Apartments

Staci M. Watkins was found dead a week ago in a patch of woods along U.S. 1 in Laurel, not far from the Turf Motel, where she'd been living for a few weeks. She and her boyfriend, Donald "Butch" McCulley, were managing to keep the room on the first floor and avoid the more raw existence of many fellow homeless people who stay close to the old highway - some living in their cars, some under highway overpasses, some in tents in the woods behind the used-car lots, industrial buildings and fast-food restaurants.

About 100 firefighters battled a large fire in a block of apartments in eastern Baltimore County on Sunday night, the county Fire Department said, though no one was reported to have been injured in the blaze. The two-alarm fire was reported in the 9110 block of Abigail Drive, off Franklin Square Drive, about 8 p.m., and fire was showing from the second and third floors of an apartment, the department said. The fire was under control about an hour later. Investigators are working to determine what caused the fire and the extent of damages.

The owner of a vacant nine-story office building at 11 E. Chase Street in Midtown-Belvedere is seeking city approval to convert the property to 56 apartments. A group called Daejan 11 E. Chase LLC, represented by Samuel Monderer, has applied to Baltimore's Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals to convert the historic Algonquin building to residential use. Monderer also controls the neighboring apartment building at 1010 St. Paul St. and a parking lot between the two buildings. A zoning board hearing has been set for Tuesday.

The thermostat in Matt Rechkemmer's luxury apartment overlooking Oriole Park at Camden Yards read 85 degrees Sunday afternoon, and he wondered whether he'd be able to take a shower before going to work Monday morning. "It's incredibly frustrating," said Rechkemmer, whose 12th-story apartment in the Zenith, an upscale high-rise apartment building in downtown Baltimore, has been without air conditioning since late Wednesday and without water since Saturday. "It's blazing hot in here, and you can't really do anything without creating more heat," he said.

The Carroll County commissioners have approved an ordinance that allows developers to have second-floor apartments above shopping center retail outlets. The ordinance, approved Thursday, limits the mixing of residential and retail uses to shopping centers with two stories. Each apartment must be on the upper level and between 600 and 1,000 square feet in size.

A two-alarm fire early yesterday destroyed a four-unit apartment building in Westminster, but its eight residents, including two children, escaped without injuries, fire officials said. The fire started at 5:25 a.m. in the 200 block of Schaeffer Ave., and badly damaged all of the apartments in the one-story wood-frame structure, officials said. The cause of the fire was being investigated.

Despite protests from some community groups, the Baltimore County Council is scheduled to vote Monday on an ordinance that would offer guidelines for add-on apartments which frequently serve as temporary, separate living quarters for relatives. The issue arose, in part, over a Cockeysville couple's decision to convert their garage into an apartment for their adult son. A growing number of residents are using such spaces, known as "in-law apartments," to care for elderly or disabled relatives.

The mostly abandoned, vandalized remnants of 543 Middle River apartments that once bustled with the energy of young World War II defense workers appear destined for the wrecker's ball.Foreclosure proceedings on the properties making up nearly half of the 1,200-unit Riverdale Village apartments began yesterday with a letter of notification from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to Richard Schlesinger, a New York developer whose company owns the decaying complex.If HUD succeeds in taking control of the affected apartments through the foreclosure procedure, which could take a year, it is prepared to sell its portion to the county for $1.The county wants to demolish the buildings if it can find the estimated $1.5 million for the job. County officials also are pondering what to do with a small strip shopping center included in the property, along Eastern Boulevard, and the land after the buildings are cleared.

Apartment rents keep heading up. The average effective rent for Class A apartments in the Baltimore metro area -- the nicer properties with amenities -- rose 5.7 percent in the last year to just under $1,450 a month, according to real estate research firm Delta Associates. The big increase was in the city, up 6.7 percent -- more than double the annual average for the past five years. Effective rents in the Baltimore suburbs grew by a more modest 3.5 percent, just a hair more than the average, Delta said.

A large, two-alarm fire burned through an apartment complex and forced residents of 24 units to be evacuated in Odenton on Sunday evening, according to the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. Firefighters were called to the apartment building in the 2000 block of Military Place, in the Seven Oaks community off Regiment Way near Fort Meade, about 6:05 p.m., said Lt. Cliff Koofer, a department spokesman. About 60 firefighters and 25 pieces of equipment remained on the "very active scene" about 8:15 p.m., Koofer said.