National Market Review
Atlanta
Commercial
The $115-million, 21-story Intercontinental Buckhead Atlanta, which opened its doors to guests last month, is the first luxury hotel to open in Atlanta since 1991. The Peachtree Road hotel has 425 rooms, with rates of $300 a night for a standard room and $2,500 a night for the 2,000-square-foot Presidential Suite.
Boston
Commercial
New rules will require all new municipal government buildings to be "green" and will also start to pressure large private projects to be environmentally friendly. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino's Green Building Task Force issued the recommendations in an attempt to catch up to environmental advances in Seattle and Chicago.
Residential
While the suburban housing market has shown signs of softening, sales for condos in central Boston remain strong. The average third-quarter selling price for a two-bedroom downtown condo was $534,000, up 18 percent from $453,000 the year before, according to the city's Listing Information Network. Sales volume was up 25 percent over the same period last year.
Commercial
Another attempt to sell Fan Pier has fallen apart as the buyers a team comprised of New England Development, Boston Properties and The Related Companies - decided to let a deadline pass and forfeited a $2.5 million deposit and a chance to develop the 21-acre waterfront property. Miami-based Lennar Corp., the initial winner of the project in August before it backed out, is back in the running.
Chicago
Residential/Commercial
A condo boom is taking place in downtown Chicago, with 2,300 units in 15 new developments coming to market in the first two quarters of 2004, according to Appraisal Research Counselors of Chicago. Condo and townhouse sales are up 91 percent from a year ago. The upswing in building hasn't helped resale activity, creating what one agent said is the "toughest market in the last 10 years," according to Realtor.org
Residential/Commercial
Donald Trump held a ceremony last month marking the demolition of the Sun-Times building on North Wabash Avenue, which he will replace with a 90-story condo. Trump says he already has agreements to sell three-fourths of the tower's units. A George Soros-led investment fund and Deutsche Bank led financing for the project.
Las Vegas
Commercial
MGM Mirage announced plans last month for a multibillion-dollar hotel and condo project on 66 acres of the Strip, between the Monte Carlo and Bellagio resorts. The first phase, expected to open in 2010, will consist of a 4,000 room hotel with a casino, three boutique hotels, 500,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment venues, and 1,650 luxury condos. Ehrenkrantz Eckstut and Kuhn Architects of New York was chosen as the project planning firm.
Residential
The median existing-home price in Las Vegas stood at $250,000 in September, marking an incredible 42 percent jump from the previous year. Meanwhile, new home prices in Las Vegas were up 25 percent during the year-over-year period ending in September, to an average of $278,924.
Commercial
Las Vegas is looking to cash in on less glamorous industries than nightlife and gaming. The future, it seems, is furniture. The 1.3 million square foot World Market Center, now under construction downtown, is being touted as the keystone of a new industry in the area and an economic kick-start for downtown. The Related Companies is partner and co-developer of the project. An eventual city furniture market - mainly consisting of showrooms that manufacturers and exhibitors would use to pitch products to retail stores could encompass 7.5 million square feet of space.
Los Angelos
Residential/Commercial
With 1,500 housing units approved or under construction and new retail shops on the horizon, the funky enclave around the NoHo Arts District is seeing a redevelopment boom that could echo those of downtown and Hollywood. Among the projects in the works, NoHo Commons a $200 million complex of apartments, lofts and shops being built with government assistance in the heart of the Arts District is on track to open late next year, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.
Residential
After its purchase by real estate conglomerate NRT earlier this year, Sotheby's International Realty is expanding its national presence, picking up Dalton, Brown & Long Realtors in Beverly Hills last month for an undisclosed amount. The 600-agent company said it had sales of $3.3 billion over the past year.
Commercial
The Los Angeles County industrial market is leading the nation, absorbing more space than any other place in the country during the third quarter, according to a survey by Grubb & Ellis. The massive market, which encompasses nearly 950 million square feet, is also one of the tightest in the country, with a vacancy rate of 2.5 percent, Globest.com reported.
