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LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds (CJUF) recently closed all-cash on the acquisition of a 32-acre parcel located in Miamis Flagler Corridor. CJUF plans to develop the property a dormant former golf course into a 235,000 square-foot neighborhood shopping center called Fontainebleau Park Plaza, which will be anchored by a Walmart supercenter with full service grocery and general merchandise.

The site, which enjoys an unusually high amount of frontage on the main thoroughfare of West Flagler Street at the intersection of SW 92nd Avenue, is located in the heart of a diverse neighborhood with extremely high density. Nearly 400,000 residents live within five miles of the site, and more than 250,000 employees work within the same radius.

The Fontainebleau site is one of the last remaining parcels in the Flagler Corridor that is entitled for retail development. The project will meet existing demand for services in a community that traditionally has been under-served from a retail perspective.

When you consider the population density and low retail vacancy rate in this corridor, its clear there is a significant supply and demand imbalance that needs to be addressed in this submarket, said Canyon-Johnson CEO and Managing Partner Bobby Turner. We believe in Miami and know the area well, and we are thrilled to contribute to the continued growth and revitalization of the area. Fontainebleau is exactly the kind of project we like to invest in.

Canyon-Johnson is focused on creating job opportunities and revitalizing urban America, said Canyon-Johnson Partner, Earvin Magic Johnson. We are thrilled to be back in Miami, and to breathe new life into a piece of land that has been underutilized for too long.

National and local retailers have shown significant interest in the remaining available space in the center. Leasing for the project is being handled by Rod Castan at the Courtelis Company. Construction for the development of the project is expected to commence in the second half of 2012.

The market fundamentals are currently very strong for retail investments in Miami, and the Fontainebleau project fits directly into our urban retail strategy, said CJUF Principal Jonathan Roth. I am confident that Miami-Dade will remain a target market for further CJUF investments.

About Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds

The Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund is one of the countrys largest private real estate funds focused on the development of urban properties in underserved neighborhoods. Canyon Capital Realty Advisors and Earvin Magic Johnsons Magic Johnson Enterprises joined forces to raise a series of funds to identify, enhance and capture value through the development and redevelopment of real estate in densely populated, ethnically diverse urban communities. Fundamental to Canyon-Johnsons investment thesis is its commitment to a triple bottom line philosophy of achieving superior financial results, fostering opportunities within urban communities, and embracing environmental responsibility. With nearly $2 billion in committed equity capital, the funds are positioned to facilitate more than $8 billion in development and revitalization in major U.S. metropolitan areas. Canyon Capital Realty Advisors is the real estate direct investing arm of Canyon Partners. Canyon and its affiliates are investment management firms and registered investment advisors headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with approximately $18.5 billion in assets under management. For more information, visit http://www.cjuf.com.

Original post:
Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds Invests in Miami Retail Development

Published: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 3:30 a.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 at 12:16 a.m.

TUSCALOOSA | An apartment and retail development for University Boulevard was approved unanimously Tuesday night by the Tuscaloosa City Council.

Planned for the current site of Broad Street Apartments, owner Phil Weaver intends to demolish the existing buildings and replace them with two buildings one will be four stories and the other will be three that will have commercial space on the bottom floors and living spaces above.

It's not like it's something new, Weaver said. You have 34 units already there, but this is going to be quite an upgrade for that area, and it's going to be a big plus for that area of town.

The new buildings will contain 85 bedrooms in one-, two- and three-bedroom units, and each of the two buildings will have three commercial spots each for a combined 7,500-square feet of retail space.

Weaver already had won approval in October to have the location at the corner of University Boulevard and 20th Avenue rezoned in order to accommodate the mixed-use development. Tuesday's vote was in order to comply with the rigors of the downtown overlay district, which regulates several areas of downtown construction including screened parking requirements and building material standards.

Councilman Bobby Howard, who represents this area as part of District 1, reiterated his opinion from last year that he believes this development will be a benefit for downtown as well as his entire district.

I think it's going to be great, Howard said, noting that it replaces blighted buildings with new ones while adding a retail component. It's a welcomed investment.

Weaver said he anticipates that the three-story building, which faces University Boulevard, will be complete within six months. The four-story structure facing 20th Avenue should be complete within 10 months.

I think it's going to be something very, very positive down there, Weaver said. And I think it will help retailers in that area by putting more people in that part of town.

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Council OKs downtown retail, apartment project

A THREE-deck car park and shopping space, underpinned by Target as an anchor tenant, will be built in Wangaratta within two years.

