Regions

San Francisco—The U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in conjunction with the American Institute of Architects (AIA), has selected four affordable housing developments as the recipients of the HUD Secretary’s Housing and Community Design Award for excellence in residential housing design.   The awards were presented during the 2009 AIA National Convention and Design Exposition held in San Francisco.The winners were Homeless Assistance Center of Dallas; Project Place-Gatehouse of Boston; Bridgeton Neighborhood Revitalization of Bridgeton, N.J.; and Irvington Terrace of Fremont, Calif.”These housing developments are truly transformational,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. “They go beyond both form…

Scott Reithel recently joined Community Housing Partners (CHP), a non-profit community development corporation, as vice president of property management. Reithel is active with the National Affordable Housing Management Association (NAHMA) located in Alexandria, Va., where he is the president-elect and will serve as president in 2010. He also serves as the vice president of the NAHMA Educational Foundation and is a certified member of the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM).Previously, Reithel was involved in the Midwest Affordable Housing Management Association, where he was a three-time past president and Board of Director member. Reithel was also a property management instructor…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News Editor Tucson, Ariz.–Alliant Capital LLC recently arranged $5.5 million refinance of Cottonwood Creek (pictured), a 102-unit townhouse community located one mile from the University of Arizona in Tucson. The transaction closed with a 10-year term with two-year interest only and a 30-year amortization.   “Utilizing our partnership with Fannie Mae’s Choice Refinance program has always been popular with our borrowers,” says Jay Blasberg, senior vice president of the Alliant Capital Tucson office. “The streamlined underwriting process to refinance existing loans at lower rates not only saves us time but delivers a significant savings to our clients.”  Alliant…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorSanta Barbara, Calif.–Yardi Systems, developer of property management software, has recently unveiled an upgrade to Yardi Voyager Senior Housing, which includes a redesign of the marketing prospect workflow, inspired by client feedback. This features greater functionality along with a much simpler interface, which have been put in place to maximize lead prospecting and facilitate ease-of-use for staff and new hires. Utilizing a single integrated database, Voyager easily rolls prospect information into the care assessment workflow. The upgrade fortifies Voyager Senior Housing’s advanced clinical assessment functionality, supporting Fixed Charge, Gradient, Tiered, Time Based, and Service Level…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorOmaha, Neb.–Walker & Dunlop provided a $12,100,000 loan for Legacy Crossing Apartments (pictured) located in Omaha, Neb. The loan was structured with a 10-year term with two years interest-only, followed by a 30-year amortization. The loan was underwritten to an 80 percent loan-to-value and a 1.25x debt-service coverage ratio. Legacy Crossing Apartments is a B class, 408-unit garden-style apartment complex featuring an outdoor pool, tennis courts, fitness center, java café and computer stations, children’s playground and clubhouse. The borrower recently completed over $2 million in improvements to the property, which included reconstruction of balconies, new…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorChicago–The Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) recently became an executive member of the Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate (OSCRE), North America’s foremost standards development organization for the real property supply chain. Following this development, IREM selected Robert (Bob) Toothaker, CPM, who served as the organization’s president in 2007, to be its representative on the OSCRE Board of Directors. OSCRE facilitates the standards development process among key real estate stakeholders, including owners, tenants/occupants, investors, operators, tenants, developers, service providers, regulatory agencies, consulting firms, vendors and suppliers — to benefit all stakeholders and enable the…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorNew York–The government’s recent “stress tests” of the nation’s 19 largest banks showed that 10 banks — including Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. —need to raise a total of $75 billion in new capital to absorb potential losses if the recession were to take a turn for the worst.The remaining nine—JPMorgan Chase & Co. and brokerage house Goldman Sachs Group Inc. among them—have enough capital to withstand a deeper recession.According to the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, John Dugan, the tests help boost morale in the market. Tobey Price…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorChicago–Magellan Development Group has completed sales at the 35-story The Chandler, the fourth luxury condominium tower developed at Lakeshore East. The last unit, priced at over a $1 million, was sold after being on the market for close to a year. Lakeshore East is the $4-billion mixed-use complex anchoring the New East Side near the confluence of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.The Chandler, located at 450 E. Waterside Dr. on the northeast corner of the 28-acre community was developed in collaboration with Hanwha Engineering & Construction Co. It added 304 residences to the community,…

By Erika Schnitzer, Associate Editor Baltimore—Despite losing nearly 26,000 jobs from January 2008 to January 2009, the Baltimore metro area is outperforming its neighbors, according to the first quarter 2009 report prepared by Transwestern and its research affiliate, Delta Associates.Although the overall metro area’s unemployment rate is currently 7.1 percent, as of January 2009, the urban core’s rate is slightly higher—at 10.0 percent—while the suburbs are faring better with an unemployment rate of 6.3 percent.While the national decline in housing prices is approximately 8.2 percent, housing prices in the Baltimore metro area declined only 3.8 percent in 2008.Further, condo resale…

By Martin A. Shelton, Esq.Brownfield property purchasers and developers are wise to have a clear understanding of the legal and regulatory requirements associated with the process. It’s the difference between holding a brown parcel worth its weight in gold or waste. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Brownfields Prevention Initiative begun by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2000 was designed to “use opportunities for statutory and regulatory flexibility in the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to accelerate site cleanup, facilitate dialogue, and integrate reuse and redevelopment issues, as appropriate, into cleanup decisions.”The goal is to accelerate…