Thanks Jamiel, itès really hard to find concrete data on this other than articles with brief references.

New paint, light remodel, removed trees in backyard opened up yard space, new sidewalk, concrete in garage and automatic garage doors.

The initial setup is the problem, don't know if they had them where you grew up, but this was the standard in Athens, Greece in poured-concrete apartment buildings so I was familiar with them.

The city didn't want to haul off the chunks of concrete--and it was their tree that was causing the problem.

It is a concrete overlay that looks like real stone.

The only reason our manufacturing hasn't left them to date, is because we have too much Concrete infrastructure there. 

Plus it's lower labor costs if the staff aren't always out there having to shovel and spread salt (less chance for concrete damage as well).Is there a place or page to follow construction progress? 

I could go on for pages on detail of all the things the contractor did during the remodel (bleaching concrete floors etc and what we tried once the remodel was complete, repainting walls with oil based kills, sealing tile grout on brand new floors, hi powered ozoneators for weeks. 

The current tenants include a vehicle repair shop, concrete pouring company, Well-drilling company, food company, Industrial cable company, freight company, and diesel fueling station.

It is on an steep up-slope such that it is 2 stories in the front and 1 story in the back ... the 1st floor in the front has only the 2 car garage, ~100 SF unfinished basement, and concrete block retaining/structural walls with crawl space well before the back of the house.