Apartment Choice

Transport your mind to this imaginary high school campus . Kids are chattering and wandering about between classes. There’s a pretty blonde named Abi over there cradling her books, wearing stylish T.J. Maxx, and just generally throwing off cool. Boys slow as they pass and say hi with a hopeful little wave. Girls cluster around the leader of their clique. Cheerleader power. ** Dream on. That’s all the real Abi can do. Abi is 15 and probably could fit some of the above roles given more favorable circumstances. Alas, circumstances would not be her friend because there is a mountain range of them standing in her way. The first is her address. She doesn’t have one. At present, it’s a parking lot on 28th street that’s free to homeless people . That’s where I met her when I wrote last week’s column on her family, the Garcias. The family is parked there each night in a ’99 Ford Explorer with no place else to go, though they are trying to find one. They sometimes rent a cheap motel for a night...

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted. The site of a former brick factory in Murray is being transformed into an urban-style neighborhood. Hundreds of apartments are being built — and hundreds more are coming — as part of the Fireclay development that promises to transform a once-dilapidated side of town. The first phase of the project, Lions Gate at Fireclay, began earlier this year. Renters are expected to arrive by next spring. The next phase, Brick Gate at Fireclay, is scheduled to start next month. Construction will take 20 months. By the time the project is complete, it will have a total of 268 low- income housing units and 400 market-rate apartments. The development at 4400 South and 100 West is a joint venture...

UConn’s place in the Hartford skyline . Hartford — For nearly a half-century, the University of Connecticut has had no place to call its own in the state’s capital city. Today that changes as Connecticut’s flagship university opens the doors of its new $140- million downtown branch campus on Prospect Street . The arrival of the campus, which comes after five years of false starts and setbacks, is a milestone for the university and the city of Hartford. Hundreds attended the grand opening ceremony downtown Wednesday morning . For UConn, it marks the institution’s return from the suburbs into the heart of the city – where the school first opened its Greater Hartford branch in 1939. It moved to West Hartford in 1970. The university, in the years since, had been able to continue to claim a “presence” downtown. Some of UConn’s graduate business programs are housed in a space it leases in 100 Constitution Plaza, and the university’s basketball and ice hockey teams play games in the XL ...

Downtown Calistoga could be the site for a new complex that includes a hotel, spa, restaurant and apartment rentals. On Tuesday the Calistoga City Council approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Merchant family that gives the go-ahead for a development application for the Veranda Hotel project to be located on Lincoln Avenue in a 10- acre site situated between Indian Springs Resort and the Calistoga Depot , both properties also owned by the Merchant family. “Every element of this will be up for discussion. There will be multiple public hearings both in front of the Planning Commission, as well as the City Council for consideration if any zoning amendments are required,” Mayor Chris Canning said. “And knowing the applicant and their history in town I’m sure they will also be some open community meetings that they will be willing to host.” The project includes a hotel with up to 170 guest rooms, restaurants, meeting rooms, a spa, a 4,464-square- foot event building ...

Orlando will soon have a new community down near Disney — the Four Seasons Private Residences — where home prices start around $5 million. Bully for all our new neighbors ... and the $24,514 in homeowner’s association fees they’ll pay each year. Ironically, though, many of the people who already live here — the ones who work full-time in the tourist industry that attracts the Four Seasons folks — can’t afford homes of their own. Heck, they can’t even cover the HOA dues. Central Florida , you see, is in the midst of an all-out housing crisis . Our affordable- housing shortage is so severe that the National Low Income Housing Coalition recently found just 18 rental units available for every 100 low- income families — one of the lowest rates in America. As a result, we have families living in cheap motels and relying on government subsidies. And with rents rising, it’s only getting worse. This isn’t exactly the kind of thing our chambers of commerce or visitors bureaus like to promo...