Apartment Choice

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...

A busy intersection in Shaker Heights is being transformed through the redevelopment of the Warrensville- Van Aken business district . The former Van Aken Center will connect with nearby Shaker Plaza to create the Van Aken District , a new downtown and community- gathering place for the city. Phase one of the $97.2 million project, under construction near the intersection of Warrensville Center Road and Van Aken and Chagrin boulevards, is due to be completed next summer. “There really has been nothing like this in Shaker Heights,” said Jack Bialosky Jr ., senior and managing principal of Bialosky Cleveland, the architectural firm responsible for planning the project and designing most of the buildings in phase one. “It’s a mixed-use, urban development which will really provide public space for the community, all organized around a central triangular park . “It’s going to be a place where the community can come, shop, dine and recreate. It will be a beautifully scaled, contained s...