Envy Apartment

Cincinnati—2013 was a good year for the Cincinnati apartment market , as the city experienced an increase in demand thanks to improving employment , income growth and a swelling millennial population . According to Marcus & Millichap, 600 apartments were delivered last year, vacancies dropped to 4.5 percent—the lowest year-end level in years—and average rents were fast approaching $800 per month. And the commercial real estate brokerage firm expects Cincinnati ’s apartment market to perform the same this year. Forbes recently reported that Cincinnati is the third most affordable city in the United States. Although the median price for a new home in the area was set at around $133,000, the rental market was still the top performer last year. And apartment rents are expected to continue to increase in 2014, for the fifth consecutive year. All of this is thanks to the growing population of young professionals. Cincinnati’s 20- to 34-year-old population, with its live-work-play lifes...

ANDERSON – The developers of the Delaware Court Apartments in downtown Anderson are on track to open the facility, built in 1926, by the end of the year. The developers told the Anderson Historical & Cultural Preservation Commission on Monday that there will be a request later to install central heating and air conditioning in the building. Developer Cory Mendez said installing a centralized air conditioning system will eliminate the need for window air conditioners . He said the commission will also be asked to approve the placement of the condensers, which will include wrought iron fencing . Mendez said the developers are awaiting the final plans for the replacement of the electrical and plumbing systems. The original plans for the staircase railings and posts at the main entrance have been provided to a local millwright to make them appear as originally designed. Developer Phil Rush said the building sat vacant for seven years but was in good shape because of its origina...

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...

It took less than a month to find a new use for the palatial sandstone building in the heart of Edinburgh that was once a jewel of Sir Philip Green ’s retail empire. The Scottish capital was one of more than 100 British towns and cities to see a large gap open up in its high street when BHS collapsed last year. For some provincial shopping streets , the clothing and homeware outlet had been their biggest draw. The chain’s demise has forced landlords to be creative in filling those gaps, often by embracing gym operators and pound shops as well as other retailers, in the hope they can seed life in the darkened stores. With other department stores looking vulnerable, having survived a cyclical downturn only to be plunged into a new battle against obsolescence, what has happened to BHS’s stores might prove instructive for the future. Scottish Home Stores on Princes Street in Edinburgh © Alamy On Edinburgh’s bustling Princes Street , local entrepreneurs reopened the former BHS as “ S...

Ruth Chase with two of her paintings at the opening of "West of Lincoln" Jennifer Swann Eddie Hadvina points to the painting of himself as an 11-year-old Boy Scout. In it, he’s wearing an olive green cap and a red kerchief with his khaki uniform, a skateboard in one hand and a trophy in the other. On his left shoulder is a patch representing Venice ’s Troop 34, which he joined at his mother's insistence. “That’s where all the trouble started,” says Hadvina, now 56 and sporting a gray goatee. “That’s where I met all my Venice Hoodlum friends ,” he says, referring to a street gang that was active in the neighborhood in the 1970s. Hadvina's parents, both Hungarian immigrants, visited Venice on their honeymoon in 1960 — Hadvina says he was conceived during that trip — and decided to move there two years later. Hadvina discovered skateboarding when the sport was still brand-new and being pioneered in the neighborhood by people like Stacy Peralta, one of his peers. But H...

SEMINOLE HEIGHTS — When Mary Myles became program manager of The Graham Home 25 years ago , 30 adults with special needs occupied 65 square-foot apartments. "It was tough on Mary when the place closed," said Gracepoint project manager Susan Morgan . "She'd be the one putting a bucket out when it leaked." Today, a partnership between Gracepoint and DDA Development has brought about a suitable replacement for the senior living facility . The Graham reopened last month and now Mary Myles sits in a corner office on the same property, overlooking a community garden and lush landscape. The 80 residents now occupy 646 square-foot apartments. No need for a bucket. "We wanted to create something better for them," Myles said. Gracepoint privately funded the project, the first affordable housing units Gracepoint built from the ground-up using low income housing tax credits and a loan from the state of Florida. "Mary had been making do with nothing,...

Lancaster- based Oak Tree Development Group said it has agreed to buy the 11-acre property from Wilbur’s owner, Cargill, for an undisclosed price. “We like projects that are community-centric,” said Oak Tree President Mike O’Brien. “We’re excited to do a project that positively impacts a small town like this.” Oak Tree expects to submit plans to the borough in 60 days. The firm hopes to get them approved by year-end, start construction in early 2018 and complete the venture by March 2019. A name for the project has yet to be selected, said O’Brien. He declined to disclose the project’s cost. “We’re eager to work with Oak Tree,” said Karen Weibel, president of Lititz’s Borough Council . “It’s a local firm. They have a lot of credibility. We’re extremely thankful that the building will be utilized quickly, and not sit there for five or 10 years and invite blight.” Mayor Tim Snyder also was enthusiastic about the plan, saying the new uses “will enhance downtown Lititz . ... It’s going...

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...