Real Estate and Development

Leed Certified

2009-12-03T12:44:00.001-08:00

Today I have been researching the various levels of LEED certifications and what each level entails. The building that I work in just recently became LEED certified so since I work in the department that helped our building get the certification I figured I need to know actually what it means. So I have spent the entire day learning about Areas of Credit which you can receive points towards becoming a LEED certified building. These areas are:

Sustainable Sites

Water Efficiency

Energy & Atmosphere

Materials and Resources

Indoor Environmental Quality

Very interesting information, in the future I hope they incorporate more of the ideas into residential building as well.

More Kachina Dolls

2009-12-02T10:07:00.001-08:00

Last week I had to go to our storage closet and locate all of our Kachina Dolls. They were in 10 different boxes (in the back corner of course). I then spread them out in the conference to inventory which dolls we had left. Now I have a colored PDF of all the dolls with each one being properly labeled by doll size, value and artist. Hopefully I can find a buyer!

Real Estate Move

2009-12-02T08:57:00.001-08:00

I just had a meeting with the VP of Real Estate and Development and learned that I will be moving offices into a different location. We are starting to “ramp up” our real estate campaign in hopes of receiving residential and commercial real estate properties. So, I will be moving offices next week. My new location is by senior management. Lucky me.

Kachina Dolls

2009-12-02T07:56:00.000-08:00

Here at the ASU Foundation we had a donation of Kachina Dolls a few years ago. One of my responsibilities has been to find different avenues to liquidate these dolls. Never did I realize that Kachina dolls worth are identified by which plateau they come from and the name of the artist who carved them. Also, Kachina dolls are carved entirely out of cottonwood. I've managed to liquidate a few but still have about 15 or so left.

Green Team

2009-12-02T07:40:00.000-08:00

Here at the work we have a "green team" that was started by one of our admins and has grown to be quite successful. I have been collaborating with them on different ideas and thoughts on how to implement more of a "green" culture around the office. Today we have a staff meeting in the board room to unveil all of their hard work.

Keller House

2009-12-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

The Keller House that I talked about in one of my previous blogs has now been razed. I orginally measured the square footage of the home for various purposes. At the bequest of ASU administrative it has been leveled and is now a empty dirt lot.

Downtown Campus Map

2009-12-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

So, I've finally completed my downtown ASU campus map plotting and analyzing each RFP, current project and capital program. Now the next step is the Tempe campus, Polytech Campus and West Campus. Tempe has quite a bit in the works and Polytech some. But, the West campus sadly is struggling right now. Hopefully by the time we all graduate (and Robin gets out of law school) the economy and job market will be in full upswing. Happy Holidays everyone!

Thanksgiving

2009-11-21T15:38:00.000-08:00

While am I writing this I am on a flight to St. Louis to go back home for Thanksgiving. It is my parents 40th Anniversary this year so I promised that I would fly back home to Jackson, the little town I grew up in. It has been a while since I’ve been back and all of my siblings are going to be there as well. I haven’t seen my sisters since I got married so I’m excited. I think we are all going to go bowling one night (since watching a movie is out of the question because Jackson doesn’t have a movie theatre.) I might drive up to St. Louis on Sunday to watch the Card/Rams game as well. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Real Estate Tax Credit

2009-11-21T15:37:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are undecided about investing in a house or condo now is the time. You only have a few months left to capitalize on the $8,000 dollar tax credit before it expires. If you buy a house/condo within the allotted time frame the government will send you a $8,000 dollar check! However, this is for first time homeowners only. I recommend staying away from condos and townhomes with high HOA fees unless you plan on renting it out. If anyone is interested I have a few recommendations on where to get the most bang for your buck.

Downtown Map

2009-11-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

After getting my map of the downtown campus from the Universities Architects office, I’ve begun to plot the capital programs, RFP’s, current projects and newly completed projects at the downtown campus. It’s pretty amazing much for this area has grown in the past five years. With the completion of Taylor Place, University Center and the Cronkite Building, the downtown campus is quickly gaining notoriety. As a UMS major it’s great to see some of the practices and concepts we are learning in class being put into action. Slowly there is a culture growing in this area that is essential to vibrancy to downtown urban areas.

