Commercial property buyers who had shifted their focus from prime coastal city properties such as in New York and San Francisco to secondary markets like Las Vegas, Dallas and Minneapolis, may be rethinking their strategies as a result of recent financial market volatility, Bloomberg News reported.

Investors had been showing interest in secondary markets amid growing confidence in the recovery and soaring prices in prime cities, Bloomberg said, with transactions increasing sixfold in Las Vegas in the first half of 2011 from the same period in 2010, by about 253 percent in Phoenix, 204 percent in Atlanta and 267 percent in Pittsburgh, according to data from Real Capital Analytics.

Concern, however, that the U.S. property market may only experience sluggish growth in the next few years could stymie this trend before it takes off, sources said. [more]

The city Department of Buildings announced it will share information
about tower cranes with Chicago and Philadelphia in an effort to track
equipment failures, recalls, accidents and industry trends. Over the
past year, 12 tower cranes have come to New York City from other
places. The new system will track where the cranes work, who owns them
and will include any information on accidents involving the machines.
This is the latest in a series of measures instituted after two tower
crane accidents in Manhattan resulted in nine people dead last year.
There is currently no national database to track tower cranes and their
parts, and several other places, including California, Connecticut and
Dallas, have expressed interest in the new program. [more]