The $25million development will create 346 parking spots and 4000 square metres of retail and commercial space over a potholed car park adjacent to the Co-Store, on the corner of Reid and Ovens Streets.

The undercover parking will cost $1 an hour, double the present rate of ticketed parking in the citys CBD.

A new style of Target store, smaller than the Wodonga and Albury outlets, will occupy more than three quarters of the floor space.

It is expected to create 20 to 25 full-time jobs once open and 100 jobs during construction.

More than 600 square metres of floor space will be dedicated to a medical centre.

James Scremin, a partner in Prudential Commercial Investments, who owns the Co-Store, and one of the partners who promised a Wodonga cinema almost five years ago, said construction would start in October.

We hope to have it open for Easter 2014, he said.

This has been something we have been working on for the past four or five years.

We hope that with everything else we have in the Co-Store the cinema, shopping, bowling alley and plans for underground mini-golf this will become a shopping destination for the region, not just Wangaratta.

Read more from the original source:
Target to lead city’s $25m mall, car park

Chris Janson of MSA Professional Services and Ben Sandell of landscape architectural firm Confluence unfurled long topographic maps of downtown Burlington and the Highway 61 corridor across an array of rectangular conference tables at the public library Wednesday evening.

Armed with fistfuls of highlighters and colored sharpies, the two began crisscrossing the maps with lines and annotations as people filed into the conference room.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw Burlington's Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee out in force, holding four several-hour-long future land-use brainstorming sessions, which left Janson and Sandell's heads swimming with ideas.

"We covered just a massive amount of things in the past couple of days," Sandell said. "Good discussion on a lot of different points. We got feedback from everybody, and almost all the different angles were represented. I thought it was very productive."

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One workshop session was held Tuesday, with three more dominating the committee's time from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday The range of issues discussed spanned the minutiae of street-scape and signage design to the prospects of entire commercial and civic developments across the city.

"It's an elephant," said Don Traman. "You can only take a bite of it at a time. But there's different people to take different bites."

Traman serves on the flood protection committee for the Friends of the Depot. He said his personal priority for the city is to see the historic train depot revitalized. While he understands there are a variety of other areas the city must prioritize and plan for, he doesn't think he or other residents of Burlington should shutter their visions of the community's future for the sake of practicality.

"Get your vision, and let it run wild," Traman said. "You can always cut back on your vision."

Florence Paterno of Downtown Partners agreed with Traman.

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Ideas fuel city planning

SHIPPENSBURG -- The restoration and return of a Shippensburg University landmark will be celebrated with a rededication ceremony at 4 p.m. Saturday.

After a three-month restoration, the fountain in front of Old Main returned home in April. Originally dedicated in 1896, it was a gift from that year's class. This year's dedication ceremony will mirror that of its predecessor.

"It's going to be kind of interesting," said Tim Ebersole, executive director of university relations. "We looked at the original program from 1896 when the class dedicated (the fountain). We're going to have people that represent the people that were there."

Participating will be SU President Bill Ruud, master of ceremonies; B. Michael Shaw, SU Council of Trustees; Krista Williams, Council of Trustees student representative; Franklin County Commissioner Bob Thomas; Shippensburg Mayor Bruce Hockersmith; Kelly Atland, immediate past president of the alumni association; and Jonathan Michael, a student, said Pete Gigliotti, communications director at SU Each participant will represent the person in that position in 1896, Gigliotti said. For example, the fountain song and SU alma mater were sung in the past ceremony; this time around, Atland will recite the song and Michael will sing the alma mater.

An iconic landmark and most popular photo backdrop on the campus, the fountain's absence from campus for restoration this winter left a kind of void.

"When they took out the basin and there was

The fountain was disassembled and sent to Robinson Iron in Alabama in late January.

A team of companies led by Kreilick Conservation LLC, Orland, oversaw the renovation. The conservation company is partnered with Robinson Iron and Outerspaces, a Pennsylvania-based landscape architectural firm.

The project included putting down new concrete, relaying some of the original stones and then constructing a new basin. The fountain was returned in April and is now up and running.

The fountain was last renovated in the early 1960s. It has received regular painting and maintenance since it was first installed.

Excerpt from:
Shippensburg University's historic fountain being rededicated Friday in ceremony copying 1896 event

PASADENA - A classic 1963 mural of the first Rose Parade painted by famed Claremont artist Millard Sheets is coming home.

More than two years after it was taken down from the former Home Savings lobby on Colorado Boulevard in a Chase Bank corporate makeover, the entire 50-foot mural is expected to be installed in the lobby of Pasadena City College's Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium this summer.

