Atlanta
Several Buckhead mansions on the market have seen deep price cuts recently, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Arthur Blank, a founder of Home Depot and owner of the Atlanta Falcons, chopped the price of his Tuxedo Road home by $2 million, an 18 percent drop, to $8.9 million. Windcrofte, another Tuxedo Road mansion owned by former gubernatorial candidate Guy Millner, is now on the market for $10.9 million after a $3 million cut. Rossdhu, a 91-year-old mansion at 2900 Andrews Drive, is for sale at $11.75 million after a 19 percent cut. Only four homes have sold for $3.8 million or more in Buckhead since April 2008.
The well-known Equitable building in Downtown Atlanta has fallen into foreclosure and is scheduled for auction on May 5, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Skyscraper owner Equastone 100 Peachtree LLC owes $52 million on the mortgage for the 40-year-old building. The company paid $56.8 million for the building in May 2007, and it is now worth — land included — about $44.8 million. The Equitable building’s tenants are small and midsize businesses, including the district offices of U.S. Representative John Lewis.
Boston
The law firm Fish & Richardson, the planned anchor tenant for the $700 million Filene’s redevelopment, has decided to pull out of that project to move to an office building under construction at Fan Pier, the Boston Globe reported. The Joseph Fallon-developed Fan Pier project is a 21-acre, $2.5 billion mixed-use development, and the law firm is its first major tenant. The firm’s withdrawal from the Filene’s project is the latest problem for its developers, Gale International and Vornado Realty Trust. Construction on the project was halted last fall after the developers failed to secure financing.
Chicago
After watching sales numbers plummet in the Chicago-area city of Lake Forest, public officials and real estate professionals decided to band together to create a town-wide real estate incentive package, which went into effect in early March. Since the program began, sales are up 21 percent compared to the year-ago period, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Local real estate professionals, home inspectors, lenders and others offer buyers discounts on services. The city also gives buyers a $500 gift certificate that can be used anywhere in Lake Forest. The city’s package is probably worth $1,500, not including any other incentives offered by the seller.
Las Vegas
Office vacancy in Las Vegas continued to increase in the first quarter, rising to 19.3 percent from 18.5 percent in the last quarter of 2008, according to Grubb & Ellis. More new office space was completed in the first quarter than in the last quarter of 2008, but a number of planned projects have now been put on hold, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Asking rents were around $2.40 per square foot at the end of the first quarter, with actual rents significantly lower.
Los Angeles
The federal government’s Dollar Homes program, which launched in 1998 — allowing local governments to buy homes for $1, renovate them and resell them at a discount to poor families — benefited Los Angeles-area contractors and investors rather than homebuyers, a Los Angeles Times investigation found. In California, 326 homes were sold through the Dollar Homes program, but only 15 percent of those were sold to nonprofit housing groups. Most went to companies or individuals who resold them at higher prices. The city of San Bernardino bought more Dollar Homes than any other California municipality but could provide no information on what happened to those homes.
Philadelphia
Foxwoods Casino applied for approval in early April to put a 3,000-slot casino at Eighth and Market streets, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported. If approved, construction could begin immediately, and the site could open in six to nine months, employing 450 people, Foxwoods said. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said he believes the casino will spur redevelopment in the neighborhood. Foxwoods originally wanted to build the casino on South Columbus Boulevard but faced significant opposition.
Phoenix
Many new developments in the Phoenix area have been subsidized by sales tax rebates, but a court decision against the $97.4 million subsidy that the city of Phoenix offered to CityNorth may change that practice, the Arizona Republic reported. The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that the CityNorth subsidy was unconstitutional, and while the appeal proceeds through the legal system, cities and developers are re-examining other deals and holding off on discussions about new developments. Some say the tax breaks and incentives bring in more tax revenue in the long run, while opponents of the tax rebates say they place higher tax burdens on citizens and other businesses.
Thirty-five homes went into contract over a three-week period in March at Tuscany Villas at Painted Mountain, a gated community, the Arizona Republic reported. Only 30 new home sales were recorded in the entire Mesa area for February. Most of the buyers in developer Jeff Blandford’s Tuscany Villas community were early retirees and baby boomers. One Canadian couple saw the community as a possible seasonal home; indeed, many Canadians are homebuyers in the Mesa region. Another couple thinking of buying at Tuscany Villas was looking to downsize their home.
San Francisco
In the Bay Area, more than one-third of foreclosed properties are shadow properties, meaning that they do not show up in county records as having been resold after falling into bank possession, a San Francisco Chronicle analysis found. Banks repossessed 51,602 residential properties in the Bay Area between January 2007 and February 2009, but only 30,823 of them were resold. Since foreclosures usually go on the market within a month or two of bank possession and sell quickly, real estate experts said, they should show up in county records as resales within three months. If the existing shadow inventory goes on the market, it could drive down home prices even further.
Some builders and planners are afraid that San Francisco’s residential skyscraper growth will stop because lending is frozen. Michael Covarrubias, CEO of TMG Partners, a San Francisco development firm, told the San Francisco Chronicle that as banks decrease lending, developers will be forced to raise more equity for construction, and as a result, high-rise residential development will be harder to fund. Michael Cohen, director of the mayor’s office of economic development, said he did not think new residential skyscrapers would permanently disappear from the city skyline, but that it might take some time for new projects on that scale to get off the ground.
Seattle
Last year, developers and politicians were expecting a building boom along Seattle’s
Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, where a light rail line was slated to be built. Developers had planned to build more than 1,500 housing units within walking distance of the train stations. But while the trains are still expected to start running this year, the development projects that were to follow them have stalled, the Seattle Times reported. Developer Unico backed out of plans to purchase two corner properties near the Columbia City rail station. And a deal between developer Opus Northwest and the city’s housing authority for a mixed-use project is taking an unexpectedly long time to close.
Washington, D.C.
As the economy has declined, the Boulevard at the Capital Center in Landover has seen retail vacancies and crime increase. Several anchor tenants, including Linens ‘n Things, Circuit City and Office Depot have closed, and the mall’s occupancy rate is about 85 percent, the Washington Post reported. Area residents say that they now travel outside the county to do their shopping.
Compiled by Sara Polsky