Completion

After two developers and three lawsuits in five years, the former Rittenhouse Place hotel and condominium project is at last set for completion. The president of Ameribass Realty Co. of Philadelphia, David Marshall, said today the company will spend $100 million over the next two years to complete the unfinished project. Construction will begin in October. The project, to be known as The Rittenhouse, will include a 100-room hotel and 200 luxury condominium units. The building will also contain a health club and two restaurants.

Long-stalled public improvements in the West Meadows development in West Grove are under way and some are even ahead of schedule, according to the engineer managing the project. Stephen Woodward, the borough's engineering consultant, said at a meeting Monday that the project was expected to cost $210,000, to be paid by the original developer, West Meadows Associates, from its escrow fund of $331,000. After nearly three years of delay, the borough took over the project from West Meadows Associates under an agreement signed early this fall.

Officials Monday celebrated the near-completion of a housing development in Southwest Philadelphia that will provide 63 affordable apartments to veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq and their families. The townhouse-style complex of seven buildings in the 6200 block of Eastwick Avenue includes the Robert Brady Sr. Veterans Center, where veterans can get access to services and the community can hold meetings. - Thomas Fitzgerald

The Bensalem Council has given developer Alan Sobel until Sept. 16 to meet several conditions originally stipulated in the township's approval of his Bucks County Estates subdivision. If the conditions are not met, officials said, the township will assume responsibility for the completion of the project, using funds placed in escrow by Sobel. "The township has undertaken (completion of) several developments recently," said Barbara Barnes, the council chairwoman. "I'm tired of empty promises.

And now, new hope for commuters who have sweated, fretted, fumed or simply waited patiently in stop-and-go traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway: The $200 million reconstruction project that has been under way for more than four years might be finished by Labor Day. Meeting such a deadline would be finishing the project early, since the current schedule calls for completion by Sept. 18. Nevertheless, state Department of Transportation officials and the contractors, I.A. Construction Corp.

After months of following detour signs, dodging orange barrels and driving on bumpy roads, Lower Bucks travelers can soon celebrate the full opening of Route 213. PennDot officials said both lanes should be open by the end of next week. "Right now, weather permitting, we hope to have the road open the week of Oct. 14," said Gene Blaum, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. That is good news for motorists who have waited for Route 213 to be completed since work started in May 1995.

A confident Philadelphia Electric Co. chairman yesterday said that the utility had "turned the corner" on construction of its Limerick nuclear plant and was on its way toward completing the controversial $7 billion power station by the current target date of late 1990. James L. Everett told security dealers and analysts that "we're on the downslope of the hill" at Limerick, with one unit in operation and the second close to half-finished. "We can see some light at the end of the tunnel, and we don't think it's train coming the other way," Everett said.

A second frame supporting the roof of Philadelphia's Academy of Music has been found seriously damaged, and more severely than one that had been found damaged earlier, the Academy's engineering consultant disclosed yesterday. The bottom crosspiece, or chord, of the frame - technically known as a truss - was found to be completely fractured, said the consultant, Nicholas L. Gianopulos. "You could almost put your hand through it," he said. The injury to the truss, called T-2, was discovered April 3, Gianopulos said, five days after less severe damage was found in an adjacent truss, T-3. The trusses are made of two 6-inch-wide, 14-inch-deep beams fastened together side by side.

The roar of backhoes has added a noisy note to springtime at Swarthmore College as the school launches a $25 million construction project. The project, which was to have an official groundbreaking ceremony today, will dramatically change the northern part of campus when it is completed in 1998. The Parrish annex, now used mostly for faculty offices, will be razed and replaced by a new academic building that will house the departments of economics, modern languages and sociology/anthropology, plus 44 faculty offices, 13 classrooms, and seminar rooms.

Developers are once again building office space before they know who will occupy it. But although speculative real estate development is on the rise throughout the Philadelphia suburbs, it now has a targeted, customer-service focus instead of the generic, overly optimistic construction of a decade ago. After years of moving offices farther into the hinterlands, to office parks devoid of amenities, companies are choosing convenient sites, close...

