Articles About Development

Wells Fargo & Company and LNR Property Corporation are hunting for buyers for $1 billion each of distressed commercial real estate assets and loans.  San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest commercial real estate lender, is soliciting bids on $500 million to $1 billion worth of office and hotels.  LNR, the nation’s largest CBMS special […]

The Great Recession has taken a toll on the famous American optimism and belief in social mobility as defined by the stories of such luminaries as Alexis de Tocqueville, Horatio Alger and Barack Obama.  According to a poll by YouGov for The Economist, 39 percent responded that the opportunities available to them were not as […]

The long-abandoned United States Steel South Works on Chicago’s South Side moved closer to undergoing transformation to a mixed-use development when the Community Development Commission unanimously approved a $96 million tax-increment financing (TIF) district to fund the project’s initial phase. The Chicago City Council still must approve the TIF district, which would give the green […]

Urban cores with challenging infrastructure issues are not getting the right attention from government, so planners are creating their own public/private partnerships to obtain funding from various city sources to pay for necessary upgrades.  And, according to A. J. Robinson, President of Central Atlanta Progress (CAP) and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District (ADD), his organization […]

The nation’s small and medium-sized banks – those with under $10 billion in assets – could see a spate of commercial loan failures in coming years, according to a report issued by the Congressional Oversight Panel as part of its supervision of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).  The panel’s chair, Harvard law professor Elizabeth […]

Congress — wary of 2010 mid-term elections – appears to be unlikely to pass climate change legislation this year, writes Jeffrey D. Sachs in Scientific American. According to Sachs, “The fracture lines are countless, but probably the most important one runs through public opinion.  A recent poll showed only 36 percent of Americans believing that […]

A 43-story residential tower in south London’s Elephant & Castle neighborhood will receive eight percent of its power from three wind turbines  installed at the top of the structure.  The Strata Tower – nicknamed the Electric Razor – is being developed by Brookfield Europe and eventually will be home to 1,000 residents. The Strata is […]

Despite the troubled economy, commercial building owners retain their commitment to making their properties more environmentally friendly.  Going green saves building owners and users money and makes sound business sense. “The fact of the matter is this is just good business – making buildings perform better,” said Dan Probst, an energy and sustainable development expert […]

The federal government will lead the office market recovery, especially in Washington, D.C. According to Jones Lang LaSalle’s 2010 U.S. Federal Government Perspective, the federal government will need at least 4,000,000 SF of new space nationally this year, though the lion’s share will be in the Washington, D.C. market. The need will be driven primarily […]

A combination of limited supply growth and anticipated stabilization of the jobs market could mean that office rents may return to positive growth sooner rather than later.  That’s the opinion of Victor Calanog, a researcher at Reis, Inc., one of the nation’s leading providers of commercial real estate performance information and analysis. According to Calanog, […]