Urbanexus Update — Issue #51
I strive to understand what creates opportunities — and challenges — for real estate investment and sustainable community development. Learn about me at http://www.urbanexus.com/about-h-pike-oliver/.
Hospitality
Performance of hotels in the USA — www.calculatedriskblog.com
The U.S. hotel industry reported mixed year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 17–23 February 2019, according to data from STR.
Retail
Family Dollar may close nearly 400 USA stores
Variety store chain Family Dollar could close up to 390 stores in fiscal 2019 unless it obtains material rent concessions from landlords on underperforming stores. As part of its turnaround efforts, the retailer will also make changes at the stores it is keeping open.
Last Blockbuster store Carries on — www.nytimes.com
With the closing of a Blockbuster store in Australia, the one in Bend, Ore., will be the last to survive changes in technology and shopping that reshaped the way people watch movies at home.
Office
Perspective on coworking and flexible work spaces
In today’s world, phrases like “coworking” and “flexible workspace” often arise in conversation, but what do these terms really mean? The definition varies depending on who you ask, where they are and what they do for a living
Residential
Some relief for homebuilders
After their worst year since the financial crisis, homebuilders were left for dead in late 2018. The sector has come back to life in 2019.
Northeast Florida’s newest master-planned community
The PARC Group has unveiled initial plans for a new innovative master-planned community eTown, located on Jacksonville’s south side. The smart-living community will feature new single-family homes, apartments, retail, and amenities.
The CASA compact
A 15-year emergency policy package to confront the housing crisis in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Infrastructure and real estate investment
Investment in area around doomed Seattle highway
www.seattletimes.com
The result — as with most investment booms — is likely to be a more vibrant area with more workers, residents and shops but also with higher prices for apartments,…
Dense development in Chicago
Chicago’s high-rise construction boom, mapped
chicago.curbed.com
Here are the 42 high-rise developments under construction in Chicago right now.
Looking behind facades
Building inspector as an action hero — www.nytimes.com
A growing number of building facade inspectors, increasingly women, are rappelling into New York City’s glass and terra-cotta canyons.
Economic development incentives
Analysis of the Amazon HQ2 bids
Following Amazon’s very public HQ2 bidding process, Nathan Jensen of the Brookings Istitution examines what it could all mean for the future of regional economic development.
NYC gave Hudson Yards more incentives than Amazon
www.nytimes.com
New York was riveted by a debate over incentives offered to Amazon to build a headquarters. But Hudson Yards, the huge office and luxury residential development in Manhattan, has received far more.
Transportation equity
Making biking more inclusive — www.citylab.com
Bike equity is a powerful tool for reducing inequality. Too often, cycling infrastructure is tailored only to wealthy white cyclists.
Environment and resiliency
Asset managers and sustainable investing
Morgan Stanley’s Institute for Sustainable Investing, with Bloomberg, surveyed 400 asset management professionals. Hat tip to Al Levine for finding this.
Building decarbonization
A group in California is making a plan that outlines how the state will decarbonize its building stock.
The coming cataclysmic earthquake in Cascadia
Roughly 100 miles off the West Coast of the USA, running from Mendocino, California, to Canada’s Vancouver Island, lurks the Cascadia Subduction Zone, where the Juan de Fuca Plate is sliding beneath the North American Plate, creating the conditions for a megathrust quake 30 times stronger than the worst-case scenario along the notorious San Andreas, and 1,000 times stronger than the earthquake that killed 100,000 Haitians in 2010.