Miami
Residential/Commercial
The four hurricanes that hit Florida this fall are expected to result in insurance payments topping $23 billion, surpassing the previous damage record of $15.5 billion set in 1992 by Hurricane Andrew. Insurance companies will pay out over two million claims to customers whose property was damaged or destroyed by the storms, almost triple the 700,000 claims from Andrew, according to the Insurance Information Institute.
Residential/Commercial
A developer is planning what appears to be the biggest condo conversion yet in South Florida - 954 units in three towers on Hollywood's beach. Ocean Crest, built in 1968, will be renamed The Tides at Hollywood Beach, according to the South Florida Business Journal.
Commercial
MDM Development group has shelved plans for downtown's first office tower in a decade, and is now exploring building a 72-story condo tower. If constructed, the 750-foot tower would be the third-tallest skyscraper in the city.
Philadelphia
Commercial
Brandywine Realty Trust held a topping out ceremony last month to mark the completion of the steel frame of its Cira Centre office tower - the first new office building to be constructed in Philadelphia since 1992. The 28-story, 728,000-square-foot building is located adjacent to Amtrak's 30th Street Station in University City.
San Francisco
Commercial
In the city's first big technology lease since the dot-com bubble burst, security software maker Symantech has taken nearly 40,000 square feet of Class A space at 303 Second Street, according to the San Francisco Business Times. The move comes after Symantec's acquisition of another tech company earlier this year.
Residential
The number of new residential foreclosures listed for sale nationwide jumped nearly 37 percent in October, according to Foreclosure.com. The number was even higher in California, which saw foreclosures rise 50 percent. New foreclosures in the U.S. totaled around 30,000 in October.
Seattle
Residential/Commercial
The prices investors are paying for Puget Sound apartment buildings are jumping sharply, continuing a trend that began early this year despite persistently high vacancy rates. Prices have jumped to more than $100 per square foot this year, after hovering in the mid-$80s for the last four years. The average cap rate in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties is 6.7 percent, compared to 7.2 percent last year and 8.3 percent in 2001, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal.
Residential
The Seattle area residential market continued to exhibit robust health in October, with pending home sales up 4.9 percent over the same period last year. Western and central Washington saw an average price of $251,350, up 12 percent from a year ago. Brokers say their main problem is low inventory that continues to tighten.
Commercial
As part of a plan to develop Seattle into a biotech center, Microsoft Corp. billionaire Paul Allen and his company Vulcan Inc. are redeveloping the South Lake Union area of the city, where Allen owns 58 acres. Vulcan plans to build more than 10 million square feet of residential, office and commercial space on the site. Nine projects, totaling 1.8 million square feet, are underway or finished. Those include apartment buildings, office and research space, a grocery store and a hotel, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Washington, D.C.
Residential/Commercial
Real estate is booming in Washington, and the region is creating jobs related to real estate at the fastest pace in the past five years. Real estate jobs - including brokerage and construction - accounted for almost a fifth of the 65,600 new positions added in the overall job market in the year ended in September, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Commercial
The Gallup Building on F Street NW recently sold for $493 a square foot to foreign investors, the second-highest price per square foot in the region this year. The Acacia Building on Louisiana Avenue NW fetched the highest per-square-foot figure this year, selling for $600 a square foot.
Commercial
The chairwoman of the D.C. Council last month moved to sharply reduce the public money that would be needed to build a ballpark for the relocated Montreal Expos. Saying she had a plan that would save Washington $350 million, council chairwoman Linda Cropp outlined a proposal under which the city would finance about a third of the stadium's cost and leave the rest to a developer, who would get a potentially lucrative federal tax credit, according to a story in the Baltimore Sun. The plan is an alternative to the city and Major League Baseball fully financing the stadium, though it could also quash the relocation plan, according to published reports.
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