P
Patrick
Guest
first one is columbus oh. Check out this one. cool
http://www.wildnatureimages.com/I to R/River_Walk_Umbrellas..JPG
http://www.wildnatureimages.com/I to R/River_Walk_Umbrellas..JPG
I'd look to Providence for a nice example of a New England riverwalk.
Courthouse upgrade on schedule, under budget
MANCHESTER ? Reconstruction of Hillsborough-North Superior Court is on schedule and under budget, according to project managers.
With the passing of each day, the old courthouse on Chestnut Street, which was gutted early this year and had extensive asbestos removed by July, looks less and less like a giant, steel shell.
The project, scheduled to be finished by July 1, is being funded through $17 million the state appropriated in 2009 to cover everything from asbestos abatement to exterior landscaping.
Construction crews are working on numerous parts of the building, from the roof to plumbing, said Jeff Shute, project manager with the Bureau of Public Works, state Department of Administrative Services.
"It'll look very different from the way it was," he said.
The Superior Court operations packed up and shipped out late last year for an 18-month relocation to Hillsborough-South in Nashua.
Separate operations at the Spring Street courthouse in Nashua resumed Jan. 4.
The Chestnut Street courthouse, which first opened in 1969, will have at least six courtrooms, greater public access to business offices and windows, and better security, including a sally port for law enforcement officers to deliver and pick up court patrons who require security escort.
Project managers aim to achieve the highest rating possible through LEED certification, a rating program of the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
Salvaging and reusing parts of the old courthouse were central to that effort, said Stephen Lorentzen, administrator of the Bureau of Court Facilities within the New Hampshire Department of Administrative Services.
Another component for LEED is the use of natural light; renderings of the building show courtrooms with skylighting.
Lorentzen said the renovation is designed to make the courthouse as energy-efficient as possible.
"We've made significant progress on the work completed to date," Lorentzen said. "There's a lot of stuff happening simultaneously."
John Harper, project manager for Lavallee Brensinger Architects, said nearly 100 tons of materials have been removed from the building to date for recycling and salvage. Of that, an estimated 95 percent or greater was diverted from landfills or incineration, or repurposed for use by others.
Some of the materials have gone back into the courthouse renovation, such as granite panels to be reused, in part, for a public plaza along Chestnut Street.
Other features include waterless urinals, electronic faucets powered by 30-year energy cells, regional wood materials from managed forests and sensors that turn off lights in unoccupied rooms.
Technology improvements, which feature up-to-date wiring for media outlets, include modern X-ray, magnetometer and scanning checkpoints, and enhanced emergency exits and fire protection systems, according to Lavallee Brensinger Architects.
In an era of foreclosures and uncertain home prices, an increasing number of people have been renting rather than buying new homes.
In Manchester, developers are responding to that trend by building or renovating hundreds of new apartments.
And as NHPR Correspondent Ellen Grimm has discovered, those developers are expecting to attract more well-heeled tenants.
Arthur Sullivan is standing in a cavernous space in a 130 year-old mill building on the city's west side.
We?re in that massive building called Mill West across from Catholic Medical Center.
The windows are about ten feet tall and the walls are brick.
To the east, you can see the Merrimack river, the downtown skyline, and a hint of the interstate.
Sullivan is planning about 200 apartments on the building?s four floors.
Sullivan: And they'll be about 1,000 square feet each. And they'll have the unique features that a mill-type loft would have -- all sandblasted and hardwood floors. These floors will actually be refinished to add to the character of the nits.
The project is expected to cost around $24 million.
Across the way is a low-rise building that once served as a cotton warehouse.
Sullivan plans to turn that into another 87 apartments.
Sullivan is a partner in Brady Sullivan Properties.
Originally, he had planned to sell the space as condos.
But, given the weak housing market, Sullivan decided to rent them out.
The two bedroom Mill West units will go for about 1200 dollars a month. That's 20 percent higher than the median rent for similar-sized apartments in the city.
Sullivan: I think you have a lot of people that normally would be probably entry- market people into new housing who are saying, 'Geez, I don't know if it's the right time; I don't know if the market has bottomed out.' And they'll gravitate to higher-end unique type of apartments we have at the Mill.
Another large group of renters, he says, are people who have lost their homes to foreclosure.
Sullivan?s not alone in turning to the rental market.
According to a 2010 study by Harvard?s Joint Center for Housing Studies, the number of renter households increased nearly 10 percent, that?s an increase of 3.4 million, between 2004 and 2009.
In south Manchester, meanwhile, 6 buildings with 195 high-end apartments are in their early stages.
Manchester planner Jonathan Golden calls it ?sort of a boom? in apartment construction.
Golden: I think it's replacing the potential subdivisions and single-family lots that normally probably would have been occurring. You also have to think that buildable land in the city is starting to diminish.
Jane Law is with the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority.
Law says unlike the housing market, rentals have been stable.
Law: You would think that if it's just the economy, that the rental costs would go down because of lack of ability of people to pay those market rents, but the fact that they are still static, while for-sale homes, the prices of those have gone down, it's kind of indicative to us that there is demand for rentals. And we haven't seen vacancy rates rise either.
Jay Minkarah is Manchester's economic development director.
Minkarah: Where we're seeing most of the interest is in moderate to higher end rental. The kind of housing that, in particular, would say appeal to young professionals.
As for why some people with means aren't buying homes, he says, one reason might be that they haven't yet established their credit record.
And lending standards are tougher.
Minkarah: The other is, you know, the uncertainty: Well, yes, I've got a good job now and I've got a good income, but will I, or will my spouse, three months from now or six months from now, so that can cause people hesistation.
In Nashua, developers are not moving so quickly.
The City?s economic development director Tom Galligani says some builders are also looking into developing rental properties.
But they're hestitating.
Galligani: A lot of them have explained to us fairly succinctly that the economy is still struggling, the rental market is getting stronger they perceive in the Greater Boston area and all the way up here to Nashua and they feel it's time for getting the projects ready so that when the market does really strenghthen and really starts to climb out of the doldroms they'll have a project that'll be ready to go.
In Manchester, though, confidence is high.
The last phase of the Mill West project goes before the planning board on January 6.
Sullivan expects to start filling apartments by the middle of 2011.
And, when people are ready to buy again, he says, all those rentals can be turned into condos.
For NHPR News in Manchester, I'm Ellen Grimm.