Apartment Look

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At the end of one sticky month during the summer of 2017, Elizabeth Bolles will have finished packing the contents of her Riverbend apartment. She, her partner, their two young sons and two dogs will then pile into her Subaru and drive 350 miles to Houston, where her partner will start a new job.   The move is the upshot of six years of frustration and disappointment for Bolles since she graduated from Tulane University's law school in 2011. Since then, she's struggled to find a well-paying job in New Orleans; she's been runner-up for several positions and has worked odd jobs and short-term gigs to make ends meet . She's in the same boat as many of her friends and acquaintances in the city — a one- time National Merit Scholar who's been waiting tables for a decade, a buddy with two doctorates who can't find a professional job .   "You hear one person's story," Bolles says, "and you think maybe there's something going on with them, maybe...

fastest growing city ." src="src" /> Downtown revival: Eau Claire is now Wisconsin's second- fastest growing city . Andrea Paulseth /Volume One The small Wisconsin city is enjoying a cultural revival, thanks to its gorgeous setting, a few well-placed boosters, and a knack for smart development . Justin Green lived in Austin, Texas, most of his life. He opened a music studio there, got married, and had two kids. But by 2016, the 31-year-old felt it was time to leave behind the heat, crowds, and costs of the state’s fast-growing capital. He thought about Madison, Wisconsin, with its strong music scene . But bands kept telling Green to look further north, to Eau Claire. The town is known to indie music fans as the home of the Eaux Claires Music & Arts Festival, a two-day event co-founded and curated by singer- songwriter Justin Vernon of the band Bon Iver, who grew up there. So Green and his wife paid a visit. “We were just like, ‘Holy shit! This plac...

Diners enjoy lunch at Tortilleria Sinaloa, which has top-notch tacos in tortillas made the right way — by hand. The unassuming storefront in Fells Point is one of several cheap-eats destinations in a city suddenly flush with award-winning chefs. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post) Baltimore is that rare city with a dish so fundamental to its culture that the food’s name is an answer to a crossword puzzle. But if the crab cake is Charm City’s calling card, it can also be a cross to bear for those planning to open a restaurant there. The chef who dares to ignore the crab cake is the chef who risks losing the tourist searching for Baltimore’s signature dish, typically built with Chesapeake jumbo -lump crab, saltine cracker crumbs , a mayo binder and, of course, Old Bay. “You will find that in many restaurants there is a crab cake,” says Suzanne Loudermilk, restaurant critic for the Baltimore Sun. “It’s just part of our cuisine. When people do come from out of town, they inevitabl...

Fake Tans vs Man Buns In West Hollywood , the coffee shops, cafes, and gyms are overflowing with beautiful people, one more gorgeous than the next. These people, with their technician- administered airbrush tans and perfectly white teeth , can’t shut up about the movie business. At first glance, it may seem that the Silver Lakers are much less image-obsessed, but that perfectly curled mustache took hours to perfect. Why does every man in Silverlake have facial hair and a man bun? Intelligentsia vs Starbucks You’ll find many a Silver Lake resident hanging out at Intelligentsia – home of the coffee snob. You want lots of cream or sugar in your coffee? Brace yourself for heaps of condescension. All coffee should be single brew, don’t you know? There’s only one Starbucks located in Silver Lake proper , whereas there are countless Starbucks peppered throughout WeHo. West Hollywood residents use coffee as fuel for their auditions and/or business deals and simply don’t have all day to si...

ALLENTOWN — Talen Energy will vacate The Plaza at PPL Center in downtown Allentown early next year and move its employees into cheaper office space just blocks away on Hamilton Street, saving the company millions but leaving its landmark headquarters building mired in foreclosure and facing an uncertain future. Talen spokesman Todd Martin , responding to a request by The Morning Call, said Tuesday that the energy company has made a “five-year commitment” to rent two floors of the soon-to-be-opened Tower 6 at Sixth and Hamilton streets. The move will take effect in the second quarter of 2018, coinciding with the end of Talen’s lease at PPL Plaza at 835 W. Hamilton St. “We’re pleased to be able to maintain our historic roots in downtown Allentown ,” Martin said. “We see this decision as beneficial to our business, our employees and the Greater Lehigh Valley , especially to others in the business community in downtown Allentown .” Tower 6, owned by City Center Investment Corp ., is in...

From left to right: An ERA Insite Realty office , Greystar’s 1 Kennedy Flats in Danbury. Bronxville’s Carlson Real Estate merges with ERA Insite Realty of White Plains Two family- owned Westchester real estate firms merged this week, the Westchester Business Journal reported . Bronxville’s Carson Real Estate , founded in 1972 by Marie Carlson and now run by her son Craig, will join ERA Insite Realty , a franchise of ERA that has operated as a family business in White Plains for 32 years. Previous to this, the Carlson brokerage was a franchise of Coldwell Banker. Craig Carlson will become an associate broker at ERA and will bring 20 brokers with him. Louis Budetti, principal broker of ERA Insite, said the merger worked because both firms “are both family- owned businesses and share common philosophies .” [WBJ] One Danbury apartment complex sells for $31M as a nearby Greystar-owned complex goes on sale The 135- unit Willow Grove apartment complex in Danbury sold for $31 million l...

Six years ago, Mike Brown and Casey Lynch stood on Downtown Boise ’s 8th Street and wondered: Why don’t more people live here? Downtown seemed to have everything that a growing percentage of Americans wanted in a place to live. “I mean, there’s all kinds of jobs. There’s a million coffee shops and hair salons and restaurants, and there’s an active street life ,” says Brown, who founded the Los Angeles- based development company LocalConstruct with Lynch in 2008. Casey Lynch, left, and Mike Brown have made their mark in Boise. Provided by LocalConstruct But in 2011, fewer than 4,000 people lived in Downtown’s scattered apartment and condominium buildings and houses. On a typical weekday afternoon , most Downtown workers got in their cars and put the city in the rearview mirror. Brown and Lynch saw an opportunity. They thought Boiseans would trade ample floor space and vaulted ceilings in the suburbs for smaller, high- end Downtown apartments that offered amenities like gyms, a do...