Envy Apartment

At the ribbon cutting this month for the Wesley Village affordable housing complex in Garden Grove, Laura Archuleta couldn ’t resist referencing Joni Mitchell ’s 1970 environmental protest “Big Yellow Taxi.” Built on underused land that’s part of the Garden Grove United Methodist Church campus on Main Street, Wesley Village offered Archuleta , president of the nonprofit community organization Jamboree Housing Corp ., a chance to riff on one of Mitchell’s most famous lyrics. Where Mitchell sang “They paved paradise/And put up a parking lot,” Archuleta told about 300 people packed into the steamy church sanctuary on a hot afternoon that “Today we are going to learn how a group of dedicated organizations and individuals re-purposed a parking lot and put up a paradise.” Then she and others who spoke, including a single mom with six children who now reside at Wesley Village , told how the project became reality through a unique collaboration that involved the church, Jamboree and other...

CLOSE The Americana Lodge in downtown Redding , California, closed in January after hundreds of alleged code and safety violations , and now The Hignell Companies hopes to repurpose the building. Wochit Architectural renderings of the proposed remodeling project to turn the closed Americana Lodge into The Lofts. (Photo: Russell Studio) Plans to convert the shuttered Americana Lodge in downtown Redding to apartments come before the city Wednesday afternoon . The project has been hailed as a catalyst for the area since The Hignell Companies of Chico announced it was purchasing the former motel late last year. Hignell would transform the property between Pine and Market streets into 24 one-bedroom and 20 studio apartment units that would average between 400 and 500 square feet of floor space. At least four of the apartments would be set aside for very-low and low-income renters. The Redding Board of Administrative Review will consider Hignell’s site development permit application ...

The city of Tampa is on the cusp of a total makeover. With billions of dollars in investment and dozens of new apartment, condo, office and cultural buildings in the pipeline, the city's skyline and surrounding communities are poised to look a whole lot different than what it does today. But dreaming up the future of Tampa doesn't come without its challenges. For all the promises of a new urban core filled with hotels, parks, food halls and stores, there are also potential pitfalls. The Tampa Bay Times identified the five key obstacles that stand in the way of some of the biggest projects proposed in Hillsborough County . Many of these challenges are ones local politicians and business leaders have been fighting for years to find a solution. Others are fairly new territory, but still pose a real threat to the region's continued growth. [LOREN ELLIOTT | Times] A construction site is seen just north of Amalie Arena in downtown Tampa , Fla., on Monday, May 1, 2017. Curr...