Urbanexus Update — Issue #21
Please scroll down for the weekly compilation of analysis and opinion about real estate and community development.
Real estate transactions
Profit for TPG on Cushman deal
TPG and its partners sold 45M shares of Cushman & Wakefield at around $11 a share, equating to about 34% of the firm, retaining a 66% stake. For the 45 million shares already sold that is a profit of $270M to $315 million.
A hotel deal in Los Angeles — labusinessjournal.com
Woodbine Development purchased the 375-room, 255,000-square-foot DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel and its two acres of land in Culver City for $151.5 million from the Carlyle Group.
Some perspective on hospitality trends
Welcome to Hotel Millennial
theoutline.com
You can check out any time you like, but you may never get clean sheets.
Debating public funding for a stadium
Affordable housing versus stadium upgrades
King County (Seattle) officials are debating how to allocate $180 million in future tax revenue.
Seattle’s ‘real-estate rainmaker’ says $800M stadium deal is terrible
Craig Kinzer is a sports booster who helped clear the land for the publicly financed Safeco Field in the 1990s. Now he’s turned into the №1 critic of a new lease deal for the stadium that includes $180 million in public money.
Metropolitan perspectives
The US cities that have the most nice days
www.washingtonpost.com
Long Beach and Los Angeles top the list of cities with most nice days, which are all on the West Coast.
High costs drive some tech firms out of Bay Area
While the Bay Area still boasts the largest inflows of venture capital in the U.S. by a wide margin, some fledgling companies are steering away to hold down costs. Other, more established Bay Area startups are finding they can hire experienced engineers, not just customer-service or sales representatives, more quickly in less expensive markets like Denver, Salt Lake City and Atlanta.
Mom and dad help kids buy homes in California
FHA borrowers can use money from relatives for their down payment. Back in 2011, about one in four FHA loans in California included down payment money from relatives. In 2018, it’s one in three.
Midwest not attracting migrants — www.newgeography.com
The Midwest is simply not in the picture when it comes to migration nationally. Even its best performing regions are often migration losers with the rest of the country.
More renters in larger USA metro areas
The majority of people rent instead of own in 29 of the 50 largest U.S. cities. In 2006, only 16 of the 50 largest cities were majority renter households.
The dispersed city works for commuting
Planners and journalists are often uneasy about suburban development, wondering how people will get to work in the center from more distant locations. But only a small percentage of people work in the center (generally less than 10 percent). Residential and employment dispersion in American metropolitan areas is a major factor in keeping work trip travel times relatively short.
Economic development
Amazon and incentives
Inside Jeff Bezos’ incentive negotiation process: ‘Constantly hammering’ economic development officials is the norm
Four articles about greener and safer streets
In early August 2018, Seattle-based Sightline Institute posted four articles by David Goldberg who has written about transportation and urban planning for more than 20 years — for newspapers, magazines and two national organizations, Transportation for American and Smart Growth America, where he coined the term “complete streets.”
How street design can be calmed by nature
www.sightline.org
Improving street design in Cascadia’s cities ensures complete streets are green streets.
Thanks to comprehensive street design, Vancouver sows for the future
www.sightline.org
Improving street design in Vancouver’s busy and dense areas ensures the city takes a comprehensive approach to complete streets.
Portland creates a redrawn paradigm
www.sightline.org
How a decade’s worth of experimentation with complete streets has a created a redrawn paradigm for Portland for today and the future.
Green and complete streets for Seattle
www.sightline.org
Can Seattle move fast enough to implement its best plans for green and complete streets in the face of scorching rates of development?
