Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev bought the most expensive apartment in central New York for US$ 88 million, reported the New York Observer. It turns out, the most expensive home in the history of Manhattan real estate. Rybolovlev owned 10-room penthouse at 15 Central Park West in New York. The total area of apartment exceeding 626 square meters, besides this it's surrounding by terrace area over 190 square meters. According to New York Observer, former principal owner of the "Uralkali" was the 93rd richest person in the world with a net worth around US$ 9.5 billion. Were he to move in full-time, that would make him the fifth richest New Yorker, behind David Koch, Mayor Bloomberg, John Paulson and Ronald Perelman. This is not the first time a rich Russian has set real estate records this year. The current belt is held by Igor Krutoy, a Russian composer who paid US$ 48 million for a massive spread just across the park at the Plaza. The fertilizer kingpin is no stranger to staggering real estate. In 2008, he purchased Donald Trump's 3 thousand square meters Florida estate, Maison L'Amitie, for US$ 95 million. Photo gallery here.

Germany's Porsche design Group and a local developer Dezer Properties planned to built Porsche Tower in Miami, reported the Trulia. A US$ 560 million project, a 57-storey building will rise in Sunny Isles Beach. According to Moscow Sotheby's International Realty in December project was approved by the city authorities. It is the world's first condominium complex with elevators that will take residents directly to their units while they are sitting in their cars (however we wrote about the same type going building). Finding a parking space near their front door will no longer be a worry for anyone lucky enough to live in the new multimillion pound. They can just pull into a designated space, turn off the engine and sit back and enjoy the oceanfront view as they are escalated in a glass elevator to the front door of their apartment. After the resident pulls over and switches off the engine, a robotic arm that works like an automatic plank will scoop up the car and put it into the elevator. The glass elevators will give residents and their guests unparalleled views of the city or of the ocean during their high-speed ride, expected to last 45 to 90 seconds. The luxury building will be constructed on 9 thousand square meters of land on Collins Avenue. It will have 132 units, with smaller units being allocated two parking spaces and the larger ones, four, and 284 robotic parking spaces in total accessible via three elevators. Apartments will range from 350 to 880 square meters and are expected to cost up to US$ 9 million each.

Recently, the tech giant Facebook announced its decision to relocate its company headquarters from Palo Alto to Menlo Park, California - a move which could spur over US$ 366 million in construction spending for the region, reported constructiondigital. According to a report by research firm Brion & Associates, the US$ 250 million budgeted building project could result in an additional US$ 116 million in additional construction activity over a period of 3-4 years, and may bring up to 2,5 thousand jobs to the area. The move comes as Facebook prepares for an IPO (Initial public offering) aimed at raising up to US$ 10 billion in revenue for the social networking leader, which would bring its overall company value to over US$ 100 billion. The new headquarters would house up to 9,5 thousand employees in anticipation of coming expansions, and some predict the firm would bring almost US$ 30 million in annual spending to the region's lodging and retail markets. Facebook is planning similar expansions of its satellite facilities in New York and elsewhere as part of the lead up to the public offering - yet another way social networking is helping prop up the struggling construction industry.

One of the world's largest Apple store is opening at the landmark Grand Central Terminal. The 2136 square meters personal electronics business will start selling to the public on December 9, reported The Huffington Post. The construction of store began on August. The Grand Central Terminal Apple store, the fifth to open in New York City, is about the size of two that are in London. Now this is the largest store of company. The second largest Apple store in the world is located in Convent Garden in London, England. That location covers 2320 square meters, but only 1520 square meters of that property is open to the public. Apple, behind Macintosh computers and such iconic products as the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone, signed a 10-year lease with the MTA for the space once occupied by Charlie Palmer's Metrazur restaurant, which got US$ 5 million from Apple to clear out early. The lease for Apple cost US$ 800 thousand annually for the first ten years and would bump up to US$ 1.1 million a year after the first decade. According to the transit agency the draw of the Apple name promises to increase foot traffic to other businesses at the terminal, which is visited by about 750 thousand people daily and is home to the Metro-North commuter railroad.

After a 34-year hiatus following the Three Mile Island incident, the USA is restarting construction of nuclear power facilities, reported constructiondigital. Despite growing public worry over the safety and long-term consequences of nuclear power, the United States is set to resume construction of reactors after more than three decades of a building freeze that followed the incident at Three Mile Island in March of 1979. The Three Mile Island accident involved a core meltdown in Unit 2 of the nuclear generating station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Nearly 40 thousand gallons of radioactive material was released into the nearby Susquehanna River, resulting in a nearly US$ 1 billion cleanup effort. Though the incident failed to derail the nuclear power industry in the United States, a moratorium was issued on construction of new nuclear facilities. The four reactors currently slated for building - two in Georgia and two in South Carolina - will be the first since the accident. The AP1000 1,100 megawatt reactors are expected to be operational by 2016, using turbine equipment provided by the Toshiba Corporation. When completed, the reactors will bring the United States' total number to 108. More than 26 reactors are under review by the USA Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The recent problems at Japan's Fukushima plant have again thrust the issue of nuclear power into the public spotlight. With the end of the moratorium on USA facilities, though, plans to expand the nation's capacity will break ground all over the country. While a possible boon to a contracting construction industry, the expansion of American reactors has many concerned about the long-term tradeoffs of nuclear energy. The Three Mile Island accident was a core meltdown in Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania near Harrisburg, United States in 1979. Before the Chernobyl accident, which happened seven years later, the Three Mile Island accident was considered the largest in the history of world nuclear power and is still considered the worst nuclear accident in the USA, in its course was severely damaged reactor core, part of the fuel melted.