ASU CAREER CONNECTIONS

2009-11-20T14:46:00.001-08:00

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 I went to the ASU Career connections in Old Main’s Carson Ballroom on the Tempe Campus. This event brought together alumni from various fields with undeclared students; providing an informal environment for students to discover different career fields and better understand what they are really like on a day-to-day basis. “Every year the careers of interest changes for students and this year they are particularly interested in representatives from the following fields: Architecture, Business, Construction, Criminology, Engineering, Journalism, Nursing, Social Work, Social Services and Sustainability. “ This was fitting for me since I have a strong interest in sustainability and architecture.

Maps

2009-11-19T06:39:00.000-08:00

I finally received the the new rendering of the downtown campus map. The ASU architects office has updated all four campuses including the new buildings that have been completed up to October of this year. I will now be making this into a large 30 x 40 map on a dry erase foam board. This will allow to track any capital programs at ASU along with any changes in RFP's.

ASU Art Museum provides tour for green builders

2009-11-17T15:08:00.001-08:00

I went to this and found it quite interesting. There is a part about Nan Ellin, the director of urban planning in here. Below in the article I found on the event located at azcentral.com

The Arizona State University Art Museum hosted a small event and provided tours of its seasonal exhibit, Defining Sustainability, for 120 U.S. Green Building Council members Friday.

The 2009 Greenbuild Expo was held in Phoenix last week and the art event was one of a number of related activities in Tempe.

Nan Ellin, ASU professor, director of urban planning and artist of the exhibit CanalScape, explained that much of the inspiration for her exhibit came through her realization that Phoenix does not yet have a reason to celebrate its canals.

"I want Phoenix to revitalize and build art-filled bridges, parks, and businesses along the canal so that it may be called 'the city of bridges,' " Ellin said.

To do this, she explained that Phoenix must follow the DNA of the city, the desert landscape. Ellin's display in the foyer of the museum contains many graphic designs of shops and parks built along the canal.

The art of her work is in the co-creation of these ideas through organic development, where the neighborhoods can decide what they want in their city. Ellin said there are 150 sites available along the canals for Phoenix to build, and that Salt River Project is onboard for the idea.

CanalScape opened Nov. 10. About 600 to 650 attended, she said.

The exhibit "Nowhere to Hide" is displayed by three local artists: Carrie Marill, Richard Lerman and Julie Anand, an ASU professor.

Marill's work is her contemporary addition to landscape posters she found at a flea market in the 1950s. Marill scanned the posters onto watercolor paper and added her abstract visions, transforming the posters from nature to pictures of change and industrialization. In many of her paintings, Marill adds blue recycling bins, pollution-producing factories, and fast-food signs to the landscapes of the posters. For crude humor she adds words of change like "future site of toxic chemical dumping into clean waterways."

Anand and Lerman's work relates more to desert landscapes.

Anand builds large boards she fills with pictures of trash she finds while walking through the desert. Through her art she stresses the importance of recycling and the effects dumping trash has on its immediate environment.

Lerman exemplifies the damage done to our desert landscape and our contributions to drought through the point of view of Hoover Dam. He demonstrates with a video of the dam and displays its role of producing hydro-power through copper wires that buzz through the exhibit.

Another exhibit, "Defining Sustainability: From the ASU Art Museum Collection," focuses on defining sustainability through five main areas. The artists' ideas of animal body, material, idyll, disaster and responsibility are set upon the walls with goals of recognizing human interaction with the land and its natural world. Many of the pieces are from international artists such as Oscar Oiwa, David Huffman and Thomas Hart Benton, and local artist Matthew Moore.

ASU Art Museum publicist Diane Wallace said the ASU Art Museum, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and the Global Institute of Sustainability worked together on this project with the hope of infusing the idea of sustainability across the university's curriculum.

Urban garden to be planted in downtown Tempe

2009-11-17T15:05:00.001-08:00

The Downtown Tempe Community in partnership with the Phoenix Permaculture Guild and Caffe Boa's Chef Payton Curry, will be announcing the launch of Arizona's first urban garden.

The announcement will take place at Caffe Boa at 4 p.m. Thursday during a special reception featuring food items that represent products that may be grown in the garden.

The urban garden will be planted at Fifth Street north of the City Hall garage.

The garden will give Valley chefs and the community at large access to locally grown, organic produce and ingredients to use in their culinary creations.

