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A LONG map spans the wall in the former offices of Fairfield's on Govan Road pinpointing the more than 40 shipyards which once dotted the Upper Clyde.

This was the heyday of shipbuilding on the river in the early years of the 20th Century, when Glasgow was the 'second city of the Empire', the powerhouse of the nation, and entire communities depended on the industry to earn a living.

Fast forward to today and there are only three yards left.

"Not just the number of yards but fact that they were all driven by engineering is a surprise to most people," explains Pat Cassidy, managing director of Govan Workspace, as we walk around the recently refurbished offices.

"People think of this area as all about shipbuilding but these were the greatest engineers in the world."

The elegant, A-listed red sandstone building is a local landmark, with the imposing doorway managers and dignitaries walked through still flanked by carvings of Neptune and mermaids.

When it was built, it was arguably the most prestigious shipbuilding concern in the world.

This was where first class Cunard liners The Campania and the Luciana were built, where 10,000 men worked in its heyday and where Jimmy Reid led the legendary Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Work-In, when the Conservative Government of the time tried to pull the plug on the yard.

It has taken five years and nearly 6 million to restore the offices to their former glory, revealing trompe l'oeil, paintwork, teak and mahogany panelling, mosaic flooring and marble work.

Now, some of the space is available to rent to businesses, while the ground floor houses a heritage centre, celebrating 150 years of shipbuilding in Govan.

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Yard office is shipshape once again

Fourteen vinyl replacement windows installed at the Stratford Professional Center, 1045 Main St., more than two years ago continue to be a contentious issue between owner Richard Holbrook and the citys Commission of Architectural Review, which wants Holbrook to remove the replacement windows and install wood-framed windows.

The building is in the citys Old West End historic district and structural changes must be approved by the CAR; at the time he replaced the windows, Holbrook said two years ago, he was unaware that his building fell under the CARs review since the building itself is not historic and is considered to be non-contributing to the district.

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Danville City Council to look at contentious vinyl window issue

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The ATO is going through with plans for a new multi-million dollar office building in Gosford. Photo: Jeffrey Chan

The Australian Taxation Office will spend millions of dollars on a new office building in regional NSW, despite more than 6200 desks sitting empty in ATO in its buildings around Australia.

The Taxation Office has confirmed the project will go ahead, calling for expressions of interest from developers to build the building in Gosford, on the state's central coast, but ATO bosses still cannot say what it will be used for.

The federal opposition says the ATO is being forced to spend money it does not have on offices it does not need.

The agency plans to move 300 of its public servants into the building when it is completed in 2017. It is unclear who will occupy the rest of the floors.

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But ATO staff were told last week the construction of the 6500-square-metre building would go ahead and that property consultants DTZ had been hired to find a builder for the project.

But assistant commissioner Stewart Smillie, the ATO's property boss, could not tell his colleagues which of them would be moved to the central coast, or even which of the Taxation Office's business units would be stationed there.

An ATO spokeswoman would not say if a business case or a cost benefit analysis had been prepared for the new building and that "budget support" for the project was still being discussed.

"It will take a number of years to complete the building project and we will consider the impact for our business and staffing closer to the new office opening."

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Australian Taxation Office orders new building, despite 6200 empty desks

Photographer: Bradley C. Bower/Bloomberg

The City of Brotherly Love is finally getting some affection from commercial real estate investors.

Philadelphia, where office properties last year attracted about half the investment of Washington and less than a 10th of Manhattans total, is seeing a boom in demand that has sent the average price per square foot to a record. Office sales in the first half of this year more than doubled to $1.4 billion, the highest since close to the markets peak in 2006, according to New York-based research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc.

Real estate values approaching or surpassing peak levels in New York, Boston and Washington have buyers turning to Philadelphia for its higher yields, rising rents and falling vacancies. Thats bolstering office deals in the fifth-largest U.S. city at a time when Manhattan-like towers have opened with luxury condominiums and cable operator Comcast Corp. is developing a skyscraper that will be the areas tallest.

We view Philadelphia as really on the upswing, said Gerard Sweeney, chief executive officer of Brandywine Realty Trust (BDN), which owns 13 properties in the citys main business district, including one under development. Theres certainly an expectation that rents will continue to move up.

The average capitalization rate -- a measure of yield that moves inversely to price -- for a Philadelphia office building was 7.5 percent in the second quarter, according to data compiled by Real Capital. While thats down from a high of 8.9 percent two years earlier, its more than the averages of 4.6 percent in Manhattan, 6.1 percent in Washington and 6.5 percent in Boston, the data show.

The average price per square foot of a Philadelphia office building reached $283 in the first quarter, the highest in Real Capital records dating to 2001.

Philadelphia has long been overshadowed by its big-city East Coast neighbors to the north and south. Institutional investors such as sovereign-wealth funds gravitate to the perceived safety of New York or Washington, where rents frequently climb faster and values rebounded first in the recovery.

Unlike New York, with its heavy concentration of financial, media and technology tenants, and Washington, with its work force tied to the federal government, Philadelphia doesnt have a single large office-tenant base. Government, universities and hospitals are among the biggest employers in Philadelphia County, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry.

The largest public companies by market value with headquarters in the city are Comcast; oil pipeline operator Sunoco Logistics Partners LP; and FMC Corp., a research company in the chemical industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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Philadelphia Office Sales Double As Investors Seek Yields

A job fair will be held on Monday, Oct. 20, to provide information to workers about construction job opportunities available for the $450 million, 32-story, Northwestern Mutual Tower and Commons office building project.

