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Brett Widness

Brett Widness is the managing editor of Urban Land. Previously, he worked in online editorial at the Washington Post, AARP, and AOL, now part of Yahoo!

Social psychologist and bestselling author Amy Cuddy will give a keynote at the 2018 ULI Fall Meeting. Cuddy is an expert on the behavioral science of power, presence, and prejudice. Cuddy, who teaches leadership at Harvard, earned her PhD from Princeton University and has served on the faculties of Harvard Business School and Northwestern University. Her book Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challengesis a bestseller and has been published in 30 languages.
According to a new report from Cushman & Wakefield, flexibile office space could triple in size in the coming years, representing 5 to 10 percent of office inventory in many markets. Investors also believe coworking is well positioned to weather an economic downturn.
Demand from growing cloud-computing providers has set the U.S. data center market on pace to break 2017’s record leasing activity, according to CBRE’s latest U.S. Data Center Trends Report. Northern Virginia and Phoenix are also seeing significant new construction to meet demand.
In July, real estate website Curbed highlighted nine significant projects including the Hub on Causeway and Fenway Center, plus two projects in the Seaport area. Several of these will be highlighted either as tours or sessions at the ULI Fall Meeting in Boston in October.
The Dodge Momentum Index, a leading indicator for construction spending for nonresidential buildings, moved 1.4 percent higher in July to 169.8 from the revised June reading of 167.3. The commercial component of the Momentum Index grew by 3.3 percent, while the institutional component fell 1.5 percent.
Hong Kong Central remained the most expensive office market in the world, according to CBRE’s annual Global Prime Office Occupancy Costsreport. Hong Kong Central’s overall prime occupancy costs of US$307 per square foot (US$3,305 per sq m) per year topped the “most expensive” list, followed by London’s West End, Beijing’s Finance Street, and Hong Kong’s Kowloon.
Prime logistics rents increased globally during the 12 months ended March 31, accelerating their growth in many markets due to strengthening economies around the world and greater demand for distribution of goods bought both online and in stores, according to a report from CBRE. Prime rrents increased by 3.2 percent across the globe in this year’s first quarter from a year earlier, exceeding the previous 12-month period’s 2.2 percent global increase.
According to a survey by RCLCO, sentiments about the real estate conditions in the U.S. remain at a relatively high level, but slightly below where they were six months ago. Just over one-half (51 percent) of RCLCO’s Mid-Year 2018 Sentiment Survey respondents say U.S. real estate market conditions are moderately or significantly better today than they were 12 months ago, five percentage points lower than in the year-end 2017 survey.
The Dodge Momentum Index eked out a small gain in May, moving 1.8 percent higher to 167.8 (2,000=100) from the revised April reading of 164.9. May’s gain was the result of a 4.7 percent increase by the commercial component of the Momentum Index, while the institutional component fell 2.4 percent.
Jill Ferrari, a partner at Shelborne Development and vice chair of ULI Michigan, and Eric Larson, chief executive officer of both the Larson Realty Group and the Downtown Detroit Partnership, who is also serving as a co-chair of the ULI Spring Meeting Host Committee, were recently interviewed on a podcast produced by Crain’s Detroit Business.
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