Despite the maturing commercial real estate cycle, Boston’s thriving economy continues to generate positive momentum for the metro’s multifamily property marketplace. Over the 12-month period ending June 30, 2017, area employers added 55,700 positions, growing the employment base by 2.1 percent. Job creation was driven by the typically high-wage healthcare and professional fields, and more than 30 percent of the new roles created were in office-using sectors. This healthy growth has supported a surge in household formation, which — along with the high cost of homeownership — is sustaining substantial demand for rental units. The significant affordability gap between renting and homeownership favors renting over homeownership by $591 per month. This, in combination with rising office-using employment, continues to boost apartment demand, which will support this year’s robust construction pipeline. Developers are on track to deliver more than 9,500 units to the marketplace in 2017, marking the highest point of the current cycle. Builders have focused their efforts in the urban core, particularly in the Fenway, Brookline and Brighton submarkets, and in first-ring suburbs. Nearly two-thirds of incoming units will be inside the city limits or in the closest suburban markets like Cambridge and Revere. The two largest deliveries each …
Louisville has a lot going for it when it comes to logistics. In addition to its prime location on the Ohio River, the city benefits from three major interstates running through it: Interstates 64, 65 and 71. I-65 is considered a Tier 1 Corridor due to the high volume of trucks that travel over this route, connecting Chicago and Indianapolis through Louisville to the Southern states. Louisville’s location also allows companies to reach 60 percent of the country’s population within a 12-hour drive. Perhaps most importantly, Louisville is home to UPS Worldport, the largest automated package handling facility in the world, and the center point of UPS’s worldwide air network. More than 300 flights arrive and depart daily, and the hub processes roughly two million packages a day and more than 4 million during peak holiday shipping season. E-commerce lives here and UPS offers customers the ability to drop shipments at Worldport much later in the day, compared to other cities, while still providing next morning/day delivery. Louisville is not only a great logistics hub, it has a strong manufacturing base. Louisville is home to GE Appliance Park and two Ford Plants: Louisville Assembly Plant and Kentucky Truck Plant. Louisville …
As a lender in construction and permanent financing of new multifamily properties, Mason Joseph Co. is constantly assessing and reassessing future supply and demand estimates for rental properties. Tarrant County has several high-profile apartment properties under construction, causing some in the lending industry to ask if the market is on the verge of being oversupplied. Our answer to that question is a firm “no.” Since 2010, a year in which Tarrant County boasted a ratio of 1.07 housing units per household, the market has suffered diminished production of all housing types. As of 2017, ESRI estimates that the units-to-household ratio is closer to 1.09. While that difference appears small, it means about 14,000 fewer housing units were built in Tarrant County from 2010 to 2017 than would be expected. A review of housing permits issued for the following two periods supports that data. From 2001 to 2010, the volume of housing units permitted exceeded the number of new households by an average of 821 units per year. From 2011 to 2017, the equation flipped and Tarrant County added 354 more households than housing units annually, implying the county has now been undersupplied by about 1,200 units per year for the …
Milwaukee-area communities have woken up and embraced tax-increment financing (TIF) as a way to stimulate retail and commercial development. Unlike our neighboring state of Illinois, Wisconsin is not afforded the same luxury of allowing retail sales taxes to flow to municipalities, which allows for greater financial flexibility and helps offset the cost of infrastructure and municipal services as a result of retail development. Wisconsin municipalities do not impose local sales or use taxes on purchases of goods and services. Based on a 5.6 percent tax rate for average Wisconsin communities, 5 percent flows to the state, 0.5 percent flows to the county and 0.1 percent would flow to a specially created district, such as a stadium or entertainment venue. TIF allows cities or villages to finance commercial development in a designated area, called a tax incremental district (TID), to promote a tax base expansion and economic development. The property taxes within the TID are placed in a special fund and are used to pay for improvements within the district. When the property values rise within the TID, the taxes paid on the increased value can be used to pay back public project costs, which otherwise can’t occur. Developers eye mixed-use …
The Financial District, Back Bay, and Seaport continue to experience strong tenant demand with a vacancy of 10.3 percent and continued rent appreciation. The Seaport, which has experienced tremendous growth for the last four years, received national attention with GE committing to move its corporate headquarters to the market and continues to make headlines with Amazon committing to 150,000 square feet. In addition, 121 Seaport Boulevard just leased to PTC (250,000 square feet) and Alexion (150,000 square feet). One of the biggest trends throughout Boston continues to be the popularity of the Class B buildings. Most people think of Cambridge as one of the premier lab markets in the world. Cambridge has the lowest office vacancy of all the submarkets in Greater Boston at 4.2 percent, making it one of the strongest office markets in the country. Even pre-leasing is strong, with Alexandria Real Estate receiving commitments for all 431,000 square feet at 100 Binney Street, signing Facebook and Bristol-Meyers Squibb as the lead tenants. Space is so tight that, even when you include sublet space, a tenant looking for more than 50,000 square feet only has four options in the submarket. Top Class A product is now achieving rents …