Northwestern Mutual has committed to have at least 40 percent of the workers on the project be city residents and is supporting worker training efforts for construction workers for this and other future construction projects in the area. The project will employ about 1,000 construction workers.

A team of Gilbane Building Co. and Milwaukee-based C.G. Schmidt Inc. is the general contractor for the project, which is expected to be complete in 2017.

WRTP/BIG STP will provide training and access to trade apprenticeship opportunities available through the Northwestern Mutual project.

The job fair will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., Monday, Oct. 20, at the Washington Park Senior Center, 4420 W. Vliet St. The job fair will also address barriers to employment, such as a lack of a drivers license, GED, or other assistance needs. More information is available by calling (414) 342-9787.

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Job fair Monday for Northwestern Mutual construction project

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The major upgrade of Kpiti Road is on target for completion next week - and the opening is being accompanied by a publicity blitz to enable cyclists to understand how to master the innovative hook turn manoeuvre.

Contractors were this week putting the finishing touches to the signal wiring and lane markings.

The upgrade has involved widening the road to four lanes, creating a shared cycle/pedestrian pathway on the southern side of Kpiti Road and putting telecommunication services underground. Other enhancements include the installation of high-efficiency LED street lights, the construction of dedicated right-turn lanes into Milne Drive and Te Roto Drive, and installing traffic signals at the intersections.

To provide an extra-safe option for cyclists turning right into Te Roto Drive and right into Milne Drive, hook turn areas have been created where the cyclists wait to the left of the main traffic lanes.

Detectors sense the presence of the cyclists and set in motion the signal phasing. When they get a green signal, the cyclists can move safely across into the right-turn lane, where they wait for a green arrow to complete the turn.

Diagrams showing the manoeuvre will appear in local newspapers over the next two weeks. (The hook turn bays will initially feature white cycle markings on the black asphalt, but the bays will be painted with a green background when the asphalt has cured in a few weeks).

In addition, a video featuring Lego models has been produced by Kpiti College students. The video was shot on a set built to scale, measuring 4.8 metres by 3.6 metres, which will be on display for the next month in Paraparaumu Library along with some of the models of vehicles and buildings. The Lego movie will be playing alongside the display case and is being posted on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/user/KapitiCouncil/

New rule for trucks & heavy vehicles

When the new intersection becomes operational, heavy vehicles wishing to access the service lane in front of Right Cars will not be able to make a right turn from Te Roto Drive, as was allowed previously. They must instead head north on Te Roto Drive, turn at Sheffield Street and then come south in order to make a left turn into the service lane. When emerging from the service lane on to Te Roto Drive, no right turn is allowed for heavy vehicles.

The rule is "left in, left out" for trucks. Cars also cannot make a right turn into the service lane from Te Roto Drive but ARE allowed to turn right on to Te Roto Drive.

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Kapiti Road upgrade near completion

Bologna's seemingly endless arcades radiate from the city's historic centre. Picture: Steve McKenna

Something really hits me on my first morning exploring Bologna. It's not the copious amounts of caffeine I've imbibed for breakfast, nor the slew of restaurant chalkboard menus advertising meaty, carb-fuelled temptations.

It's the arcades. Supported by pillars and columns, and decorated, in some parts, with stuccoed icons of saints and messiahs, in others with fiery political slogans (generally of the "anti-austerity" variety), these marble-floored porticoes fan out through a centro storico (historic centre) wedged within the borders of Bologna's ancient city gates.

Dating back to the Middle Ages - when an edict was passed stating that all new buildings must have an arcade - these winding walkways appear infinite but Bolognese friends assure me that if you joined them together, they'd stretch about 40km in total.

Not just for show, the arcades shelter the entrances to all sorts of places: homes, hotels, museums, galleries, bars, cafes, trattorias, gelaterias, pizzerias and myriad retail outlets, allowing pedestrians to wander, sightsee and consume come rain or shine.

I fancy that being an umbrella salesman in Bologna would be one of the toughest jobs in the world.

The capital of northern Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, Bologna eludes many travellers' radars but the relative lack of tourists, allied with the city's traditional Italian charms and the youthful zest generated by its tens of thousands of students, makes it a rewarding place to break up a visit between, say, Milan and Florence, or Venice and Rome.

Like Venice, Bologna has several nicknames: la dotta (the learned one - it's home to Europe's oldest university, founded in AD1088), la rossa (the red one, thanks to its left-leaning politics and the colour scheme of its buildings and terracotta roofs), and la grassa (the fat one; it's one of Italy's gastronomic capitals and spawned the saucy Bolognese-style dishes globally adored today).

Despite its wealth of covered public spaces, plenty of stuff happens outdoors in Bologna. Cyclists are ubiquitous. It's said you can pedal almost anywhere of note within 15 minutes of Piazza Maggiore, the city's heartbeat, which is home to the imposing Basilica di San Petronio (said to be the world's fifth-largest church). It overlooks an ornate fountain sporting a buff bronze statue of the Roman god Neptune.

The alfresco cafes of Piazza Maggiore are a dream for people watchers. Over cappuccino, I spy septuagenarian businessmen with ancient suits and even older leather briefcases, gaggles of hipster students, and a parade of slim, stylish women weighed down with Gucci and Prada bags.

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An underappreciated Italian gem