CHICAGO — Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has mandated that any individual 5 years of age or older will be required to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 in order to dine indoors, visit gyms or go to entertainment venues where food or drink are being served. The new requirement goes into effect starting Monday, Jan. 3. The initiative is in response to “an alarming rise in COVID cases both locally and nationally, driven in part by the Omicron variant,” according to the city. The requirement is similar to what is already in place in large cities such as New York City and Los Angeles. Patrons age 16 and older will also need to provide identification that matches their vaccination record. The city’s mask mandate also remains in effect for all public indoor settings. Chicago residents are now averaging more than 1,700 new COVID cases every day, a 79 percent increase from one week ago.
Contrary to what is often portrayed in the national media, the Orlando office market is not a monolith. It instead comprises multiple submarkets, many of which are recovering quite differently. For example, according to data from CoStar Group, Winter Park had a 4.7 percent availability rate (that’s direct and sublease space combined). The Downtown Orlando market, on the other hand, had a rate of 16.9 percent. The total Orlando MSA office availability rate was 11.5 percent, which compares to the national rate of 16 percent. All of these numbers just prove that the recovery from the pandemic is uneven, even in areas in close proximity. It’s easy to get lost in analysis, but the basic answer is that the office market in Orlando, just like in the entire country, will recover in time. Not all areas will be on the same timeline, and the office market will never look entirely the same. Between working from home and companies deciding to relocate their offices or headquarters entirely, there will be some short-term winners and losers. Texas, for instance, is having a relative boom in new tenants. Los Angeles, and indeed California in general, on the other hand, is not. Many companies …
Countless companies have seen their top and bottom lines decimated by COVID-19-related shutdowns, travel restrictions and changing consumer preferences since the start of the pandemic. Yet for many taxpayers, property tax values have changed little or even increased. Many of these taxpayers have been surprised to receive property tax bills that do not reflect the real and lingering economic challenges that the retail, hospitality, office and other industries have, are and will continue to face. These taxpayers — and even those in industries better suited to weather the storm — should give special attention to ensuring they receive fair and reasonable assessments. Observe Valuation Dates, Notices and Appeal Deadlines With a large percentage of employees working remotely, together with an inconsistent postal service, it is more important than ever to have dedicated employees and knowledgeable property tax professionals reviewing property value assessments annually and filing timely protests when warranted. Failure to receive a tax valuation notice rarely excuses a missed protest deadline, so it is vital to know and comply with applicable deadlines. Many property tax bills issued in 2020 were based on statutory valuation dates that preceded the emergence of COVID-19. For instance, assessors working under a valuation date …
Rising construction materials costs have been one of the biggest stories of the pandemic era. When COVID hit, many factories ramped down production. In addition, some raw materials industries had challenges like tariffs, natural disasters and COVID-related slowdowns. When construction continued during the pandemic, supply suffered and pricing rose dramatically. This has been especially true for lumber and steel, but natural disasters in areas like Texas have even hampered the manufacturing of other goods, like appliances. Student Housing Business, sister publication to REBusinessOnline, spoke to six general contractors to get their take on the student housing sector at present, and to get their advice on what they are telling clients who are pricing projects for 2022 groundbreakings and beyond. SHB spoke with Arne Goldman, director of business development at Marous Brothers Construction; Marty Hoffey, business development manager at MW Builders; Emily Kessinger, business development manager, and Chris Harrison, executive vice president at The Weitz Company; Sean Studzinski, president of strategic initiatives at Modular Design+; and Sky Sanborn, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Broeren Russo Builders. SHB: How busy is your student housing pipeline? What projects have you recently built/completed? Goldman: We have some projects that are lined …
ATLANTA — Seniors housing operators have been grappling the past 18 months with how to maintain their properties and keep occupancy high while also protecting their staff and residents, who are the most vulnerable population for infections and death from the COVID-19 outbreak. With the rise of the Delta variant in recent weeks, owners and operators are having to make tough decisions to care for their residents, although now they have built some muscle memory on how to operate effectively amid the pandemic. “We are better at dealing with COVID-19 now than before,” said Joe Jasmon, CEO and managing partner of American Healthcare Management. Jasmon added that alleviating the fear of COVID-19 and the Delta variant is a big part of an operator’s job, and bringing residents into their social programs is a major point of emphasis, even if it can only be done virtually. “There’s been a huge insurgence of Zoom calls,” said Jasmon. “Before it was once in a blue moon, and it would be a son or daughter who lived in Belize or somewhere. Now the entire family and friends are calling in. We have to cultivate that activity and encourage it.” Jasmon’s comments came during the …
CANADA — Starting today, Monday, Aug. 9, Canada plans to begin allowing entry to American citizens and permanent residents that have been fully vaccinated at least 14 days prior to entering Canada for non-essential travel. This preliminary step enables the government of Canada to fully operationalize the adjusted border measures ahead of Sept. 7, when the government intends to open Canada’s borders to any fully vaccinated travelers. All travelers will use the ArriveCAN app or web portal to submit their travel information. Accepted vaccines include Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen. All travelers will still require a pre-entry COVID-19 molecular test result. Starting Aug. 9, fully vaccinated travelers will not need a post-arrival test unless they have been randomly selected to complete a day one COVID-19 test. This strategy enables the government to continue monitoring variants of concern in Canada and vaccine effectiveness, according to a news release.
