New Orleans jazz park a centerpiece of Katrina recovery
New Orleans is edging back from the watery brink. The city plans to revitalize its downtown shopping district and nearby aging government office complex by building a modern, 20-acre, multiuse National Jazz Center and Park adjoining public office buildings, the Times-Picayune newspaper reported. Strategic Hotels & Resorts is coordinating the $715 million project, which started at the beginning of the hurricane season last month.
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Atlanta
Residential/Commercial
A new mixed-use complex in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood will bring a 60,000-square-foot hotel and a 40-story condo building beside it. Developers purchased the site for the hotel-condo hybrid in 1998 for $2.3 million. The 300 condos will be around 1,500 square feet each and are expected to be ready in 2008, reports Commercial Property News.
Residential/Commercial
A Florida developer plans to build a massive project near Oglethorpe University, MSNBC reported. The $400 million mixed-use center on Peachtree Road will be called Brookhaven Place, and will include 1,200 apartments and townhouses. It will also have 600,000 square feet of retail space, 15 restaurants and a five-story, 150,000-square-foot class A office tower.
Baltimore
Residential/Commercial
There’s been a stall in the redevelopment of the Baltimore business district as disagreements over the so-called superblock project have delayed progress on the west side of the city’s commercial center. The plan called for development of the largest portion of the property into 225 residential units and 64,500 square feet of retail space, according to published reports.
Boston
Commercial
Mayor Thomas Menino’s touted tower in the Financial District is now a $1 billion project, according to the Boston Herald newspaper. The skyscraper is set to go up on the site of a run-down, city-owned parking garage. The 1,000-foot tower, which does not yet have a developer, could contain 2 million to 3 million square feet and cost anywhere from $1 billion to $1.5 billion, the Herald reported.
Chicago
Residential/Commercial
Millennium Park, the two-year-old, $475 million playground at the edge of Lake Michigan, has become one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions, the New York Times reported. The 24.6-acre park, which features architectural designs from Frank Gehry, along with artwork and gardens, has had a huge effect on the surrounding area. In the last five years, the district has become one of Chicago’s hottest residential neighborhoods, with over a dozen projects going up within blocks of the park. According to reports, the park is responsible for roughly $1.4 billion in residential development and has also increased nearby housing values by $100 a square foot.
Residential
A 5-year buying frenzy in the Windy City’s housing market appears to be slowing down, according to real estate brokers. Homes are selling in months, not hours, and prospective buyers are taking their time to make decisions, the Chicago Tribune reported. Inventory of homes on the market has surged even though the volume of sales is on track with last year’s record numbers. In the first four months of 2006, the Chicago-area market took on roughly 97,000 new listings of single-family homes and condos, rising from 83,000 during the same period in 2005.
Houston
Residential/Commercial
A major development of 10,000 homes and a town center is planned on 3,800 acres by Highway 6 in Houston, adjacent to the Sienna Plantation, the Houston Business Journal reported. The project plans include a 38-acre main street blending retail, entertainment, offices, restaurants, and residential units.
Residential
New homes and small neighborhoods now dot formerly forested land along route FM 762 in Fort Bend County, which includes the southwest part of Houston. It’s a sign that growth has pushed beyond the Beltway and into the county, according to the Houston Chronicle. Almost 80 percent of 65,000 home sales in 2005 were outside Texas Freeway Beltway 8. Home values in Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, both containing areas of Houston, are up as well, with the median price per square foot up 3.7 percent in Fort Bend and 4.8 percent in Montgomery County from 2005.
Las Vegas
Commercial
Several casino developers want to enter Las Vegas, but it could be too costly for them, according to recent reports. The $1.9 billion buyout of Aztar Corporation by Columbia Sussex Corp. and the $770 million buyout of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino by Morgan’s Hotel Group Co. startled other companies looking to head into Las Vegas, Reuters reported. Columbia won the bid for Aztar Corporation, but it could cost them $30 million an acre for just the land — the highest price ever for land that size in Las Vegas.
Residential/Commercial
The $3 billion Las Ramblas project in Las Vegas has been cancelled, according to media reports. The developers of the project, which included The Related Companies, had recruited a star team of architects and Oscar-winner George Clooney as an investor, but will now sell the 25-acre downtown site. Las Ramblas was supposed to include hotels, condominiums and a condominium-hotel.
Los Angeles
Residential/Commercial
More than 6,500 residential units and 32 commercial projects and public facilities have been rehabilitated or newly built in downtown Los Angeles in the past few years, according to media reports. More than 100 mixed-use projects are under construction, with $12 billion already invested. Another 6,600 residential units are also under construction, with an additional 5,700 planned.
Philadelphia
Commercial
Several years ago, the city took over the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, a sizable parcel of land just off Center City, but redevelopment has only just begun for the massive project. The New York Times reported that the site requires million of dollars in improvements, but will create about $2 billion in private investment. More than 70 businesses, with 7,000 employees, have already moved in. Most recently, the high-profile retail store Urban Outfitters, founded in Philadelphia in 1970, announced it would move all of its 650 headquarters employees there.
Commercial
In Wilmington, Del., just 30 miles south of Philadelphia, there’s an office glut in the making. Four office buildings are under construction despite the recent weak ranking of Wilmington’s downtown office market among 46 U.S. city-center business districts. Adding an estimated 927,000 square feet, the four buildings have over two-thirds of the space pre-leased. However, smaller markets like Wilmington can be more volatile, as new buildings more easily create gluts. In recent reports, the Wilmington region’s suburban office market tied with Las Vegas’ suburbs as the weakest in the country out of 52 markets.
San Francisco
Residential/Commercial
Rincon Center in San Francisco, which contains two office buildings and a residential tower, was recently purchased by Beacon Capital Partners. The investment firm has agreed to buy the property from the Blackstone Group for about $275 million, according to Commercial Property News. Beacon plans to convert the 22-story residential section of Rincon Center into condominiums.
Tempe
Residential/Commercial
Arizona State University, working with a private developer, will develop a 1.5 million-square-foot mixed-use project set to be completed in January 2007. The property will be the centerpiece of downtown Tempe, featuring 240,000 square feet of office space in the 12-story structure, with a 30-story hotel building and a 23-story residential tower for the students, according to Commercial Property News. The project is also expected to create 1,500 jobs.
Washington, D.C.
Residential
Housing costs are soaring in the Washington, D.C., area, pricing many prospective newcomers out of the market and pressuring current residents to consider moving out, as landlords raise rents and starter homes become too expensive. Washington posted the sixth-fastest increase in prices from 2000 to 2005, which outpaced even New York and San Francisco, and is now labeled as one of the most “painfully expensive” housing markets in the country, the Houston Chronicle reported. A large segment of Washington’s population is vulnerable to rising prices, with about 19 percent of its residents living at or below the poverty level in 2004, the fourth-highest rate among the states and the District.
Residential/Commercial
The City Council recently approved $2 billion in revitalization efforts in the Anacostia riverfront area of southeast Washington, D.C., GlobeSt.com reported. The funds include financing for the development of a $550 million Convention Center Headquarters Hotel and $88 million in infrastructure costs related to the Southeast Federal Center Development. That 5.3-million-square-foot, mixed-use development is supposed to include 2,700 units of residential housing, 1.8 million square feet of office space, up to 400,000 square feet of retail space, a new park and a riverfront esplanade.