The 234 Apartment

Follow KDKA-TV : Facebook | Twitter GREEN TREE (KDKA) — It’s hard to miss if you drive on the Parkway West – over- hanging solar panels atop the new Bentley Building constructed by Burns & Scalo, a company committed to sustainability from parking lot to rooftop. “This was an opportunity to feature sustainability,” CEO Jim Scalo told KDKA money editor Jon Delano on Friday. “Solar is a component of the building, and we cantilevered the solar as part of the architecture of the building so people could recognize the tangibility of it.” As you enter the building, a chart shows how much energy the building is actually producing. And forget the notion that Pittsburgh is too cloudy for solar panels, says Mike Carnahan, general manager of Scalo Solar Solutions . Delano: “Pittsburgh has a reputation for being a very cloudy city.” Carnahan: “Sure it does. Sure it does.” Delano: “Not true?” Carnahan: “Not true at all. Pittsburgh gets as much light as many places in the country.” Carnaha...

Another program, run by the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board , works with the city on co-op conversions of buildings taken over from delinquent landlords. Tenants help with renovations and can eventually buy the units for low prices. About 30,000 apartments are in the program, which is administered by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Since 2003 the city’s Housing Development Corporation has also been partnering with both for-profit and nonprofit developers to create new affordable apartments — 1,767 units in 21 buildings. The benefits of promoting homeownership in this way extend far beyond the individual owners, said Andrew Reicher, the executive director of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board . “In the Lower East Side , in Harlem, in Bed-Stuy,” he said, “these owners stuck it out and struggled to improve their block, and improvements spread from their work. And they are not displaced when the neighborhood turns around.” Of course, the question fo...

By David Pendered Atlanta’s first transportation corridor of the future is to be established in Southwest Atlanta along Campbellton Road by the city and MARTA. Naturally, a computer and the internet of things are at the heart of the effort. MARTA has increased the frequency of buses based out of the Oakland City Station to serve Campbellton Road , a corridor with many transit-dependent riders. Credit: David Pendered Futuristic traffic signals , now slated for installation, have the capacity to coordinate competing mobility demands of vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians, according to Faye DiMassimo, general manager of the Renew Atlanta infrastructure bond program and the city’s sales-tax-funded projects. These traffic signals already are being installed along North Avenue. City officials plan to cut the ribbon Sept. 16 on this “ smart corridor ” during an event that’s to include a demonstration of autonomous vehicles. The North Avenue project , a pilot project, is just the begi...

WITH the median price of an apartment in Manhattan topping $1,000 a square foot, homeownership is often far out of reach. But there are options for those who cannot afford the market rate, including co-op apartments for buyers who earn a certain percentage of the area median income , or A.M.I. These buildings are scattered all over the city. Some date to the 1950s; others are brand-new and still looking for buyers. Some are limited to those who earn less than the median income -- 60 or 80 percent, for example (the median for a family of four in New York City is $83,000). Others have apartments for those earning a bit more than that sum. Many new developments try to bring in owners from different economic backgrounds, and are likely to include market-rate units as well. At one recent development, Atlantic Terrace, near the new Nets arena in Brooklyn, similar one-bedroom apartments were priced at $85,000, $113,000 and $232,000, depending on the buyer's income. A market-rate one-be...