McKenzie Darr, a recipient of the 2022 Developing Leaders Award, has a career goal of building bridges – metaphorical ones, that is, between public and private sectors – to advance communities.
NAIOP chapters and members are advancing the interests of commercial real estate within state capitols across the country. Last week, members in North Carolina and Ohio traveled to their respective state capitols to engage lawmakers on solutions to the challenges facing the commercial real estate development industry.
There is no one path to commercial real estate development, but for Gregory Boler Jr., a recipient of the 2022 Developing Leaders Award, his career journey started with a mechanical engineering degree at Georgia State University. JLL’s Project and Development Services (PDS) Group interviewed Boler as part of an effort to recruit diverse entry-level talent in technical majors from historical black colleges and universities. He was one of four students selected and began his career working for JLL’s PDS Group in Atlanta.
The groundbreaking ceremony for a new building signifies the physical start of a construction project. In most cases, however, months or even years have already been spent preparing the land for future growth, as planners and developers work behind the scenes to make the property “shovel ready.” Attempting to market a property that is not shovel ready can be a significant barrier to making a commercial property sale. But what does it mean to have a shovel-ready property, and why is it so important?
On Monday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy visited Wall Street to debut the latest House Republican proposal to raise the debt ceiling. In his speech, McCarthy stated that in the coming weeks, the House would approve a one-year increase in the debt limit that will include a reduction in discretionary spending to 2022 levels, while limiting future increases to 1% annually over the next 10 years.
America faces a multipronged real estate crisis. We have a stubborn residential housing shortage, high office vacancy rates, and flight from many downtown hubs that is killing off businesses servicing those areas. Converting office towers into housing could solve multiple problems at once.
The Canadian government enacted legislation on Jan. 1, 2023, that disrupted commercial and residential real estate development across the country. The Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadian Act (the “Act”) was originally intended to be a demand-side solution to make housing more affordable for Canadians by prohibiting residential purchases by non-Canadians over the next two years. However, the regulations under the Act, released only a week before enactment, unintentionally halted commercial investment in current and future residential and mixed-use projects in major metro areas.
“There’s a really exciting trend emerging in hiring and compensation that’s going to accelerate throughout 2023,” opened Chris Lee, CEO of CEL & Associates, during a recent NAIOP webinar. “It’s the blending together of the quantitative – the numbers, compensation and bonuses – and the qualitative – workplace environment and benefits.”
NAIOP’s chair shares his thoughts on our industry, his goals this year as chair, why advocacy matters, and the value provided by NAIOP.
With Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicating that the Fed will continue to raise interest rates through the end of the year and into 2023, traditional capital providers with strained balance sheets are pulling back on lending. And given the current economic outlook, many senior warehouse line lenders may also look to pull back on financing, opening the door for a more direct asset-by-asset approach. As a result, borrowers need to seek out alternative lenders that creatively finance their projects – enter nontraditional lenders and loan-on-loan financing partners.
