Urbanexus Update - Issue #75
After five weeks of vacation, Pike Oliver returns to offering a weekly compilation of analysis and opinion about real estate and community development. Please note that some links may lead to items that are behind a paywall.
Industrial
Blackstone to acquire Colony Industrial for $5.9Bn
Blackstone Real Estate Partners IX, an affiliate of New York City-based global investment firm Blackstone (NYSE: BX), has agreed to acquire Colony Industrial, the Dallas-based industrial arm of Colony Capital Inc. (NYSE: CLNY).
Office
The downward spiral of WeWork and its founder Adam Neumann is big news. The biggest loser is SoftBank, the firm that invested in the company based on a $47 billion valuation which looks today to have been wildly overblown.
Residential
World's tallest residential building — archpaper.com
The 1,550-foot-tall Central Park Tower at 217 West 57th Street in Manhattan is now the tallest residential building in the world. Several residential towers are now either finished or under construction along, or near, West 57th Street.
Retail
Forever 21 latest retailer to file for bankruptcy Fashion retailer Forever 21 Inc filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, as it joined a growing list of brick-and-mortar players who have succumbed to the onslaught of e-commerce companies such as Amazon.com Inc .
The retail apocalypse isn't what many think it is Yes, some highly visible chains are closing stores, but that's not even half the story.
Retailers look to capture the ‘laptops and lattes’ crowd
The four F’s may need to move over: there’s a new consonant in town. Fun, food, fitness and fashion are still category staples in shopping centers. But retailers at the International Conference of Shopping Center's 2019 Western Conference & Deal Making event, expressed interest in courting the two L’s: laptops and lattes.
Community development
Questions about Toronto's smart-city project
Sidewalk Labs (a Google company) encounters obstacles in the path toward development in Toronto.
Transportation
Average Chinese car travels as much as American car
Given China’s much more compact cities, shorter travel distances and intense traffic congestion in the larger cities, one might expect that the average light vehicle in China would travel considerably fewer miles than its counterpart in the United States. Not so.
Best and worst U.S. places to live car-free
College towns and big coastal cities top a ranking of the metros where it is easiest to live without a car.
Changing urban conditions
Millennials leaving more expensive cities in the USA
Large U.S. cities lost tens of thousands of millennial and younger Gen X residents in 2018, according to census figures that offer fresh signs of cooling urban growth.
The dark side of the rust belt revival Cities in flyover country are facing new redevelopment challenges as companies relocate from costly coastal cities. In St. Louis, downtown revitalization has also brought plans to tackle blight, and the consequences for residents could be immense.
D.C.’s gentrification is pushing black people out
The city Sanathera Price knew was vanishing, and so was her place in it where she has lived for four decades.
An emergency level of homelessness in Los Angeles
Mark Ridley-Thomas, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, writes that Los Angeles is enduring a crisis of homelessness that has yet to recede.