Features

Projected Population, Job Growth Fuel Future of Atlanta’s Multifamily Market, Says InterFace Panel

by Camren Skelton December 6, 2017

ATLANTA — A surge in population and job growth in the Atlanta metropolitan area over the next two decades will bode well for the multifamily sector, according to panelists at the eighth annual InterFace Multifamily Southeast. Among the 12 largest metropolitan areas in the county, Atlanta ranked second in the rate of job growth and third in the number of jobs added, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Total nonfarm employment for the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell Metropolitan Statistical Area stood at 2.75 million in September 2017, up 2.5 percent year-over-year. In addition, the Atlanta Regional Commission forecasts the 20-county Atlanta region will add 2.5 million people and 1.5 million jobs by 2040. Multifamily demand is reaping the benefits of this growth. The job growth multiplier for the demand for new apartments used to be a factor of 5 to 1, meaning for every five jobs created, you could take one unit of inventory out of the equation, according to Mike Kemether, vice chair of the multifamily advisory group at Cushman & Wakefield. This year and next in Atlanta, that ratio sits around 7 to 1. “A lot of the renters are coming because of job relocations,” said Christie Hawver Jordan, …

December 6, 2017

Conference Coverage Features Georgia Multifamily Southeast Top Stories

While Apartment Size Shrinks, Amenity Spaces Grow, Says InterFace Panel

by Kristin Harlow December 5, 2017

ATLANTA — The amenities arms race is still in full swing. During the architecture and design panel at the eighth annual InterFace Multifamily Southeast conference held on Tuesday, Nov. 28 at the Westin Buckhead in Atlanta, industry experts discussed how they design today’s multifamily projects with large-scale, luxury amenities in mind. The conference drew 402 multifamily professionals. “There’s so much competition in this space and amenities are really the differentiating factor for all these projects,” said Brad Lutz, director of business development for Dallas-based Humphreys & Partners Architects. “With this shift from homeownership to renting, you have to provide something that’s going to not only attract renters, but retain them long-term.” Joining Lutz on the panel was JoAnn McInnis, vice president of client services and business development at Virginia-based Carlyn & Co. Interiors + Design; B.J. Laterveer, director of the multifamily housing studio at Alpharetta, Georgia-based Wakefield Beasley & Associates; and Les Juneau, president of Atlanta-based Juneau Construction Co. Cannon Reynolds, managing director of architecture for Atlanta-based Niles Bolton Associates, moderated the panel. Both millennials and empty nesters are driving demand for apartment space as they continue to forego homeownership. The U.S. homeownership rate was 63.9 percent in the third quarter of …

December 5, 2017

Conference Coverage Features Georgia Multifamily Southeast Top Stories

InterFace Panel: Multifamily Remains Smart Investment, But Good Deals are Harder to Find

by Camren Skelton December 1, 2017

ATLANTA — Strong fundamentals have propelled the U.S. multifamily market forward in 2017 and leave it poised for a healthy 2018, but good deals are harder to come by in today’s market for investors, according to panelists at the eighth annual InterFace Multifamily Southeast. The average cap rate for the multifamily sector in the third quarter registered at 4.3 percent, 12 basis points lower than the same period in 2016, and 15 basis points lower than 2015, according to JLL. “Of the 22,000 units that we are going to close this year — mostly A-minus to B assets — the average cap rate is 4.8 percent, across roughly 45 different transactions,” said James Kane, senior vice president of asset management at Starwood Capital Group’s Atlanta office. “This is in top markets like Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, D.C., Denver, etc. — the suburban cornucopia of markets across the U.S.” “With cap rate compression and the rise in interest rates since the Trump election, it’s made it increasingly hard for us to find yield in spaces we are comfortable with,” added Colin Gillis, vice president of acquisitions for the Southeast at Irvine, Calif.-based Passco Cos. LLC. Although spreads are tightening as a whole, …

December 1, 2017

Civic Conference Coverage Features Georgia Southeast Southeast Feature Archive Top Stories