Sometimes there are benefits to being late to the party. Louisville, having lagged behind larger surrounding cities in multifamily development post-recession, is now experiencing a boom in apartment construction, much of which is being supplied by out-of-state developers. For similar reasons, including Louisville’s sustained economic growth fueled by continued strength as an international distribution center alongside a stable manufacturing base, national investor demand for Louisville multifamily properties has intensified. Traditionally known for the Kentucky Derby and the bourbon industry, Louisville is now raising eyebrows with a growing population, robust job growth and balanced multifamily supply and demand. Big Business, Jobs At the heart of this burgeoning story is UPS Worldport, the primary global air hub for the world’s largest package delivery company. UPS, the largest private employer in Kentucky, continues to expand its presence in Louisville, having recently announced a $310 million expansion of its Centennial hub sorting facility. Ford Motor also recently announced that it is investing $900 million in its Kentucky Truck Plant, in addition to the $1.3 billion and 2,000 jobs created at that plant in late 2015 to build Ford Super Duty trucks. Additionally, Qingdao Haier Co., having acquired Louisville-based GE Appliances in June 2016, announced …
With occupancies, rental rates and volumes of new construction on the rise, the Fort Worth retail market continues to draw a great number of investors and available debt lenders to the area in search of deals. Stabilized strip centers in high-traffic areas are in high demand, often trading at first-year returns in the high-6 percent to low-7 percent range. The Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) metroplex’s thriving economy and growing population has prompted greater retail spending, which, in combination with the shifting retail landscape, is generating strong demand for space. During the first quarter, area employers added 24,300 positions. Many of these jobs were created at businesses that are situated within master-planned, mixed-use developments that combine office, retail and rental units, which has helped foster greater retail spending. As of the first quarter, average retail spending per household in Fort Worth reached $4,439 per month — 17.3 percent higher than the U.S. average. Looking forward, it seems likely that these trends will continue as the DFW population is projected to expand by 728,000 people over the next five years. This should help sustain healthy demand and positive momentum for retail real estate. Along with the positive economic outlook, the reconfiguration and diversification …
The Milwaukee multifamily sector is plowing forward on a number of different fronts. Development activity is continuing its impressive run with a series of high-rise towers in various stages of construction or planning. Popular neighborhoods such as Walker’s Point, Bayview and the East Side are filling in with low- and mid-rise projects, many of which feature a mixed-use component. From an investment standpoint, multifamily is still the sector du jour, with a widening investor pool of both local and out-of-state buyers. Leading the charge on the development front is Northwestern Mutual’s 7Seventy7, which is currently under construction in downtown Milwaukee with an anticipated opening in summer 2018. The 34-story complex will feature 322 apartments, ground-floor commercial and 1,400 parking spaces, many of which will service employees at the company’s recently completed 1.1 million-square-foot headquarters located only one block away. Other major projects yet to break ground but slated to reshape the skyline in the coming years include: • The Couture — Barrett Lo Visionary Development is planning to build a 44-story tower with 300-plus units, retail and parking across the street from the planned Lakefront Gateway Plaza, which will connect the area between the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Summerfest …
With 4,900 new rental units coming on line this year in Northern New Jersey, inquiring minds are asking whether demand here is keeping pace with supply. The short answer is “yes.” New multifamily inventory continues to lease up, especially along the Hudson River Gold Coast, with performance meeting and exceeding developer expectations market-wide. Rental rates for Class A apartment product in Northern New Jersey have increased 3 percent year over year, registering at $2,369 at the midway point of 2017, according to Reis. Vacancy had been trending down since mid-2016, with a slight tick up in the second quarter of 2017, currently resting at 5.2 percent due to the delivery of 1,600 units in the last three months. Compare this to a $1,336 average rent and 4.4 percent vacancy rate nationwide, and New Jersey’s sustained appeal to investors and developers is unquestionable. However, multifamily investment sales to date in 2017 have been fairly measured — with fewer opportunities coming onto the market. For sales in excess of $10 million through August 2017, the volume has totaled $1.07 billion with the number of units sold totaling 4,708 (down 12 percent and 43 percent respectively compared to the same time in 2016) …
Louisville’s evolving retail market has presented a mix of new development and infill redevelopment opportunities that have created a substantial amount of activity in targeted areas. While rents and absorption activity have fluctuated, several of these new developments have proven that well-designed, experiential retail projects can still gain traction and create the buzz necessary for successful brick-and-mortar retail. No project in Louisville encapsulates this more than the Whiskey Row project that is taking place downtown in the central business district (CBD). It has been several years since retail development or retailers have ventured downtown, but this new project has created the level of excitement that has attracted national retailers. The driving force behind Whiskey Row is the tourism industry centered around Louisville’s well-known bourbon scene. The $30 million mixed-use project will be a redevelopment of former distilleries, with the developer preserving and restoring the historic facades, while building out world-class retail, restaurant and office space in the existing structures. The entire project will consist of 24,000 square feet of retail. With new distilleries and restaurants opening around the mixed-use development, retailers have been drawn by the foot traffic that will undoubtedly be delivered by tourists traveling to Louisville for the …