February 2006 Table of Contents

Spacious rooms. Walk-in closets. Gleaming hardwood floors. Years ago, renters and condo buyers seeking a rental or condo could be wooed by these must-have amenities, considered high-life luxuries at the time. Read more

The storage room looked like a scene from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A 150-year-old monastery door from a temple in Burma, a 3-foot-tall statue of Buddha, and countless other Far East treasures covered the cold basement floor. These artifacts, though, were not destined for the famous New York museum, but instead for the newly renovated Denver apartment building in which they sat, waiting to be displayed. Read more

In the blur our daily lives have become (What are we having for dinner? What time was that meeting? Where's my BlackBerry?), we now forget about attention-getting tragedies almost as quickly as the 24/7 news networks make sure we hear about them. Remember the December 2004 tsunami? Just over a year after we watched frightening footage of those powerful waves sweeping up people and buildings, the coverage of these events and their aftermath has nearly disappeared. It's almost as if the Southeast Asia disaster never happened. Read more

In the past 15 years, multifamily living has surged in popularity. This is especially true in downtown and city neighborhoods, in locations near light rail, and in new suburban town centers that combine residential, office, and retail in walkable environments. Read more

When Bob Krause, president of Newport Development in Atlanta, spoke to lender Merrill Lynch in December about construction and mezzanine loans for a condominium development in Florida, the answer Krause received is becoming all too familiar to multifamily executives. Read more

In a way, Drew Goldman's new job is a homecoming. As a college student, he interned with a multifamily company, a commercial brokerage, and a developer, giving him a strong background in real estate. But after degrees in business from the University of Texas at Austin (bachelor's) and Emory University in Atlanta (MBA), Goldman turned to finance, working for GE Commercial Finance and JP Morgan Securities, among others. Read more

When the Integral Group redeveloped Centennial Place, an aging public housing project in Atlanta, company leaders wanted to do more than just build new housing. They wanted to do something about the dreadful elementary school in the neighborhood, which was one of the worst-performing elementary schools in the city. Read more

When Hurricane Katrina blew across the Gulf Coast and devastated New Orleans, she left countless businesses broken in her wake after she essentially wiped out critical communications infrastructure; dowsed systems and facilities with dirty, debris-laden water; and brought business operations to a virtual standstill for weeks, which then stretched into months. Read more

Stroll through the University of Georgia campus in Athens, and you'll get a glimpse into the future of security at student housing communities. The university uses hand-geometry readers to grant access to its residential buildings. Read more

The Idanha stands in Boise, Idaho, but the building's history sounds straight out of Hollywood. Since its 1901 opening, the Idanha has seen its share of soap opera-style drama, including an assassination attempt and the occasional report of a ghost sighting. Read more