Articles About Development

The Energy Star ratings system and the Home Star program are likely to be joined by Building Star, which will provide incentives to improve energy efficiency in commercial and multi-family residential buildings.  Legislation to establishe Building Star was introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR). If the legislation becomes law, the […]

Two massive earthquakes in a single month – an 8.8 trembler in Chile and a 7.0 quake in Haiti – have raised the question of whether engineers can design buildings that don’t crumble when the earth’s tectonic plates crash against one another. Although the simple answer is that the technology exists to make buildings almost […]

A little-noticed bill was introduced in Congress in January that could bring a new source of liquidity to the commercial real estate sector – foreign investment.  Legislation introduced by Congressman Joseph Crowley (D-NY) called the Real Estate Revitalization Act of 2010 would cut taxes that were introduced as part of the Foreign Investment Real Estate […]

The last 30 years have seen a boom for skyscraper construction because the cost of borrowing money had declined significantly. When investors borrow money to purchase assets, they send prices higher.  The problem is that this borrowing makes the markets susceptible to busts when investors sell assets to pay their debts.  The recent financial crisis […]

Arizona, Georgia and Texas are the growth centers in terms of new residents in the last few years, according to an Associated Press analysis of Internal Revenue Service migration data. The IRS compared the states where taxpayers filed their returns from 2007 to 2008 to arrive at their conclusions. Texas led the nation, with 62,827 […]

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) wants to scrap Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in favor of an entirely new mortgage-financing system. According to Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and who previously supported the programs, “The committee will be recommending abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current forms and coming up with […]

A building boom is transforming the core of a fabled city that endured decades of war and turmoil.  It’s Beirut, where battered  Ottoman-era building are being restored and high-rise apartment towers with mirrored facades are rising along the Mediterranean waterfront. Beirut’s unprecedented building boom is transforming Lebanon into an investment haven at a time when […]

A long-term steelmaker is not fleeing Chicago for Canada, thanks to a deal in which A. Finkl & Sons Co. purchased six properties adjacent to the Verson Steel site on the southeast side for just $1. Finkl, which has been in business since 1879, will move its headquarters from the western edge of Lincoln Park […]

Chicago existing home sales soared by 33 percent in December, although the statistics were flat for the year, according to research by the Illinois Association of Realtors. The average home sale price fell approximately 18.3 percent to $196,000 when compared with 2008.  During 2009, a total of 69,290 Chicago-area homes were sold, a 0.2 percent […]

Olgga Architects took an inventive approach to creating student housing in Le Havre, France, by building a 100-unit complex using recycled shipping containers.  The result is stylish student housing that is portable, affordable, durable and eco-friendly. Called the “Crou”, the 2,841-meter (30,700 SF) pyramidal structure stacks the shipping containers on top of each other. The […]