Office
For many who live outside Southern California, the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles is remembered for the well-documented riots of 1965, a six-day period of civil unrest that brought 34 fatalities, numerous injuries, and widespread arrests.
St. Louis, long known as the Gateway to the West, is rapidly becoming the gateway to the region’s future. Diverse communities have begun working together to make the city a major hub for cutting-edge innovations in aerospace, agriculture, finance, transportation, biosciences, entertainment, and much more. The St. Louis Economic Development Partnership is dedicated to finding economic development partners who can help companies thrive in greater St. Louis, regardless of their size, and at the same time help those companies to deliver new opportunities into under resourced neighborhoods.
West Main, a 1,030,000-square-foot (95,690 sq m) office, retail, and mixed-use project, is the new home to some of Amazon’s 12,000-person workforce in Bellevue, Washington. The three-building project, designed by Graphite Design Group in collaboration with Compton Design Office for Vulcan Real Estate, is transforming this city neighboring Seattle to the east.
ULI San Francisco recently hosted a panel revisiting the recommendations made by ULI Advisory Servies panelists to revive the downtown and highlighting the progress that has been made.
RXR CEO and Chairman Scott Rechler, in a recent ULI members-only webinar with ULI Foundation Chair Faron A. Hill, described the challenges and opportunities ahead as an epic, unavoidable storm. “That hurricane … eventually, it’s going to hit land,” Rechler warned. “The question is when it hits, how hard it hits, and where it hits the hardest.”
Members Only
1933 postal distribution center made over for indoor/outdoor office and Manhattan’s largest rooftop park
Supertall creates a “palpable energy” that speaks to New York’s resilience and the future of cities
Berkeley, California, is emerging as a hub for life sciences and technology firms, with new developments opening in the West Berkeley neighborhood. In June, ULI San Francisco hosted a walking tour through two campuses targeting life sciences research and development tenants at the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay: theLAB Berkeley and Berkeley Commons.
A close look at trends shaping today’s best economic and talent hubs that offers valuable clues into how to create equitable, sustainable innovation districts that prosper.
In a period short on opportunities and long on challenges, design matters even more. Good design principles are always worth employing, whatever the development climate, but three key design aspects pertain in particular: alliance, resilience, and quality.
![Western Plaza Improvements [1].jpg](https://cdn-ul.uli.org/dims4/default/2cb79b8/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1919x1078+0+0/resize/500x281!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fk2-prod-uli.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Fb4%2Ffa%2F5da7da1e442091ea01b5d8724354%2Fwestern-plaza-improvements-1.jpg)
Despite headwinds, debt funds continue to fill the void in commercial real estate financing.
Eight years ago, the landmark Paris Agreement kicked off a worldwide campaign to reduce carbon emissions. The targets set were big: slash emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and be net zero by 2050. So far, the world is not making enough progress on those lofty goals, and the progress that has been made has been very unevenly distributed. Experts from major real estate firms, including Boston Properties, CBRE, and Community Preservation Corporation, drove home the net zero transition’s importance during a panel discussion at the 2024 ULI Spring Meeting in New York City. They talked about the costs of getting to net zero, what lenders and owners are doing to get there, and the risk of not addressing climate change.
It’s tough to view a strong economy as bad news. Yet a firmly positive economic projection in ULI’s Real Estate Economic Forecast does not bode well for commercial real estate participants who are hoping for relief in rate cuts from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Members Only
Real estate developers across the United States and around the world are under pressure to cut the amount of carbon their activities put into the atmosphere.
What does it take to secure debt in today’s challenging commercial real estate environment? It all boils down to experience, relationships, and a lot of creativity. That’s according to an expert panel speaking this morning at ULI’s spring meeting at the New York Hilton Midtown. The panel is the first in a series of three, which will include Raising Equity (10 a.m. Wednesday) and Borrowers’ Experiences—Recent Success Stories (10 a.m. Thursday).
Experts say the real estate market in our cities is responding to the dramatic changes caused by COVID with a “flight to quality.” This headline suggests optimism that a safe harbor still exists out there as does the fear that we all need to act fast and run (for our lives) before things get bad. It reflects a winnowing to the essential characteristics that can ensure the best overall return and insulate us from the changing winds in the economy.
The Manhattan office market is beginning to make a comeback, but much has changed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The persistence of hybrid and remote work have changed the equation for commercial rentals, both in terms of landlord-tenant relationships and the quality of office product on offer.
Members Only
Vornado’s $2B vision transforms midcentury towers into a vibrant, amenity-rich destination in Midtown Manhattan.
Tattooed, tanned, and tousled, 48-year-old Stefan Quinn Soloviev looks like an athletic nerd who stepped out of a Mad Max film, but don’t let his appearance fool you. Soloviev is one of the largest landowners in the United States—number 21, according to Landreport.com—with a portfolio that includes some of Manhattan’s most coveted properties.
Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued new rules requiring public companies to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures. The rules phase in over time, requiring the largest companies or public investor shares to begin making climate risk disclosures in 2025.
Arizona is at the epicenter of an evolving dynamic that can best be described with a phrase uttered by a panelist at ULI Arizona’s Trends Day 2024—disruption equals opportunity.
For months, if not years, panic-inducing headlines have lamented the existential crisis facing the U.S. office market as a “wall of maturities” looms: $2.2 trillion of commercial real estate debt coming due between now and the end of 2027, according to Trepp estimates.
![GENSLER - CHASE PARK - FINAL RENDERING[1].jpg](https://cdn-ul.uli.org/dims4/default/9e7d314/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6000x3372+0+397/resize/500x281!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fk2-prod-uli.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2Fc6%2Fbd%2F50e442924bf6b2a530572e6c2c9b%2Fgensler-chase-park-final-rendering1.jpg)
As office values have declined, it’s created a pivotal moment for astute investors and developers as they evaluate the underlying land value and look for the best property uses over the long term. Indeed, there is latent potential in the evolving office landscapes, but a keen and studied eye will be required to discern the true opportunities from the potential money pits.
The strain of higher interest rates is creating sleepless nights for some commercial real estate owners and operators these days. On the flip side, there is significant capital eagerly lining up to take advantage of market dislocation.
Many office property owners are heading for the exits amid weaker demand and looming debt maturities, while opportunistic private equity groups are leaning in to capture what could be once-in-a-generation buying opportunities.
Hollywood and the film industry has changed dramatically over the last several decades, especially in recent years with the rise of streaming networks.
Although residential fell more in the first quarter of 2023, office remains Europe’s most scarred commercial real estate sector, according to advisory firm Green Street. Government mandates around sustainability are also tightening, and Cushman & Wakefield says 76 percent of European office space could be obsolete by 2030 unless landlords start investing now.
While some big-box retail stores are closing, some developers are eyeing opportunities with retail-to-life science conversions or additions.
Mass timber has come a long way in the United States in the past eight years. Fulfilling mass timber’s green potential means responsible forest management and planning for what happens to the timber after the building’s end of life.
Despite ominous national headlines about New York City office, the vacancy rate is at 9.7 precent in the first quarter of 2022, a full 140 basis points above pre-pandemic levels, according to Moody’s. And, on the ground, New York City office landlords like Leslie Himmel, founder and co–managing partner of Himmel + Meringoff Properties, are doubling down on the city.