"It's been restored, and it looks fantastic," said Tony Sheets, Millard Sheets' son, himself a noted artist.

"What we agreed to is I'm gifting it to the city of Pasadena so that ultimately they have control of its whereabouts," he said.

"As it stands right now, it's on a 25-year loan to PCC. They have a terrific

The 1963 mural of the first Rose Parade that famed artist Millard Sheets painted for Home Savings has been restored and will be installed at Pasadena City College's Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium. (Courtesy photo)

The donation's value is being "worked on" by appraisers, Sheets said.

Sheets, who runs the nonprofit Millard Sheets Center for the Arts at Fairplex in Pomona, said his main concern had been finding a place in Pasadena where the mural could be installed in a single sweep. Anything else was a "deal-breaker," he said.

That's what derailed an earlier proposal to install the colorful mural at the Pasadena Convention Center, Sheets said: the mural would have had to be "broken up in pieces" to accommodate doors, among other problems, he said.

Joe Futtner, PCC's interim dean of visual arts and media studies, said the mural is a great addition to the campus.

Link:
New home finally found for Millard Sheets' historic Rose Parade mural

General News of Thursday, 31 May 2012

Source: Daily Graphic

A government report has revealed that public officers at the Lands Commission, the Ministry of Works and Housing and the Town and Country Planning Department designed various illegal schemes to allocate government bungalows and parcels of land to politicians, government officials and their friends, without Cabinet approval and direction.

According to the report, the first phase of the Cabinet-approved allocation of government bungalows for redevelopment took place between 2000 and 2003.

However, at the time of operating the redevelopment programme, other schemes targeting government bungalow plots were also being operated outside the Cabinet-approved scheme.

The illegal schemes were operated by public officers at the Lands Commission, the Ministry of Works and Housing and the Town and Country Planning Department, it said.

Giving a background to the redevelopment scheme which was initiated in 1998 by the Rawlings administration and continued by the Kufuor administration, the report, excerpts of which are available to graphic.com.gh said the government targeted the redevelopment of plots of land with government bungalows in the prime areas of Ridge, Cantonments, Kanda, the Switchback Road and the Airport Residential Area.

Most of the bungalows were put up in the 1940s and 1950s and were in deplorable states.

To guide the execution of the redevelopment project, it said, the Cabinet, in 2000, discussed and approved a fair and transparent competitive bidding process.

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Public Servants Illegally Allocated Government Property - Report

GARNER A design proposal to remodel and expand the 1978 Garner Public Library would cost approximately $2 million, Garner library and city officials learned Tuesday.

The report, by OPN Architects of Cedar Rapids, was presented to members of the City Council, library board and library building committee, City Administrator Randy Lansing said Wednesday.

The price tag for the remodeling and new additions would be $2,091,676.

With the two proposed additions, the library building, located at 416 State St., would be 9,100 square feet.

The cost estimate includes new construction, remodeling of the existing 6,100-square-foot building, all-new mechanical systems, design work and administration of the construction contract, Lansing said.

An 800-square-foot addition on the east end of the structure would house a large fireplace and lounging area for reading.

A 2,200-square-foot addition on the west end would house a kitchenette, public restrooms, staff area and conference room.

A large skylight and elevated ceiling are planned in the center of the building.

Areas to be remodeled include a young adult area, main collection and juvenile (childrens) collection, Lansing said.

The architectural report followed three days of meetings with the city in March to hear what citizens wanted for their library.

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Garner studies plan for library remodeling, expansion

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Asphalt shingles are a common roofing material - and a common waste in home repair projects. In fact, every year 10 million tons of shingles are torn off roofs in the U.S., and some estimates say shingles may account for up to 5 percent of total annual building-related waste.

Owens Corning (OC), a leading global producer of residential and commercial building materials and an industry leader in shingles recycling, and Earth911, Inc., host of the largest and most accurate recycling directory in the U.S., have partnered to help raise awareness about the environmental opportunities that shingles recycling presents and encourage more homeowners and contractors to get involved. Recycling shingles has a number of benefits:

We are excited to help bring shingle recycling to both consumers and contractors, said Barry Hornbacher, Owens Corning Roofing and Asphalt Shingle Recycling program manager. Together with Earth 911 we have created a cost-effective and convenient solution that will reduce the environmental impact of installing a new roof.

Earth911.com now hosts a new Shingles Recycling page with expert-level resources to address crucial shingles recycling know-how. Earth911 and Owens Corning will also develop stories utilizing facts, tips and ideas to help readers improve their knowledge about shingles recycling.

