Apartment Look

MOBILE, AL (WALA) - Groundbreaking ceremonies were held Wednesday for a new development featuring more than 250 upscale apartments in downtown Mobile . The groundbreaking comes just as the first phase of work is about to begin on a city project to make downtown more pedestrian friendly. The shovels came out Wednesday morning to break ground for the new Meridian at the Port complex. Developers say it will feature more than 250 upscale apartments. David Hanchrow with Bristol Development said, "People are looking to become less car dependent or, at least, shorten their commute, so, by living here at Meridian at the Port, if you work downtown or want to enjoy the restaurants downtown, you're just a short walk away."  Civic leaders say the project could potentially transform the downtown area, helping to attract grocery stores and retail outlets.   Fred Rendfrey, Downtown Economic Development Director with the Downtown Mobile Alliance said, "Other investors and develo...

MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) –   Development partners Leaf River Group and Bristol Development Group , as well as Mobile City officials , broke ground on Meridian at the Port, a large upscale apartment complex on Water Street. The more than $51 million project will feature 267 luxury apartments , a saltwater pool, a dog park, roof top lounge , and more. The complex is expected to be completed by 2019. Rent is estimated to be between $1000-1200. Tuesday morning, the development sent new artist renderings of the complex and they can be seen below in the slideshow. This residential development is part of an ongoing effort to revitalize the downtown area. City officials hope development like Meridian at the Port will make Water Street more pedestrian-friendly. “We’ve got to find ways to get people from across the street here at the various hotels and some level of interaction with our waterfront. This project accomplishes that vision to some degree,” says District 2 Councilman Levon C. Manzie...

LANSDALE >> Plans for a six- story apartment building on the corner of Third and Walnut streets have been revised again, and Lansdale officials look likely to be asked to approve several waivers for the project. Developer Ross Ziegler and architect Mike Rosen presented the latest version of those plans Monday night , describing changes including a new fence next to a dog park meant to buffer the building from its next door neighbors on Third Street. “In terms of both the fence and the dog park, we’d be open to discussions, certainly, to explore what would be more desirable, or how we can come up with solutions that might make more sense,” said Rosen. “We really want to encourage the concept of pet ownership, and taking care of their pets. And we clearly have been sensitive to the neighbor issue, and we will deal with it,” he said. The proposed Third and Walnut apartment building — termed “Walnut Crossing” on the plans — has been discussed since late 2015 by various borough b...

EAST CHICAGO, Ind. – The smell of burning bacon stirred Demetra Turner from her makeshift bed on the floor, a stack of quilts the only padding between her body and the ground. Long gone was her mattress, tossed into a dumpster with her couch, her recliner, her favorite theater chairs , her kids' beds. She had thrown them out on instructions from health officials , who said everything in the West Calumet Housing Complex was poisoned with arsenic and lead. Everyone must move, Mayor Anthony Copeland said last August, because the land was too dangerous to live on. But now it was May, and Turner and her children were still trying to escape. She shuffled past barren walls , packed boxes and cases of bottled water. "Who cooked that bacon?" Turner, 44, asked her 18-year-old son, Jeremiah. He sheepishly replied, "I did." She smiled and shook her head. He was just trying to help, she knew. Her overnight job at a gas station left her exhausted, and everyone in the fami...

Groundbreaking for Mobile's Meridian at the Port apartment complex on Wednesday was accompanied by new images illustrating backers' claims that it will be a transformative project for downtown. In the renderings, the five-story, 267- unit development is a large and distinctive presence on the east side of Water Street, a location that will make it one of the first landmarks seen by visitors arriving via I-165. Its features include an impressive poolside view of the Mobile skyline . Developers say the project will be completed in 2019. According to information provided by Leaf River Development Group and Bristol Development Group , the project will cost more than $51 million and will feature a mix of upscale studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. Amenities are to include "9-10 foot ceilings, large windows, balconies, quartz countertops and custom cabinets, stainless steel appliances , soaking tubs or frameless showers, and walk-in closets." "This sho...

When our children were 11 and 9, young enough to still be entirely inside the family circle but old enough to remember, we splurged on a “once in a lifetime vacation ” and rented a small farmhouse in Southwestern France outside the village of Saint-Cyprien. Each day, our son and daughter would say goodbye to the donkey that hung around our patio and we’d climb in the tiny rented Renault and drive somewhere in the fairy- tale beautiful Dordogne River region . On one of these excursions, we stumbled on the provincial city of Sarlat. An accident of history and several centuries of stagnant economy had left Sarlat’s center virtually unchanged architecturally since the days of siege engines and knights galloping over drawbridges. City fathers had wakened one morning in the late 1950s to realize that, leaning above narrow and winding cobblestone streets and alleys, they had one of the largest collections of intact medieval architecture in Europe. The French government subsidized restor...

by Jean M. Twenge Jean M. Twenge has been writing about generational differences for 25 years, producing bestsellers like Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic . In her latest book, Twenge zeroes in on iGen, the kids born in 1995 and later who have grown up with smartphones, had an Instagram page before they started high school and do not remember a time before the internet. The average teen checks her phone more than 80 times a day. The oldest iGen-ers, as she calls them, were early adolescents when the iPhone was introduced in 2007 and high school students when the iPad entered the market in 2010. Twenge argues the complete dominance of the smartphone among teens has had ripple effects across every area of iGen-er lives, from their social interactions to their mental health. Twenge draws on national surveys of 11 million Americans, conducted since 1960, to reach her conclusions. From about 2012, she started seeing "large, abrupt shifts in teens' behaviour and emoti...