A Cleveland suburb opens a $31.7 million new middle school and renovated high school

Accommodating 1,283 students in grades 6-12, the Warrensville, Ohio school complex features flexible learning environments and offers programs ranging from culinary arts and firefighting training to e-sports.

MFPRO+ News

More permits for ADUs than single-family homes issued in San Diego

Popularity of granny flats growing in California

Codes and Standards

New York City code update changes definition of a major building

Changes affecting how construction projects in New York City are permitted will have significant impacts for contractors. On Dec. 11, the definition of a major building in the city’s code will change from 10 stories to seven, or 75 feet. The change will affect thousands more projects.

Adaptive Reuse

Detroit’s Michigan Central Station, centerpiece of innovation hub, opens

The recently opened Michigan Central Station in Detroit is the centerpiece of a 30-acre technology and cultural hub that will include development of urban transportation solutions. The six-year adaptive reuse project of the 640,000 sf historic station, created by the same architect as New York’s Grand Central Station, is the latest sign of a reinvigorating Detroit.

Aug 11, 2010

Westin Hotel

Mid-twentieth-century projects are in a state of limbo. In many cities, safeguards against quick demolition don't even cover “new” buildings built after 1939, yet many such buildings may be obsolete by current standards. The Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank, located in downtown Minneapolis, was one such building, a rare example of architecture from a time when American design was ...

Aug 11, 2010

Dream Fields, Lone Star Style

How important are athletic programs to U.S. school districts? Here's one leading indicator: In 2005, the National Football League sold 17 million tickets. That same year, America's high schools sold an estimated 225 million tickets to football games, according to the American Football Coaches Association.

Aug 11, 2010

Platinum Award: Monumentally Hip Hotel Conversion

At one time the tallest building west of the Mississippi, the Foshay Tower has stood proudly on the Minneapolis skyline since 1929. Built by Wilbur Foshay as a tribute to the Washington Monument, the 30-story obelisk served as an office building—and cultural icon—for more than 70 years before the Ryan Companies and co-developer RWB Holdings partnered with Starwood Hotels & Resor...

Aug 11, 2010

Living and Learning Center, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences

From its humble beginnings as a tiny pharmaceutical college founded by 14 Boston pharmacists, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences has grown to become the largest school of its kind in the U.S. For more than 175 years, MCPHS operated solely in Boston, on a quaint, 2,500-student campus in the heart of the city's famed Longwood Medical and Academic Area.

Aug 11, 2010

Gold Award: Eisenhower Theater, Washington, D.C.

The Eisenhower Theater in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., opened in 1971. By the turn of the century, after three-plus decades of heavy use, the 1,142-seat box-within-a-box playhouse on the Potomac was starting to show its age. Poor lighting and tired, worn finishes created a gloomy atmosphere.

Aug 11, 2010

200 East Brady

Until July 2004, 200 East Brady, a 40,000-sf, 1920s-era warehouse, had been an abandoned eyesore in Tulsa, Okla.'s Brady district. The building, which was once home to a grocery supplier, then a steel casting company, and finally a casket storage facility, was purchased by Tom Wallace, president and founder of Wallace Engineering, to be his firm's new headquarters.

Aug 11, 2010

Giants 300 University Report

University construction spending is 13% higher than a year ago—mostly for residence halls and infrastructure on public campuses—and is expected to slip less than 5% over the next two years. However, the value of starts dropped about 10% in recent months and will not return to the 2007–08 peak for about two years.

Aug 11, 2010

Great Solutions: Business Management

22. Commercial Properties Repositioned for University USE Tocci Building Companies is finding success in repositioning commercial properties for university use, and it expects the trend to continue. The firm's Capital Cove project in Providence, R.I., for instance, was originally designed by Elkus Manfredi (with design continued by HDS Architects) to be a mixed-use complex with private, market-...

Aug 11, 2010

Reaching For the Stars

The famed Griffith Observatory, located in the heart of the Hollywood hills, receives close to two million visitors every year and has appeared in such films as the classic “Rebel Without a Cause” and the not-so-classic “Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.” Complete with a solar telescope and a 12-inch refracting telescope, multiple scientific exhibits, and one of the world...

Aug 11, 2010

Holyoke Health Center

The team behind the new Holyoke (Mass.) Health Center was aiming for more than the renovation of a single building—they were hoping to revive an entire community. Holyoke's central business district was built in the 19th century as part of a planned industrial town, but over the years it had fallen into disrepair.