Curry is leading the charge for Valley chefs to get involved and use locally-grown ingredients on their menus. (azcentral.com)

Paris and London

2009-11-17T12:18:00.001-08:00

So I was in London, Paris and Nice for two weeks. I just back last Friday afternoon. I had never been to London before and have to say I was a bit disappointed. I felt that it was overcrowded, overrated and cloistered. Maybe if I was able to get outside the city it would have been different. The "changing of the guard" at Buckingham Palace was great to see and the Queen was in that day. Paris and Nice were great as usual. Cannes is not worth the visit but a little village called Antibes is. Monte Carlo in Monaco was amazing and I actually won 5 euro at the casino!

ASU at the Downtown Phoenix campus

2009-11-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to briefly share a shortened version of the Comprehensive Master Plan for the ASU downtown campus. For all you Urbanites, there is some good information to digest here.

Through the campus, ASU will serve the broad educational interests of business, government, not-for-profit organizations, professionals, and individuals living and working in the area. With plans for a Downtown Phoenix campus supporting 15,000 students, ASU is a key stakeholder in revitalization of the historic urban core, in partnership with the city, its neighborhoods, and businesses. The ASU district will combine academic, public, private, and residential facilities in a diverse and vibrant 24/7 living/learning destination that advances knowledge and societal transformation and encourages economic development.
The Downtown campus promises the vibrant diversity of a research university in downtown Phoenix, where ASU established a presence over the past decade. The unique cluster of colleges and schools will have in common a focus on the public mission of ASU.

An elaborate conceptualization and master planning process will guide the multi-year development of the mixed-use academic/artistic/commercial/residential campus plan. The campus will be convenient to light rail service and other transportation systems connecting with commercial, cultural, and entertainment venues. Adjacent to potential residential and community development, the campus will be a
sub-district of downtown, lending critical mass to other educational and cultural institutions, including the Arizona Biomedical Collaborative (ABC) and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).
The City of Phoenix will be the university’s leading partner. It is projected that public-private partnerships will help ASU build residence halls and other university living spaces, as well as advancing a range of facilities needs. The assignment for ASU, the city, and scores of other participants is to find the common denominators of a great urban campus.

For the full version go here.

http://www.asu.edu/purchasing/forms/asu_dtn_phx_compplan.pdf

Europe

2009-10-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post a blog just for fun. I will be leaving Friday to go to Europe for two weeks with my wife and her parents. We will be visiting London, Paris and exploring the French Riviera (my favorite). This trip coincides coincidentally with another class I am taking, Landscape Architecture. In this class we have been studying some of the very places we are going to see. I will be climbing Notre Dame (402 steps) for the first time along with visiting some spectacular chateaus. We also have a dinner planned on the second level on the Eiffel Tower. Cheesy and touristy I know. Au Revoir!

ASU Challenges

2009-10-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

ASU is currently working on a massive project called the ASU Challenges. During homecoming this campaign will be unveiled for all to see. Go to this site http://asuchallenges.com/ and click on "visit site" to see the video. If you care anything about the future and how ASU is rising to face the worlds challenges I promise this video will move you. Thanks to Dr. Crow and his vision everyone has a chance to be a part of this. I think that UMS majors will find this particulary interesting.

Dr. Crow

2009-10-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

Today was staff appreciation day as ASU. Amongst a throng of people Dr. Crow gave over to my table and talked to my wife and I for a few minutes. Following that, Dr. Crow then addresses the faculty and staff thanking them for all of their hard work and preceded with a quick update on the legislature. In short, it appears that ASU has funding for the next two years. He then bravely had a open mike session in which that anyone on the faculty or staff could publicly ask him questions about any concerns they may have.

Real Estate Campaign

2009-09-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

It was brought to my attention today that ASUF wants to develop a real estate campaign for the Real Estate & Development department and the ASU Foundation. One of the purposes of this campaign in to gather intelligence of all residential and commercial development in the greater Tempe surrounding area. In doing some of research I discovered that tempe has a great campaign of their own called "Tempe in Progress". check out this link http://www.tempe.gov/lake/development/

Block 12

2009-09-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

Today I measured the square footage of a house that ASU bought from the Kellers. It's located in "Block 12" on College Avenue just south of University Drive. It's a tiny lot and the house is what I like to call a "Burner Downer" instead of a fixer upper. Dr. Crow wants it to be torn down. I'm not sure what development (if any) ASU plans to put on the lot but I'm interested to find out. I think it is currently zoned residential.

New Blogger

2009-09-02T15:28:00.001-07:00

It took me a while but I finally got my blog organized and setup. The first week of school is over and the homework from taking 24 credit hours is starting to materialize! I'm looking forward to another successful semester and making new connections.