Urbanexus Update - Issue #65
Please scroll down for the weekly compilation of analysis, reporting, and opinion about real estate and community development. Some links may lead to material that vis behind a paywall.
The economy
How will we know when a recession is coming? Despite strong GDP and job growth in recent years, another economic downturn will be inevitable. The Hamilton Project explores the most direct approaches to identify recessions—including a rapidly increasing unemployment rate—in order to plan a timely response that can mitigate damages.
Real estate investment
Big equity fund to invest in apartments
Lennar's (LEN) announces the final closing of Lennar Multfamily Venture II fund, a $1.3B equity fund targeting investments in class A multifamily communities.
Big price for a Los Angeles apartment complex
Douglas Emmett Inc. (NYSE: DEI) has acquired The Glendon, a multifamily and retail complex in the Westwood Village neighborhood of Los Angeles, for $365 million. Built in 2008, The Glendon features 350 apartment units and 50,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space on a 4.3-acre plot.
Regions
The Midwest keeps missing out on venture capital A regional venture fund could accelerate economic change in the Midwest.
Housing and community development
Nonprofit to build 800 apartments for Seattle homeless; $48.8M raised so far
When completed, the new construction will come close to doubling the number of supportive housing units Plymouth already provides — from the 1,100 it owns and operates to 1,900. Plymouth subscribes to the “housing first” model, which embraces the idea that issues like mental or behavioral health and substance use can be addressed more effectively when that person is housed first, rather than requiring treatment as a precondition to gaining a place to live.
Evolution of the 'company town' — marketurbanismreport.com
Big companies used to run their own monopoly towns. Now they take a more incremental approach to city development.
Are homeowner associations exclusionary? A new study finds that higher percentages of wealthy, Asian, and white residents live in HOAs; and people pay a premium of about 4 percent for homes in HOAs.
The decline of the country club — www.city-journal.org
The country club, once a mainstay of American suburbia, faces a cloudy future, with a changing culture eroding its societal influence. Golf and tennis, the traditional club pastimes, have lost popularity. And a yearning for broader community makes the clubhouse’s exclusivity unappealing. The country club is increasingly a refuge for retirees—and, upon closure, a site for mixed-use development.
The largest co-living building in coming to San Jose
The startup Starcity plans to build an 800-unit, 18-story “dorm for adults” to help affordably house Silicon Valley’s booming workforce. Thanks to David Calloway for noticing this.
California housing crisis may lead to an economic one
Reports from Next 10 underline the economic pains felt from the housing shortage in the Golden State.
Rent control returning to make housing shortages worse
The problem is rent control doesn’t do anything about why rents are rising. Pretty much every economist agrees that rent controls are bad. And in the last decades of the 20th century, economists had some success persuading state and local governments to curb these policies. Now the policy appears to be making a comeback.
Retail
Nordstrom closing at Seattle's Northgate Mall
The closure comes at a time of high transition for Northgate - one of the first iteration of the suburban shopping mall we know today. New plans show the layout of planned redevelopment, including the new NHL training center.
Retail investors focus on density — www.cremodels.com Retail investors double down with increased density and diversity, using densification in the face of the "Retail Apocalypse"
Real estate leadership
Mike Neal, H.G. Fenton Company
Perspective on creating a positive company culture for multiple stakeholders, balancing the pace of growth with fiscal discipline, and financially preparing for changes in the real estate cycle.
Environment and resiliency
Urgent action on climate change will prevent heat-related deaths in major U.S. cities — www.washington.edu
Reducing global warming emissions to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius could prevent thousands of extreme heat-related deaths in cities across the U.S.
Around the world
Nigeria's slum dwellers fight evictions — www.thisisplace.org
When bulldozers entered the Nigerian slum of Njemanze and started tearing down hundreds of waterfront homes, Michael Uwemedimo was there to document the scene with his camera. And when the British-Nigerian documentary maker was arrested by security forces, the residents of the slum in the city of Port Harcourt hid his camera and kept it safe until he was released later that day.