Apartments

An abandoned apartment complex that has been plagued by fire at least three times in the last year was engulfed in flames again Saturday night, Santa Ana Fire Department officials said. No injuries were reported. Department officials are calling the blaze "suspicious" and are investigating the incident. The building, located on the 2800 block of North Bristol Street at Melody Lane, is being demolished. The owners of the property, Cooperfellowship, estimated the loss at $4,000.

Apartment markets will "soften moderately" in Los Angeles and Orange counties during 2002, continuing trends that began in 2001, according to a new forecast. In Los Angeles County, rent growth will slow to 3%, compared with 5% in 2001, said the report by Marcus & Millichap. The county's vacancy rate is expected to increase to 4.3% by the end of the year, up from 4%. "Many landlords, especially in Central L.A.

The whine of chain saws in the early-morning fog Monday marked the start of the autopsy of Northridge Meadows, where 16 tenants died in the Jan. 17 earthquake. By noon, sections of the roof had been cut away to reveal the insides of the building, and a half-dozen lawyers were arguing their cases at a sidewalk news conference. Former tenants, many from pancaked first-floor units, came to retrieve their belongings and were turned away.

More than $7 million in municipal bonds will be used by a private developer to purchase and renovate a deteriorating apartment complex on Bixby Avenue. The City Council this week approved the issue of $7.25 million in tax-exempt bonds, with the funds to be used by developer CT-Malabar Ltd. to buy and remodel the 126-unit Malabar Apartments. Deputy City Manager Catherine Standiford said all payments and liabilities on the 30-year bonds will be guaranteed by the developer.

City and county officials will dedicate a new low-income apartment complex today on the site of a building destroyed in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Completed in November, the Villas del Sol complex is reserved for families with incomes less than 50% of the county average, officials said. A three-bedroom apartment in the 11-unit complex rents for $616 per month, officials said. The $1.

An electrical fire gutted a Westminster apartment and left five people homeless Saturday afternoon, but no injuries were reported, fire officials said. The blaze caused $40,000 in damage, completely destroying a bedroom, hallway and bathroom of the first-floor apartment on the 9600 block of Madison Circle, said Dennis Shell, a spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority. The occupants, Hung C.

A Palo Alto real estate investment trust said Friday that it has sold its Vista Pointe Apartment Community in Anaheim for $15 million to a buyer it would not disclose. A spokeswoman for the Essex Property Trust Inc. said the company was bound by contract to keep the name of the buyer confidential for now. The company said in a press release that it will record a gain of $7 million from the sale of the 286-unit property.

Police arrested a suspect in an apartment bombing that killed 64 people in the republic of Dagestan last year, the first of a series of attacks across Russia that helped bring about the war in Chechnya. An official in the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala, said that Isa Zainutdinov, 62, is suspected of being a "major perpetrator" of the bomb attack on an apartment building in Buynaksk.

An elderly man who died in a fire at a three-story apartment building in Sun Valley has been identified as Essa Lalahzari, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner said Wednesday. An autopsy on Lalahzari, who was thought to be about 80, is scheduled for today.

Public hearings on a proposed 850-unit apartment complex have been delayed. Mission Viejo Co. officials asked for a 90-day continuance for their City Council hearing, originally scheduled for Monday, because of the Nov. 8 city election. Wayne Peterson, a consultant for the developer, wrote the city asking for the delay "in order that the newly constituted City Council may consider the proposal." The hearing set before the Planning Commission last week was delayed to Nov. 21.