Urbanexus Update - Issue #104
This weekly compilation of selected real estate and community development comes to you from H. Pike Oliver. It is free to anyone who cares to subscribe and inclusion of articles does not imply endorsement. Please note that some links lead to items that are behind a paywall.
Tracking the virus in the USA
COVIDcast — covidcast.cmu.edu Carnegie Mellon's Delphi Research Group has partnered with numerous organizations, including Facebook and Google, to track COVID-19 and better forecast its spread at the county level.
Coronavirus impacts on real estate in the USA
RCLCO sentiment survey and analysis
The smart folks at RCLCO have begun to think about what the recovery is going to look like, which real estate segments will be the winners and losers in the "Great Lockdown," and what is happening in the real estate capital markets. Based on RCLCO’s extensive interviews and conversations with real estate executives across the country, property-/project-level revenues during the “shut down” period for selected real estate sectors could vary significantly:
Travel declines in the USA highlight virus impact
The number of passengers screened nationwide by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on April 12, was 90,519. On the same day of the week in 2019, TSA screened 2.4 million people.
On April 16, the New York City subway system had 470,000 passengers. The same day in 2019, it had 5.9 million.
Transactions and the virus
Massive contraction in CRE closings coming
The number of commercial real estate transactions that fell out of contract the US in March was approximately three times higher than the average from 2016 to 2019.
Office
Office owners demand proof for rent relief Office landlords want tenants to hand over financial information if they want to renegotiate rents amid the economic fallout of the pandemic.
Retail and restaurants
The pandemic is a calamity for many American retailers
But a boon to others, as the shift online speeds up. As America enters a second month in hibernation, the crushing effects of the covid-19 pandemic on retailing are becoming dramatically apparent. For retailers that do not sell groceries and household goods, sales have dried up, not so much overnight as within hours. For those without much in the way of online operations, they have vanished altogether. And for those that were already struggling, including some of America’s best-known names, the future looks especially bleak.
Department stores are dying Shuttered flagships. Empty malls. Canceled orders. Risks of bankruptcy. The coronavirus has hit the behemoths of the retail world.
Roark Capital invests $200M in The Cheesecake Factory
Roark Capital Group, a private equity firm based in Atlanta, has invested $200 million in The Cheesecake Factory Inc. (Nasdaq: CAKE), owner and operator of the chain of restaurants of the same name. The company also owns and operates the North Italia chain, as well as a collection of restaurants within the Fox Restaurant Concepts subsidiary. The company company indicated that its comparable sales in March were down 46 percent from March 2019, and has sent letters in March to its landlords and property managers informing them it would not pay its April rent due to hardships from COVID-19.
Residential
Covid-19 fuels tensions at apartments and condos
Although most Americans have retreated to single-family homes, about a quarter cannot. For the nearly 70 million people in multifamily buildings, isolation is often impossible and tensions are unavoidable.
Multifamily construction slows due to coronavirus
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, 56 percent of apartment developers reported construction delays, according to a survey by the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC). Of those reporting delays, 70 percent said they were experiencing delays in construction starts, an 11 percent increase from a NMHC survey conducted the end of March. The survey found that 77 percent of respondents are experiencing issues with permitting; 28 percent suffer a lack of materials that is impacting construction operations; and 44 percent indicate that labor restraints related to the virus outbreak are affecting construction operations.
Mill Creek and Quadreal launch $421M multifamily JV
Mill Creek Residential, a Florida-based multifamily development firm, has launched a joint venture with Canadian global investment firm Quadreal Property Group. The two companies have partnered on an initiative to invest up to $421 million in the development and operation of apartment communities in targeted U.S. markets over the next two to three years. Specific target markets were not identified. The joint venture has already acquired land for its first development. Modera Six Pines will be a 429-unit multifamily project in The Woodlands, Texas, located about 30 miles north of Houston.
Demographia's housing affordability survey
In this interview, Wendell Cox talks about Demographia’s latest housing affordability which covers Australia, Canada, China (Hong Kong), Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.
How Montreal makes housing affordable
s a city and an urban region, Montreal has systematically registered some of the lowest homeownership and rental-housing prices for successful cities of similar size in North America. The contrast with Montreal’s principal rival, Toronto, is striking. A comparable three-bedroom condo in a comparable central city neighborhood currently goes for almost double the price (purchase or rental) in Toronto. The difference has remained stable over two decades, suggesting factors that go beyond cyclical demand.
Environment and resilience
Cities and viral vulnerability There’s a long history of blaming urban areas rather than economic factors for physical and moral ills. But density can be an asset for fighting coronavirus.
Protecting cities from pandemics
How can we reduce the threat of future pandemic and bring the world’s cities back to those halcyon pre coronavirus days? Almost assuredly, this is worth a massive increase in public-health-related spending. America’s nineteenth-century cities became healthier only because they spent as much on clean water as the federal government spent on everything else, but for the post office and the military. COVID-19 has destroyed trillions of dollars of shareholder value and generated a several trillion dollar bailout. It makes sense to spend billions to avoid future losses of trillions.
The world in 2050 if we don’t cut carbon emissions 50%
Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac imagine what life on earth will be like in 2050 if we don't take rapid action to cut emissions. In many places around the world, the air is hot, heavy, and depending on the day, clogged with particulate pollution. Before opening doors or windows in the morning, people check to see what the air quality will be. When storms and heat waves overlap and cluster, the air pollution and intensified surface ozone levels can make it dangerous to go outside without a specially designed face mask.
The paths to net zero Technological progress may soon make the fight against climate change much more effective—if governments systematically support innovation.
The legacy of 'Design With Nature' 50 years later
Fifty years ago, Ian McHarg, a Scottish landscape architect wrote a book that revolutionized how designers and planners think about ecology. His legacy matters now more than ever.