, sales training programs, marketing tools to generate leads, networking, and management systems. For more information on SEN, visit http://www.sendesigngroup.com.

About Renewal Design-Build Renewal Design-Build is an award-winning, full-service, design-build remodeling company offering turnkey solutions, from design concept to move-in since 2001, including: major renovations, additions, green home performance assessments and improvements, whole house remodels, and upscale Atlanta kitchen remodeling services. Renewal Design-Build is ranked as a Top 5 Atlanta Residential Remodeling company for three years running (by the Atlanta Business Chronicle) and has won numerous awards for successfully renovating Atlantas finest old homes, craftsman bungalows, classic ranches, and every kind of residence in between. The company serves prominent in-town Atlanta neighborhoods including Ansley Park, Avondale Estates, North Decatur, Lake Claire, Candler Park, Decatur, Druid Hills, Inman Park, Toco Hills, Buckhead, Brookhaven, Sandy Springs, Dunwoody and Chastain. They help homeowners put the pieces together to solve the puzzle of renovation. For more information, please call 404-378-6962 or visit them online at http://www.RenewalDesignBuild.com.

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SEN Design Group Member Receives Industry Honor

Cedar Rapids, IA (PRWEB) December 13, 2013

Mid November welcomed a second tenant to The Fountains complex at Blairs Ferry and Edgewood roads in Cedar Rapids. Joining Salon Jude, the Sanctuary Spa opened its doors to the public and will enjoy preliminary exposure and attention as one of the first in a long line of shops and restaurants soon to call The Fountains their home.

Sanctuary Spa has relocated from its former site on Blairs Ferry Road. The Fountains location provides greater exposure and nearly twice the square footage, allowing them to offer additional services and treatment options.

From the moment you enter the facility, every amenity and feature accentuate the theme of relaxation and pampering of its clientele. Some of the services offered include facials & advanced skin treatments, massage & body treatments, waxing, nail services, and make-up application. There are individual treatment rooms, a couples treatment room as well as a relaxation room where one can go just to relax and enjoy quiet contemplation before your service. For more information about current and upcoming features at the spa, visit their website at http://www.crsanctuaryspa.com.

Compass Commercial Services ensures that the shops and services offered at The Fountains do not follow a cookie-cutter look or feel, but that each facility is able to exemplify its own dynamic which contributes to The Fountains overall comprehensive style. Although the first two stores are salon/spa oriented, there will soon be a wide variety of shops and restaurants with a personality unique to the theme of that particular facility. Compass works closely with each facility owner to provide the design and ambiance desired for that outlet.

About Compass Commercial Services

Compass Commercial Services is a full-service General Contracting and Construction Management firm in the Cedar Rapids area specializing in a wide range of commercial construction projects including interior and exterior renovations, remodeling, building additions and the complete construction of new buildings. As a TRUE design-build firm, Compass Commercial Services is poised to complete projects from the ground up. From the initial design through the entire building process, customers have the advantage of working directly with one company, and a team that is structured to deliver final projects on time, and on budget.

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Compass Commercial Services Welcomes the Newest Tenant to The Fountains