Growing Smartly is a City’s Biggest Challenge, Says InterFace Keynote Speaker

by John Nelson November 30, 2017

ATLANTA — Tim Keane, City of Atlanta’s planning commissioner, is tasked with a monumental challenge facing many planners: how to practically design the future for a city on the cusp of a population boom. Citing the Atlanta Regional Commission, Keane said that the Atlanta metro area is on track to add 2.5 million people over the next 25 years, the equivalent of adding the entire metro Charlotte population. The city’s in-town population is also expected to grow from less than 500,000 today to 1.2 million in that same time frame. Adding to the challenge are city departments and communities that are unwilling to change because of a mindset that is resistant to growth. “Everyone thinks that more people is bad,” said Keane, who previously worked in the city planning departments in Davidson, N.C., and Charleston. “They don’t work on the assumption that a clear future for themselves is better with more people. We have to break out of that mentality because the change is happening.” Keane was the keynote speaker at the eighth annual InterFace Multifamily Southeast conference, held on Tuesday, Nov. 28 at the Westin Buckhead in Atlanta. Hosted by InterFace Conference Group and Southeast Real Estate Business, the …

November 30, 2017

Features Heartland Feature Archive Midwest Mixed-Use Ohio

Grandview Yard Takes the LEED on Neighborhood Design in Columbus, Ohio

by Kristin Harlow November 30, 2017

COLUMBUS, OHIO — In spring 2009, the United States Green Building Council formally launched a new program with the vision of fundamentally changing how the country evaluated green design and development, LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND). The launch of the LEED-ND program coincided with the first phase of Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Realty Investors’ Grandview Yard development: a $700 million, 1.2 million-square-foot, master-planned mixed-use neighborhood located in the fast-growing Grandview Heights community, just minutes from downtown Columbus and The Ohio State University. The first standard of its kind, LEED-ND embraces principles of smart growth and new urbanism, encouraging sustainable and environmentally responsible design and development on a broad and integrated scale. Like a scene in a movie that begins with the camera tightly focused on one element before zooming out to reveal an eye-opening new perspective, LEED-ND is about acknowledging context and connection. Distinguished LEED project Grandview Yard was one of the Midwest’s first LEED-ND Silver neighborhoods. When site work began on the first phase of development of the project in September of 2009, a comprehensive and ambitious on-site reuse and recycling strategy was already in place. An extensive and highly-coordinated warehouse demolition process served as both a challenge and an …

November 30, 2017

Features Multifamily Top Stories

The ‘Three Cs’ of Property Management: Communication, Connection and Comradery

by Kristin Harlow November 28, 2017

Being part of a community is an important factor when renters choose a building to call home. According to a National Apartment Association’s report entitled “Adding Value in the Age of Amenities Wars,” a sense of community is what’s behind five of the top 10 amenities added or upgraded in apartments since 2014. Including clubhouses, common areas for socializing and fitness and business centers — the community aspect of apartment living is a huge draw. As property managers, we are constantly challenged to ‘Keep up with the Joneses’ when it comes to offering the latest and greatest amenities. So much so that figuring out how to creatively “add” space to make room for new amenities when updating older buildings has become a top priority. However, while extensive amenities are considered basic requirements for today’s renters, it doesn’t matter how great the amenities are if the building doesn’t have a heart and soul that resonates with residents. To foster that sense of community, there are three best practices in property management to keep in mind: communication, connection and comradery. Make Communication Easy Technology has provided residents the ability to communicate with property management at their convenience. Gone are the days of …

November 28, 2017

California Features Office Top Stories Western

Office Rental Rates on the Rise in All 30 of CBRE’s Top 30 Tech Submarkets

by John Nelson November 21, 2017

LOS ANGELES — Office rents across the United States and Canada are getting a big lift from the influence of tech job creation, according to CBRE. All of the submarkets tracked in the brokerage giant’s annual Tech-30 report have experienced rental growth over the past two years. In 13 of those submarkets, asking rental rates have grown by more than 10 percent in the two years tracked between second-quarter 2015 and second-quarter 2017. On the list of 30 submarkets, office rent growth was led by Orange County, Calif. (23.3 percent), Nashville (21.2 percent), Atlanta (17.6 percent), Charlotte (16.9 percent) and Silicon Valley (16.8 percent). According to CBRE’s Tech-30 report, the willingness of tech companies to pay a premium for office space in the hottest tech submarkets is starting to spill over into neighboring submarkets, as available space in tech “hotspots” is dwindling. Adjacent submarkets and traditional downtowns with skylines — rather than the brick-and-beam buildings tech companies have demonstrated a preference for — are primed to benefit, according to the report. “If tech companies that are used to paying a premium for space in the top tech submarkets are forced to move to adjacent submarkets in order to expand, we …

