Downtown L.A. could be reshaped by Grand Avenue project
The Grand Avenue project in downtown Los Angeles aims to transform that area from a workaday hive where everyone commutes home after dusk to a more 24-7 community. Plans for the $1.8 billion, three-phase project were unveiled in April, according to the Los Angeles Times, and include eight condo and officer towers, shopping arcades, a 16-acre park and a boutique hotel. The centerpiece of the Grand Avenue project will be a translucent, glass-curtained, 47-story tower designed by Frank Gehry, the Times reported. Developer the Related Companies hopes to start work on the project’s first phase this year and complete it by 2009. Related’s contract, according to the Times, states that the second phase must start by 2011, and the final one by 2014.
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Atlanta
Commercial
Recent record land deals signal that developers think a neglected stretch of Midtown from 14th Street to 17th Street is ready for a high-rise renaissance. Empty lots, abandoned buildings and low-rise office buildings now dot the area, according to the Atlanta Business Journal. MetLife, in the first big purchase along the corridor, bought the 5.2 acre, two-building Midtown Heights in January for $36 million, or $159 per land square foot. In April, the Business Journal reported, Wood Partners paid $196 million for 2.4 empty acres at 1240 West Peachtree. Late that same month, Trizec Properties bought 1372 Peachtree Street for an undisclosed sum.
Residential
For-sale housing inventory is up in Atlanta, and prices are, too. Housing inventory jumped 15 percent from the first quarter of 2005 to the first quarter of 2006, according to the Wall Street Journal. Prices trended upward at the tail end of the first quarter in March compared to February despite the jump in inventory. Still, with strong job growth expected in Atlanta, the housing market there should remain generally healthy, the Journal reported, with prices leveling off.
Boston
Commercial
At least 11,000 office jobs are expected to be created in Boston this year, which should drop that city’s commercial vacancy rate to nearly 15 percent — its lowest since 2001, according to brokerage Marcus & Millichap. Lack of new office construction will also contribute to any lower vacancy rate, the report stated.
Commercial
Recent success in two segments of the Boston commercial market could signal a turnaround in the market overall. More space has been leased recently in the top floors of downtown skyscrapers, for one thing. While the vacancy rate in Boston’s central business district was 14 percent in early May, the rate for space in towers above the 20th floor was under 10 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal. Also, the class A vacancy rate in the suburban town of Waltham dropped to 9.4 percent in May, well below the town’s overall rate of nearly 19 percent, the Journal reported.
Chicago
Commercial
The Chicago office market continues to migrate westward, toward the train stations that bring city workers in from the suburbs, and developers have been responding. About 13.6 million square feet of new office space will have been added to the Windy City’s West Loop market between 2000 and 2007, Commercial Property News reported.
Residential
Limited space for building new condos continues to fuel the conversion of Chicago commercial space, according to Commercial Property News. As many as a dozen conversion projects are under way or in the planning stages in the city. These include the conversion of the old Encyclopedia Britannica headquarters at 310 South Michigan Avenue into 242 condos
Houston
Residential
While housing markets in cities across the nation cool, Houston’s seems remarkably healthy. The overall median sales price of a single-family home in the nation’s fourth-largest city hit a March record of $143,310, according to the Houston Association of Realtors. Total single-family home sales also set a March record of 6,542, up 22 percent from the same month in 2005. Also, the inventory of available homes in Houston year-over-year decreased 2.8 percent in March. If these trends hold, Inman News reported, 2006 could be one of the best years ever for real estate in the Houston region.
Las Vegas
Commercial
The Las Vegas Valley’s retail vacancy rate dropped to around 3 percent in the first quarter of 2006, In Business Las Vegas reported, as few retail centers were completed during the quarter, adding just 500,000 square feet to the market. While high land prices have helped curb retail development, as much as 1.3 million square feet of new retail space is under construction and 3.3 million more square feet is planned, according to In Business, which may alleviate the tight market.
Commercial
The Las Vegas Valley’s overall commercial market continues to tighten. The vacancy rate declined 0.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005 through the first quarter of 2006 to 8.3 percent, the Las Vegas Business Press reported; the rate also dropped by 4 percentage points from the first quarter of 2005. The vacancy rate in the market’s class A segment was particularly low at 4.7 percent, the Press reported, driving up demand for high-quality space in Las Vegas.
Philadelphia
Residential
Donald Trump unveiled plans in early May for Trump Tower Philadelphia, a good sign of developer confidence in the city’s resurgent residential market. The 45-story, 528-foot tall condo tower on the Delaware River waterfront will have 263 units, the New York Post reported. Construction is expected to start this summer, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, with completion in mid-2008.
Phoenix
Residential
A spike in inventory should give buyers the advantage in the Phoenix housing market. Inventory of for-sale single-family homes and condos jumped 282 percent from the first quarter of 2005 through the first quarter of 2006, according to the Wall Street Journal. At the same time, prices dropped in the Phoenix market during the first quarter, the Journal reported, but the city’s strong job market should cushion any rough landing for the housing market there.
Residential/Commercial
Real estate brokers are seeing more developer interest in central Phoenix property because of the light rail system now under construction, according to the Phoenix Business Journal. Recent evidence of this interest is the Sky Phoenix, a proposed two-tower, 37-story condo development on two acres at the northeast corner of Central and Columbus avenues. Sky Phoenix, the Business Journal reported, would include 515 condos and retail on the ground floor.
San Francisco
Commercial
The strong San Francisco job market and the ongoing conversion of commercial space to residential use should mean a solid summer for the commercial market in the city. Employers in San Francisco are expected to add more than 15,000 jobs — 7,600 of them office jobs — in 2006, according to a report from Marcus & Millichap, helping drive down the office vacancy rate to 12.5 percent by year’s end.
Residential
Home prices in the Bay Area are growing at about half the pace of the record in the past two years, according to Bloomberg News. An analysis of home prices in the nine-county area in March turned up a median sales price of $622,000, up 9.5 percent from the same month a year earlier and 1 percent from February. But it was also the first time a year-over-year price increase was under 10 percent since January 2004, Bloomberg reported.
Washington, DC
Residential
Home prices have stayed flat in Washington as housing inventory has spiked. Year-over-year housing inventory increased 230 percent by April, according to the Wall Street Journal, while prices during the first quarter of 2006 stayed generally level. Strong job growth, though, the Journal reported, should mean a soft landing for the Washington housing market.
Residential
Condos may be the hardest hit type of housing in the Washington residential market’s overall slowdown. Condo prices throughout the region could drop 15 to 20 percent this year, the Washington Post reported, based on an analysis by Moody’s Economy.com. The rising inventory of condos for sale or being built in the region would be the main culprit of any price slide, the Post reported.