Articles About Development

Noted Chicago architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s famous maxim “Less is more” should apply to ambitious plans for revamping Chicago’s Navy Pier, the city’s top tourist destination.  Writing in the Chicago Tribune, architectural critic Blair Kamin says “The good news about the latest vision for the pier is that it discards the excesses of […]

A financing vehicle that has been used in Europe since it was invented in Prussia in 1769 is finding its way to American shores as a replacement for commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS).  The vehicle is known as covered bonds, which is a securitized debt instrument backed by a pool of top-quality assets, primarily mortgages. What […]

A total of $1.4 trillion worth of commercial real estate loans are coming due between now and 2014, with the majority on small- and medium-sized buildings that are either under water or very nearly there.  Writing for the Huffington Post, Daphne Wysham says that “crisis breeds opportunity. It turns out that buildings are responsible for […]

Eight Chicago taverns – all built more than a century ago by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company and which bear the brewer’s signature globe logo – may be given landmark status by the City Council.  The former brewery-tied houses were built in the Queen Anne or Baroque styles and “convey important aspects of the ethnic, […]

The way America has been built in the last half century has assured that a majority of the population is dependent on the car to get to work, to school, to shop or virtually any place.  This is the opinion of Andres Duany and Jeff Speck, who are city planners and co-authors of “The Smart […]

Google is expanding its horizons by partnering with Good Energies, a New York-based investment firm that specializes in renewable energy, to create a $5 billion, 350-mile-long transmission grid to support offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Seaboard. Each of the two firms has agreed to take 37.5 percent of the equity portion of the project […]

A new green initiative is joining the White House’s already famous organic vegetable garden.  President Barack Obama plans to install solar panels on top of the White House’s living quarters to heat water and provide power to some of the historic mansion. The panels are scheduled to be in place by the spring of 2011, […]

Who’s right about the state of the economy and commercial real estate – the bulls or the bears?  Robert Knakal, chairman of New York-based Massey Knakal Realty Services, weighs both sides to help us cut through the mixed messages. In a recent interview for the Alter NOW Podcasts, Knakal noted that the bulls like to […]

Who is the recipient of the inaugural Mayor Richard M. Daley Legacy Award for Global Leadership in Creating Sustainable Cities?  It’s none other than retiring Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley himself. Writing in the Chicago Tribune, architecture critic Blair Kamin said “Chicago’s lame-duck mayor, famous for his green thumb and his iron fist, will receive […]

Although foreign investment in United States commercial real estate doubled in the 1st half of 2010 compared with 2009, activity is still sluggish, thanks to the slow economy and a lack of trophy properties offered for sale.  Currently, the United Kingdom is the hottest international destination for investment, according to Jones Lang LaSalle research.  So […]