By Pat Kesgard, Compass Commercial Real Estate Services When COVID-19 hit Central Oregon in April 2020, commercial real estate transactions effectively came to a halt. Transactions were either delayed or canceled and virtually no new deals started. We were back to almost normal by the beginning of the third quarter of 2020. Miraculously, the fourth quarter was above the previous year’s activity. Hospitality The hospitality industry suffered tremendously through the pandemic. The labor shortage extended the challenge of operating at full capacity, and this is still impacting businesses today. Fortunately, landlord and government subsidies helped many in the industry survive. Retail Transactions in 2021 Compass completed more than 31 retail leases that totaled more than 85,000 square feet since January 1, 2021. The current retail vacancy rate is 5.86 percent with 264,077 square feet available for lease. We noted some softening in rents in 2020, and are now starting to see asking rates returning to normal. The redevelopment of older properties continues, along with new localized projects in areas outside of downtown Bend. We expect to see this trend continue for the unforeseeable future. Large retail spaces opened up when the former Sears and Shopko closed in 2020. Both buildings were eventually …
By Jonathan Fishman, co-founder, Bizydev Every business-oriented publication for the last 18 months has almost certainly churned out dozens, if not hundreds, of articles detailing how they believe COVID-19 will or has or might affect their market or industry. Real estate publications have exhaustively covered the deceleration of commercial office leasing, the population outflow in urban cities and corresponding battering of the multifamily market and the lack of business travel and tourism resulting in catastrophic conditions for the hotel sector. And of course, analysts and experts have been quick to note the sharp decline in physical retail space success thanks to the onslaught of e-commerce, further fueled by social distancing measures. Facing these challenges, many retail landlords have been forced to ask themselves what advantage they provide for their tenants. Given the realities of the commercial real estate market, landlords must explore ways to create value for their tenants and seek common ground with them to keep afloat. It’s no longer acceptable for landlords to just provide a storefront, a door and a raw space if they expect to be competitive in the retail leasing market today. They need to find new ways to market their spaces and highlight their …
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‘Power Panel’ at InterFace Event Provides Positive Outlook for Student Housing Sector Post-COVID-19
Moving toward the start of a fresh academic year, the outlook for the student housing industry keeps getting brighter. A testament to the industry’s movement out of the pandemic is taking place at the InterFace Student Housing conference in Austin, where nearly 1,300 attendees have been able to gather in-person for the first time since April 2019. This year’s event, which concludes today, is taking place at the JW Marriott downtown. The student housing sector banded together like never before in the face of COVID-19 and truly worked as a team throughout the pandemic, with the ultimate goal of keeping students as safe as possible. The sector’s resilience during the pandemic and optimism regarding the year ahead were the driving discussion points during the conference’s “Power Panel” on Wednesday, July 14, which brought together a consortium of high-level executives to discuss industry trends, their experiences with COVID-19 and the outlook for the upcoming academic year. “The past 18 months have been a whirlwind of uncertainty,” began moderator Peter Katz, executive director at Institutional Property Advisors, a division of Marcus & Millichap. “While our sector has been historically categorized as recession-resilient, we would all now claim it to be pandemic-resistant.” “Student …
By Chris Irwin, Colliers International As we begin to lower our masks, breathe fresh air and see smiles on everyone’s faces, there are strong signs that better than pre-COVID retail activity in Chicago is here. With the expanded vaccine rollout, a decrease in unemployment plus the added boost of stimulus checks, the surge in retail sales in the city and surrounding areas has been measurable. The demand for retail space increased in fourth-quarter 2020 and first-quarter 2021 significantly, with the first quarter recording a 650,000-square-foot increase in overall absorption, which pushed the trailing 12-month absorption back to positive territory — and its highest level since 2017. Increased leasing activity continued to drive new demand as net absorption totaled almost 1 million square feet in the first quarter. Vacancy in Chicago retail has flattened and currently is holding at 6.1 percent over the past year compared with a rate of 5.1 percent nationally. Leasing activity was driven by the expansion of essential retailers throughout the first quarter, similar to first-quarter activity levels registered in 2017, 2018 and 2019. However, the most important step toward recovery happened June 11 when the State of Illinois moved its Coronavirus response from Phase 4 to …
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