VIENNA - The U.N. nuclear agency chief will fly to Tehran over the weekend to sign a deal meant to allow his organization to resume a long-stalled search for evidence that Iran worked on developing nuclear arms, the agency and diplomats said Friday. The trip Sunday by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano comes just four days ahead of a key meeting between six world powers and Iran where the six hope to wrest concessions from Tehran meant to reduce concerns that it wants such arms.

It took a while, but the weeklong rumored trade of Union defender and captain Danny Califf to Chivas USA has become official. Major League Soccer announced that Califf was traded on Thursday for midfielder Michael Lahoud and some always popular allocation money. Two words immediately come to mind concerning the Union: Now what? Oh, we know that Sheanon Williams - an accomplished defender who sometimes likes to take a few too many chances in the offensive end - will move to central defender along with Carlos Valdes.

While it's nice, Temple's Edberg-Olson Hall isn't on par with some of the nation's premier college football practice facilities. But once the $10 million expansion and renovations are completed July 1, there likely will be plenty of satisfied people at 10th and Diamond Streets. The upgrade "is twofold," Owls coach Steve Addazio said Friday amid the construction. "It's got a big effect on recruiting. But it's also functionality. You need a state-of-the-art training room to give your players the best opportunity for rehab and to be able to come back from injuries and protect their bodies.

It was just a few moments after Sanya Richards-Ross crossed the finish line first in the final USA vs. the World race at the Penn Relays that the public-address announcer at Franklin Field summed up the cloudy and cold afternoon a bit haughtily, but honestly. "That's USA six, the World nothing," he said. "Yes, I heard that," Richards-Ross said Saturday after the U.S. women won the 4x400-meter relay to complete a clean sweep of the events featuring athletes from 21 countries, many of whom have competed in the Olympics and the World Track and Field Championships.

The New Orleans Saints have named Joe Vitt interim coach, despite the top assistant's six-game suspension for his role in the club's bounty system. The Saints had to find a one-season replacement for head coach Sean Payton, whose season-long suspension in connection with the bounty scandal begins Monday and runs through next February's Super Bowl. "It is important that we keep Sean Payton's philosophy front and center during this season," New Orleans general manager Mickey Loomis said in a release Thursday.

DENVER - Fueled by the best big player in women's college basketball, Baylor decisively defeated Notre Dame, 80-61, in Tuesday night's NCAA championship. The Bears got 26 points from 6-foot-8 junior center Brittney Griner and became the first college team to finish a season 40-0. It was Baylor's second national title, both under coach Kim Mulkey. The first came in 2003. Griner, the AP player of the year, also grabbed 13 rebounds. A year ago, Notre Dame (35-4)

DENVER - Brittney Griner and Baylor left no doubt they're head and shoulders above any team in the country. In fact, they are perfect. Griner had 26 points, 13 rebounds and five blocks to lead Baylor to a dominating 80-61 victory over Notre Dame in the NCAA women's basketball championship on Tuesday night, capping a 40-0 season for the Lady Bears. They became the seventh women's team to run through a season unbeaten and the first in NCAA history to win 40 games. It was the second national championship for Baylor, which also won a title in 2005.

HAVANA - Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday concluded his first trip to the Spanish-speaking Americas, launched with a condemnation of Marxism and drug-war violence and ending with a forceful plea for "genuine freedom" as he preached from the symbolic heart of Cuba's leftist revolution. Standing under larger-than-life portraits of revolutionary heroes such as Che Guevara, the pope admonished Cuban authorities for not doing enough to allow the public exercise of religious faith. Later, he met with former President Fidel Castro, and the two octogenarians joked about the hardships of being old men. Dressed in a gilded miter and robes of purple in keeping with the Lenten season, Benedict rode the popemobile into the Plaza of the Revolution and celebrated an open-air Mass witnessed by an estimated 300,000 Cubans and other Latin Americans.

STATE COLLEGE - With another awe-inspiring performance, perfection was achieved. In Saturday night's PIAA Class AAAA championship game vs. Lower Merion, Chester kept its unblemished record with rebounding ferocity, length-of-the-floor defensive pressure, and transition scoring. Defending their state title and finishing with a 32-0 mark, the Clippers throttled the Aces, 59-33, at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center. Larry Yarbray's team pounded the offensive glass, collecting 24 rebounds on that end. Lower Merion, hurt by 29 turnovers, was held to 16 points in the first half and 17 in the second.