- Developers Look to Hit Tax Break “Jackpot” in Opportunity Zones “San Diego developer Moe Ebrahimi paid $720,000 late last year for a site where he planned to build apartments. He expected to own it for years, believing the Logan Heights neighborhood would gentrify. That all changed earlier this year, when Mr. Ebrahimi put the land up for sale with an asking price of $1 million. The developer shifted tactics after learning that anyone buying his property would be eligible for lucrative tax benefits. That’s because his land resides in one of the nearly 9,000 so-called ‘opportunity zones’ across the U.S. intended to stoke economic development in low-income areas.” (Wall Street Journal, subscription required)
- A 630-Foot Ferris Wheel Meant to Boost Staten Island’s Image Is No More “A plan to build a giant Ferris wheel on Staten Island came to an unceremonious end on Tuesday, five years after New York City officials heralded it as an attraction that would draw tourists and shine a spotlight on the least-famous of the five boroughs. ‘After years of planning, the developers of The New York Wheel announce, with great disappointment, that the dream of building a world-class attraction in Staten Island will unfortunately not come to fruition,’ Cristyne Nicholas, a spokeswoman for the project, said in a prepared statement.” (The New York Times)
- Law Firms Growing Office Footprint in North Texas “Law firms are gobbling up thousands of square feet of Dallas-Fort Worth office space. In the last year, legal firms have taken almost a half million square feet of offices in North Texas, according to a new report by commercial property firm CBRE. That makes them one of the top consumers of local business space. Relocations by local firms and expansions by national legal firms including Winston & Strawn, Barnes & Thornburg and Kirkland & Ellis have added to the leasing volume, according to CBRE.” (Dallas Morning News)
- NoMad Tower Inks Zillow as First Tenant “NoMad Tower, the transformed office address previously known as 1250 Broadway, has snared Zillow Group as its first new major tenant, Realty Check has learned. The online residential real estate marketplace signed for 130,000 square feet on the eighth through 12th floors, sources said. That’s double what it now has at 130 Broadway, which it will leave for its new home next year.” (New York Post)
- East Bay Housing Development’s Fire Marks Fifth Blaze in Two Years “East Bay housing officials are on edge after Tuesday morning’s fire in West Oakland marked the fifth massive blaze of an under-construction development in the last two years. Investigators have not determined a cause for the early morning inferno that destroyed multiple buildings set to house 126 units, including condos scheduled to welcome residents as soon as December. However, previous conflagrations for housing developments in the East Bay have been pinned to arson.” (San Francisco Chronicle)
- Foreign Investment in U.S. Commercial Assets Spikes in 2018 “According to new research by global property consultant CBRE, more commercial real estate investment capital crossed U.S. borders in both directions during H1 2018, with foreign inflow up by 29% from the first half of 2017, and U.S. outflow up by 15% in H1 of 2018. On net, the U.S. commercial real estate market had a capital surplus of roughly $12 billion. Savvy foreign investors have several strategies to mitigate foreign exchange risk when acquiring U.S. assets, one of which is purchasing forward contracts to hedge against U.S. dollar depreciation.” (World Property Journal)
- The Women Architects Building a New NYC Skyline “Architecture in New York was once a boys club. Fortunately, women are now impacting the city’s skyline like never before. ‘I like living buildings,’ says Francoise Raynaud, the architect behind Paris-based Loci Anima; the firm’s first NYC commission, Greenwich West (at 110 Charlton St. in Soho), broke ground in July. ‘Buildings are like plants. If one plant doesn’t have a good relationship with the other, she dies. I am more of a botanist than an artist.’” (New York Post)
- The Stock Market Is Still Riding High. So Why Are Real Estate Stocks Tanking? “Even a record-high stock market can’t cheer up real estate investors. The Dow Jones saw a winning streak earlier this month. And the economy, broadly, is strengthening, with the unemployment rate falling to the lowest level since 1969. But real estate stocks across the board have been sliding downhill over the last year. ‘We are definitely in a soft market and it will continue to soften next year,’ said Carter Trent, a research associate at Stephens Inc.” (The Real Deal)
- The American Cities Where Investors Are Making the Most Money When They Sleep “When it comes to raking in “mailbox money,” residents of some cities are doing better than others. In some cases, much, much better. The personal-finance website SmartAsset recently analyzed the finances for citizens of 200 metro areas in the U.S., to find out how much income they’re earning passively through their investments. SmartAsset used Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data to rank those cities based on how much their citizens earn on four investment types: taxable interest, dividends, qualified dividends and capital gains.” (MarketWatch)
- Fair Rent? Toxic Soil? Traffic? Questions Swirl Around Beckham Stadium Referendum “The owners of Miami’s future Major League Soccer team say they need a fast-tracked, no-bid deal to build a sprawling commercial and stadium complex on Melreese golf course because time is of the essence. The league wants to see progress toward a stadium, which has taken numerous twists and turns over the five years David Beckham has sought to field a team. But once Beckham’s partners moved their stadium plans from Overtown to Melreese and pushed for a referendum asking for voters’ approval, the process accelerated to a headlong rush.” (Miami Herald)
0 comments
Hide comments