November 21, 2017

Conference Coverage Features Multifamily Seniors Housing Top Stories

Middle-Class Affordability Is ‘Single Biggest Issue’ Facing Seniors Housing Industry, Says HJ Sims’ Landreville

by Jeff Shaw November 16, 2017

NEW ORLEANS — Many seniors housing developers, owners and operators are already looking forward to the “silver tsunami” of Baby Boomers reaching the proper age to enter seniors housing. However, if current trends continue, many of those seniors won’t be able to afford seniors housing anyway, according to panelists at the LeadingAge Annual Meeting and Expo. The panel, titled “Understanding the Economics & Financing Structures of Moderately Priced Life Plan Communities,” took place at the event in New Orleans on Oct. 30. The panelists included Mark Landreville, executive vice president with bond financing specialists HJ Sims; and Steve Kuhns, a partner with seniors housing consulting firm Essential Decisions Inc. Wayne Olson, executive vice president of Volunteers of America National Services, contributed to the presentation but was unable to attend the event. Landreville led the discussion and called affordability “the single biggest issue facing the seniors housing industry.” He cited a recent Time magazine study showing that 30 percent of U.S. households headed by people 55 and older have no retirement account at all, and the remaining 70 percent have a median account balance of just $104,000. “Everyone talks about the Baby Boomers, but they don’t have the resources they want …

November 16, 2017

Features Industrial Texas Texas & Oklahoma Feature Archive Top Stories

InterFace Panel: Demand for Automated Labor Growing in Industrial Sector

by Taylor Williams November 15, 2017

HOUSTON — The number of American manufacturing jobs has been decreasing for more than a decade, radically enough that the pledge to return them became a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s campaign. Between 2004 and 2014, the country lost about 2.1 million manufacturing jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which also projects that another 814,000 manufacturing jobs will be cut by 2024. The decline in manufacturing jobs has coincided with job growth in other industrial subfields, particularly transportation and warehousing. The total number of jobs in this sector increased by about 391,000 between 2004 and 2014, with an additional 137,000 new positions expected to be created by 2024, per the BLS. Analyzed in the context of e-commerce, these trends suggest that industrial activity is still robust throughout the country, but that distribution is outstripping manufacturing as the primary form of industrial-using employment. Yet the growth of e-commerce alone does not account for the radical dip in the number of manufacturing jobs available. The substitution of human labor for automated robot workers has also been a driving force behind sluggish job growth in the manufacturing sector, according to a panel of industrial real estate professionals who gathered …

November 15, 2017

Features Retail Top Stories

Percentage of U.S. Adults Who Prefer In-Store Shopping Versus Online Is On the Rise, Says Coldwell Banker Commercial Survey

by Camren Skelton November 14, 2017

MADISON, N.J. — Although the retail landscape has faced disruption in recent years, nearly half of U.S. adults prefer to make purchases in-store rather than online, according to a new survey conducted by Madison-based Coldwell Banker Commercial Affiliates. “Despite doomsday headlines about the retail industry and how e-commerce has taken over, our survey has found that Americans still enjoy and remain loyal to in-store shopping, regardless of the retail climate,” says Fred Schmidt, president and COO of Coldwell Banker Commercial Affiliates. Working on behalf of Coldwell Banker, Harris Poll surveyed 2,001 adults from Aug. 15-17 as part of an online study. The participating cohorts included 194 younger Millennials (age 18-29), 160 older Millennials (age 30-34), 479 Gen Xers (age 35-49) and 884 Baby Boomers (age 50-69), to reveal Americans’ shopping preferences and determine the steps retailers can take to remain relevant in today’s competitive retail industry. Overall, the survey found that 47 percent of U.S. adults prefer to shop in-store rather than online. More than half of Baby Boomers (51 percent) prefer the in-store experience, followed by younger Millennials (50 percent), Gen Xers (42 percent) and older Millennials (27 percent). When asked a similar question in 2016, 43 percent of …

November 14, 2017

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