Archive for June 2008

By Anuradha Kher, Online News Editor Washington, D.C.–An alliance of apartment organizations have joined forces to file a “friend of the court” brief asking the United States Supreme Court to decide whether states and localities can force property owners to participate in the federal Section 8 program by passing laws that make it illegal to deny…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorPhoenix–La Siena, a 190-unit high-end independent senior living facility located in Phoenix, will open next week.“Phoenix has always had the retiree demographic but lately it has become a high-growth city for senior housing,” John Boyd, Opus West senior director of real estate development, tells MHN.Opus West Corp. and RED Group…

By Anuradha kher, Online News EditorCollege Station, Texas–Asset Plus has broken ground on The Lofts at Wolf Pen Creek, an 8.6-acre mixed-use student housing development located in the Wolf Pen Creek Corridor in College Station, Texas. The community will open in the summer of 2009.The luxury 679-bed pedestrian-oriented student housing community features a four-story stucco…

Adrienne Faulkner (pictured) is the founder of Dallas-based Faulkner Design Group. Her passion for design is rightly inherited – her grandfather, architect George L. Dahl, FAIA, was the creator of Dallas’ famed 1936 Fair Park Centennial Expo. She is also the president of Architectural – Images, an art company showcasing Dahl’s artwork. Faulkner has completed…

Washington, D.C.–The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced a new plan Tuesday for disaster housing that gives governors the right to use units that exceed FEMA’s new formaldehyde standards and accept or refuse travel trailers.Washington, D.C.-headquartered FEMA says that, with the state governor’s permission, it will use trailers only when absolutely necessary on private property containing…

New York–The banks most exposed to bond insurers Ambac and MBIA–Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and UBS–could see further losses of up to $10 billion because the bond insurers lost their triple A credit ratings last week, the Financial Times said Wednesday.The banks used New York-based Ambac and Armonk, N.Y.-headquartered MBIA–which were downgraded by Standards and Poor’s…

London–U.K. housing market fears caused the pound to decline against the euro after a two-day rise and raised new concerns about the overall economy, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.A private report released Wednesday that said U.K. economic growth had fallen to a three-year low in the quarter to May only increased speculation that the U.K. economy was…

London–British banking officials said Tuesday that a new plan to deal with credit market chaos and restore lending market confidence was in the works, the New York Times said.Bank of England governor Mervyn King noted that “the crisis is not yet over” and said that the Bank of England was creating a new method of…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorLivingston, N.J.–When the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rolled out its new compliance manual for Low Income Tax Credit communities in January 2007, many in the industry perceived some changes in the manual as a potential problem for developers using SureDeposit programs.The IRS has now clarified that SureDeposit does in fact…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorMiddletown, Del.–Green Park Financial recently provided a $12.5 million refinance loan to Middletown Apartments, a 156-unit Class A apartment community, located in Middletown, Del.Green Park structured the loan with a 10-year term and 30-year amortization. The loan was underwritten to an 80 percent loan-to-cost with a 1.20x debt-service coverage ratio…