Austin Real Estate | Austin Homes for Sale » Daily LInks http://www.affinityproperties.com Just another WordPress weblog Wed, 28 Jul 2010 05:25:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 New Blog Posts http://www.affinityproperties.com/wordpress/2009/03/16/new-blog-posts/ http://www.affinityproperties.com/wordpress/2009/03/16/new-blog-posts/#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:16:34 +0000 Joe Cline http://www.affinityproperties.com/wordpress/?p=293 West Austin real estate blog. Be sure to check out both sites for links of interest and let me know if you suggest any other magazines for me. I currently subscribe to about 25 or so and always love to get new ideas. §§§§§§§§§§ Interested in Green Building and Sustainable Living? I got this a few days ago. I’m going so if you want to go and meet up, I’d love to meet ya. Designing for Food Resources Food is among life’s most basic needs.  Our current food production model is centralized and sells to a global market.  Like any other massed-produced commodity, our food product is cheap, abundant, and easy. There are many problems with the current model, leaving our food resources far from secure or sustainable.  Food production, transportation, consumption, and disposal each have a huge impact on our carbon footprint. On a local level, grassroots groups are working hard to reduce Austin’s carbon foodprint. This presentation explores ways in which our planning process, building infrastructure, and operations policies can incorporate goals for responsible food resources. Changes in our single-family homes, multifamily homes, and commercial buildings can lead to more sustainable, reliable, and environmentally-responsible food resources. This seminar will feature three speakers:
  • Pamela “Sweetpea” Hoover is the assistant grounds master at Natural Gardener and a certified teacher of the square foot gardening method.  Sweetpea will address attainable and appropriate food production in Austin on a single-family scale.
  • Marla Camp is the owner/publisher of Edible Austin magazine and also sits on the board of the new Austin Food Policy Council. Marla will speak on local food production, consumption and education on a community scale.
  • Justin Doak is the founder of BlueBin LLC, a sustainability guidance firm for the retail industry and a partner in Austin Refuel, a Texas-based company that has developed a closed loop waste-to-resource network. Formerly the Program Manager of LEED for Retail, Justin will address marketing and money-making strategies in food waste-management for Commercial retailers and developers.
A Question/Answer period will follow the presentations. You can get the full details of the meeting at Austin’s Green Building site. §§§§§§§§§§ PROJECTS READY, CREDIT NOT AUSTIN (get the full story at Austin American-Statesman) – Large Austin projects set to begin construction are stalled because of the recession and frozen credit markets. JMI Realty is ready to start work on the Hotel Van Zandt, a 327-room boutique hotel at the eastern edge of downtown on Red River and Davis, but cannot receive the financing to do so. “We have lots of jobs ready to be created with this project, but until the banking environment improves, we will be on hold,” said JMI Senior Vice President Greg Clay. In north Austin, Atlanta-based Novare Group and its local partner Andrews Urban are holding off on a 28-story tower that would house condominiums and the 145-room Twelve Hotel at Endeavor Real Estate Group’s Domain. The developers say the delay of the $100 million-plus project stems from the postponement of three major retail projects at the mixed-use Domain. These include new stores for Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Whole Foods Market Inc. §§§§§§§§§§ From the Niel Spelce Austin Letter ( I highly recommend subscribing for anyone trying to stay abreast of what’s going on in Austin)

The information was released midweek that seven states posted an unemployment percentage above 10%.Texas was not in the group of seven.In fact, it was among the best overall.

The totals, as well as some major shifts, provide an interesting comparison. Let’s start with a few of the best states.Wyoming was the only state, at 4.8% unemployment, that came in under the 5% mark.Texas was one of the best, at 6.8%, ahead of New York at 7.6%. … But some of the hardest-hit states appear to be reeling because of the suddenness of the impact. For instance, North Carolina (a state many consider competitive to Texas because of its technology industry centered in the Research Triangle) suffered the worst upswing in unemployment.At the beginning of 2008, its unemployment was a very reasonable 5.3% then, wham!, it hit 10.3% at the start of this year.A swing of five full percentage points!The number of workers looking for a job almost doubled.This is how you define “impact.” … So what about the other big states?How do they compare to Texas January 2009 total of 6.8%.In addition to those mentioned above, Florida recorded 8.8% unemployment, Illinois notched 8.5% unemployment, Massachusetts tallied 8.1%, Ohio nudged near the 10% mark with 9.7%, and Pennsylvania came in at 7.7%.It’s pretty clear that Texas still stands out among the states that matter for future leadership and growth. §§§§§§§§§§]]> http://www.affinityproperties.com/wordpress/2009/03/16/new-blog-posts/feed/ 0