Construction Maison

Roughly 220 children in lower-income families in Bloomington qualify for but do not have access to affordable pre- kindergarten education . In an effort to change this, Alex Crowley, director of the city’s Economic and Sustainable Development Department , said a state-sponsored initiative, On My Way Pre-K pilot program, which provides funding to programs serving 4-year-olds from families with household incomes at or below 127 percent of the federal poverty level , is coming to Monroe County next year, and it is estimated it can help about 50 children. That begs the question: What can the city and others do to make sure no children who are eligible for pre-kindergarten are left out? As part of that answer, the city is proposing investing $100,000 to support quality child care for lower-income families. “Every dollar initially invested in early education programs for children from low-income families is estimated to generate $4 to $11 in economic benefits over a child’s lifetime,” May...

Beijing:  The Kushner family came to the United States as refugees, worked hard and made it big - and if you invest in Kushner properties , so can you. That was the message delivered Saturday by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner 's sister Nicole Kushner Meyer to a ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors in Beijing. Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at a Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey luxury apartment complex that would help them secure what's known as an investor visa. The potential investors were advised to invest sooner rather than later in case visa rules change under the Trump administration."Invest early, and you will invest under the old rules," one speaker said. The tagline on a brochure for the event: "Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States." And the highlight of t...

EL CENTRO, Calif. — Seated at a kitchen table in a cramped apartment, Rosendo Gil asked the young parents sitting across from him what they should do if their daughter caught a cold. Blas Lopez, 29, and his fiancée, Lluvia Padilla, 28, quickly answered: Check her temperature and call the doctor if she has a fever they can’t control. “I’m very proud of both of you knowing what to do,” Gil said, as 3-year-old Leilanie Lopez played with a pretend kitchen nearby . Padilla recalled that when Leilanie was born, they would not have known the answer. “We were asking question after question after question,” she said. Gil, a family support worker with the Imperial County Home Visiting Program , has visited the family dozens of times since Leilanie’s birth. Each time, Gil teaches them a little more about child development and helps them cope with the stresses of work, school, relationships and parenting. This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free (details). Home visitors aroun...

Work on a new 80- unit apartment complex in Glasco, given final approval last month by the town planning board , could begin this spring, said Kingston- based developer Paul Page . “It may take a couple of years to complete, but we will be building straight through, not in phases,” he said. As the first buildings are completed, the apartments will be rented, Page said. The Glasco project will be similar to Page’s Orchard Hills Apartments in Kingston. The plan calls for eight two-story buildings, each containing eight to twelve apartments. Parking for 141 cars would be provided on-site. The planning board voted unanimously to approve the project at its December 19 meeting. Advertisement Given the history of the site — which includes a rent-subsidized project that was eventually withdrawn as a result of public protests and failure to secure state funding — Page emphasized that these apartments would not be subsidized. Rents would be at current market rates . On...

Creative placemaking — a concept that employs a specific strategy to infuse the arts and culture into a space — can be seen in different forms all around the world. There’s Alphabet City cultural center (run by the City of Asylum nonprofit) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where you can soak in a cultural performance , browse through a bookstore, drink a glass of wine, and go back home to your apartment — all without leaving the premises. There’s also the Livable Laneways Project in Vancouver, British Columbia, that “ transform overlooked alleys or ‘laneways’ into vibrant outdoor gathering spaces with a stimulating mix of interventions,” according to the Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit based in New York City, New York, that helps people create vibrant public areas . Now, one creative placemaking project along the waterfront in Berlin, Germany — near where the Berlin Wall once stood — has transformed into a robust urban village . The Holzmarkt urban village has a theater, dance ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Lyndhurst hotel and a pair of projects that will bring nearly 500 apartments to Cleveland won financing support Tuesday from the Cleveland- Cuyahoga County Port Authority . The port's board signed off on nearly $200 million in real estate- related bond transactions , setting the stage for construction to start within months on a trio of projects. The agency acts as a conduit for development financing, issuing bonds and helping to structure deals that involve longer terms , lower interest rates or cheaper construction materials than a borrower might find in the private market. Tuesday's headline deals were: A  Hyatt Place hotel and a 355- space parking garage at the Legacy Village shopping center in Lyndhurst. Developer Mitchell Schneider hopes to start construction in May and to complete the $33 million project by June 2016, in hopes of grabbing hotel- room demand generated by the Republican National Convention in July. The 135-room hotel and gara...

Water Management Awards gather following the awards ceremony with Mr. Randy Robinson, acting assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment (front row far left), and Ms. Carla Coulson, acting deputy assistant chief of staff for Installation Management (front row far right) during the Energy Exchange Symposium held in Tampa Florida. The Awards are presented in categories related to energy efficiency , energy management , and water conservation ." /> 1 / 1 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Many of the forty-nine recipients of 2017 Secretary of the Army Energy and Water Management Awards gather following the awards ceremony with Mr. Randy Robinson, acting assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment (front row far left), and Ms. Carla Coulson, acting deputy assistant chief of staff for Installation Management (front row far right) during the Energy Exchange Symposium held in Tampa Florida. The Awards are presen...