Tag: gvurban

What developer Darius Assemi forgot in his editorial on how to fund road construction

Darius Assemi is the president of Granville Homes, one of the most prolific residential developers in the Fresno area (one which oddly doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry). According to his LinkedIn profile, he has been president for 6 years, and served as vice president for 25 years before that. The guy knows the Fresno market well, especially when it comes to selling single-family homes.

But how much does he know about funding our infrastructure? Let’s take a look at his Fresno Bee editorial on the subject. Here are his main points:

  • Deteriorating roads cost Californians $44 billion a year in repairs, accidents, time and fuel
  • Deferred repair costs exceeding $57 billion
  • Caused by diminishing purchasing power of gas tax
    • Not tied to inflation
    • More fuel efficient cars mean less gas taxes
    Funding solutions include:
    • Raising gas tax
    • Indexing gas tax to inflation
    • Increasing fees 
    • New usage based fee
    Cost solutions include:
    • Caltrans performance should be equal to or exceed private performance  
      • More efficient staffing 
      • Increased transparency 
      Only use gas tax for construction and maintenance of highways  CEQA exemption for roads using existing right-of-way Design-build projects  Multi-modal future

      Generally, it’s a pretty standard set of recommendations. The only big controversy is the “highway only” line for funding, although it appears he’s more concerned with the previous raid of the transportation fund to plug other budgets rather than eliminating all subsidies of mass transit. It is unclear if he also wants to eliminate that. As a suburban developer, I wouldn’t be surprised if transit didn’t even cross his mind when he penned his piece. Click to read more!

Comment on newest GV Urban proposal

GV Urban is the subsidiary of Granville Homes which has brought us the only residential development downtown has seen in decades. You know them from the Iron Bird Lofts, Fulton Village, Van Ness Cottages and a few others.

This past week they announced their newest project, which involves the Met block.

The site is home to the former museum, an abandoned commercial building (which GV owns and plans on restoring), a public park, and empty space in what used to be two buildings – the city knocked those down for free.

The block now

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The block previously

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GV plans to keep the Met and the other existing building, and erect residential structures around them. The public park would be taken away and replaced by a private green accessible only to residents. Click to read more!

A satellite view of what’s new in Fresno

Two weeks ago, Google refreshed their satellite imagery of the Fresno region with pictures taken on August 26, 2012, replacing what was seen on April 25, 2011.

Here’s a brief tour of the more significant changes in that year and a half. Some good, some bad. There’s a good amount of positive changes downtown, but many not so good changes on the urban edge.

I’m providing a link to the map, if you want to explore the area on your own, and also when relevant, a post I may have written on the subject.

NOTE: Google keeps defaulting to the 45 degree view, which is old, from 2010. On the right, hover over the map button and then click 45 to disable that and see the most recent images. On the other hand, this gives you a quick way to compare the changes. Click to read more!

A look at GVUrban’s next two downtown projects

Note: I am currently in Boston so my upload schedule may be light in the next week.

Anyone who follows development in downtown Fresno knows one brand: GVUrban. This subsidiary of Granville homes has been one of only two serious developers to go out and build new housing and renovate existing buildings downtown. The other development team are the ones who are proposing to fix Hotel Fresno, and have a couple of other successful renovations.

I’ve talked about all of GVurban’s projects that have or are set to debut this year, including Fulton Village, Van Ness Cottages, and Biz-werx. But these developers are far from done. While their website doesn’t mention it, they have two more projects lined up for 2012. Click to read more!

Quick review of Jazzhop and other downtown happening

As I mentioned in my last post, the first ever Jazzhop was held downtown this weekend.

I decided to attend, and so, here are my thoughts of the evening, along with pictures of recent developments downtown.

We started out by visiting GV Urban’s Biz-Werx, which was part of ArtHop but not Jazzhop. This building officially reopened this week after an extensive remodel, taking an abandoned eyesore into a good looking, and potentially lively street corner. The plan is to rent out the first floor into many offices, art studios or similar type of spaces, and the basement to be rented out as storage space. You can tell the building is old, because nobody in Fresno builds basements anymore. Click to read more!

Council approval could lead to more housing downtown

The September 29th agenda for the Fresno City Council meeting has a few interesting lines about potential upcoming projects. I say potential, because we all know that even approval and loan guarantees don’t necessarily mean the project is seen to completion.

Nonetheless, they are exciting proposals, and if all are completed, downtown will get just a little bit more pleasant. The first project began planning a year or so ago, and the other two have been in the works for much longer (2007 and 2005).

The first I would like to note is a proposed project by GVUrban, the people behind recent downtown projects I highlighted last week. Click to read more!

Quick look at apartment construction in downtown Fresno

I was downtown a couple of days ago and stopped by the two Granville (GVurban) construction projects. For those of you outside of Fresno, these small projects are significant because downtown saw no residential construction for a 25 year period ending a few years ago. Since then, there has been some slow progress on new housing downtown, even during the recession.

These projects may be small, but they’re better than the empty lots they are replacing, and they bring new hope of redevelopment in the urban core.

Here are the two sites I visited:

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Fulton Village is in red, and the Van Ness Cottages are in blue. Click to read more!