Owens Corning Roofing and Asphalt LLC is the first roofing manufacturer to establish a program for recycling shingles. Since the program began in 2009, more than 100,000 tons of shingles, or over 1000 miles of paved roads, have been recycled.

Throwing away millions of barrels of oil each year in the form of shingles is a waste of valuable resources, said Earth911 CEO Barry Monheit. Through our partnership with Owens Corning, well work to educate more homeowners about the potential environmental benefits of shingles recycling and make an impact on the demand for wider shingles recycling opportunities across the country.

Contractors can take the Preferred Contractor Shingle Recycling Pledge, connecting contractors with convenient recycling facilities. Currently there are 43 major cities with drop-off locations for shingles recycling, and the network is expanding to more locations across the U.S. Recently, the Shingle Recycling Pledge was also expanded to homeowners, who can commit to using only contractors who recycle shingles to make their own home repair projects more sustainable.

About Owens Corning

Owens Corning (OC) is a leading global producer of residential and commercial building materials, glass-fiber reinforcements and engineered materials for composite systems. A Fortune 500 company for 57 consecutive years, Owens Corning is committed to driving sustainability by delivering solutions, transforming markets and enhancing lives. Founded in 1938, Owens Corning is a market-leading innovator of glass-fiber technology with sales of $5.3 billion in 2011 and approximately 15,000 employees in 28 countries on five continents. Additional information is available at: http://www.owenscorning.com.

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What If All Shingles Were Recycled?

GLEN ALLEN, Va., May 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Industry analyst firm NanoMarkets announces the release of its latest report on the building-integrated PV (BIPV) market titled, "BIPV Roofing Markets". The report claims that the total market value for BIPV roofing products will reach $3.9 billion by 2016. NanoMarkets expects the market for today's overlay products (a.k.a. building-attached PV) to grow strongly but sees the market for more fully integrated BIPV roofing panels as presenting the largest long-term opportunity. The report stresses that this opportunity is available not just to the traditional PV industry but also to the roofing products industry.

Additional details about the report are available at: http://nanomarkets.net/market_reports/report/bipv_roofing_markets_2012.

About the Report:

This report provides in-depth market analysis of the BIPV roofing industry, examining the ways that BIPV roofing can enable new business revenues at a time when both the construction and PV industries are seeing hard times. Coverage in this report comprises BIPV roofing overlays, rigid BIPV roofing (e.g., BIPV tiles), flexible BIPV roofing (e.g., BIPV shingles) and monolithically integrated BIPV roofing products.

This report also contains granular forecasts in both value and volume (MW and square meter) terms, with breakouts by PV technology, type of building, retrofit vs. new construction, and geographical region. The report also examines the strategies of firms active in the BIPV roofing including: 3S Swiss Systems, Atlantis Energy, Dyesol, GE, Global Solar, Lumeta, Sharp, Solarcentury, Soltecture, SunPower, Suntech Tata Steel and Xunlight.

Findings from the Report:

NanoMarkets projects the BIPV roofing sector at $3.9 billion in revenues in the year 2016, with these revenues fairly equally divided between the overlay, rigid and flexible sectors. The monolithically integrated BIPV roofing market will by then only just have begun to emerge.

BIPV roofing overlays are a mature technology that offers a way to deploy PV that is often easier to install and maintain than conventional PV and represent an attractive product diversification for the roofing products industry. By 2016, NanoMarkets estimate that revenues from BIPV roofing overlays will amount to $1.1 billion.

Of the 160 MW of BIPV roofing products that will ship in 2012, NanoMarkets believes almost 90 percent will be accounted for by crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV technology. By 2016, however, NanoMarkets anticipates that this number will fall to around 50 percent. The big winner at the expense of c-Si will be CIGS, which can be used to make lightweight PV that can be extensively deployed on roofs without the need for additional support.

NanoMarkets anticipates that in the near future, absorber materials such as CIGS and DSC, which can be created with coating or printing will be used to create "monolithically integrated" BIPV roofing panels. Such panels will offer power producing and roofing fabric functionalities that are as melded together as are printing, copying and scanning in an office "all-in-one." NanoMarkets expects such products to be on the market by 2014 and while there will be a lag time before significant revenues are achieved, the firm sees this type of BIPV product as the industry's long term direction.

The rest is here:
NanoMarkets Releases New Report on BIPV Roofing Markets, Sees $3.9 billion ($US) by 2016