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After officially filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, WeWork has released a subsequent list of 40 “underperforming locations” across New York City that the company hopes to walk away from over the coming months pending court approvals. The news was first made public via the... View full entry
Google has scrapped a $15 billion development deal that would have benefitted California’s Silicon Valley with new modern office parks, affordable housing, and mixed-use districts, according to reports published by CNN and Reuters late Friday. The deals struck with Australian multinational... View full entry
U.S. colleges are taking advantage of a post-pandemic increase in affordable, unused offices by purchasing such properties for educational use, according to reporting by The New York Times. Since 2018, numerous higher education institutions in the U.S. have been acquiring office buildings, with... View full entry
Amid challenging conditions in the real estate and lending markets, a proposed 80-story residential tower that had been planned to be the tallest high-rise in Texas has now been scaled back to 45 stories. [...]
Taylor Wilson, president of Wilson Capital, said the revised design comes in response both to feedback from Austin's Design Commission and to significant changes in the real estate and financial markets, which are grappling with rising interest rates and tightened lending standards.
— The Austin American-Statesman
The revised Wilson Tower proposal would have surpassed I.M. Pei’s JPMorgan Chase Tower in Houston as the state’s record-holder. KPF’s Waterline development is still on track to break it by 20 feet. The episode highlights the economic stasis affecting developers in the city’s insanely... View full entry
As part of Google’s downsizing that went into effect early this year, the company has gutted its development team for the San Jose campus.
The construction project, which was supposed to break ground before the end of 2023, has been put on pause, and no plan to restart construction has been communicated to contractors, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to non-disclosure agreements.
— CNBC
The news broke on Friday amid a sector-wide fallout caused in part by the tech recession. CNBC reported that some sources now speculate as to whether or not the 80-acre development will be completed at the same scale though both LendLease and Google have reaffirmed their commitment to it in... View full entry
A new report from Moody’s Analytics is further dampening CRE prospects for the near future after declaring all office structures built before 1980 to be “obsolete” in terms of their abilities to lure back tenants in the face of an ongoing national downtown decline. Speaking... View full entry
Ownership of Manhattan’s iconic Flatiron Building is still up in the air after the surprise winning bidder at last week’s auction failed to follow through on a $19 million deposit that would have guaranteed his sole ownership of the building, which has been vacant for years. Last week, the... View full entry
But joining the fraternity of cities with supertalls can also be a dubious distinction: Real estate is a lagging indicator, and skyscrapers often arrive after the boom is over, looming half-empty as monuments to a bust. Others, however, are convinced that Austin’s high-rise stampede is just getting started.
Given the city’s emerging significance as a next-gen manufacturing hub this building boom could defy the skyscraper effect.
— Bloomberg
With a slate of high-rises and supertalls, including KPF’s Waterline design and the record-setting Wilson Tower from HKS in the works, Bloomberg asks if the pace of development can be sustained amidst tech’s downturn and the annals of urban economic history. The salvation apparently lies... View full entry
The ever-changing skyline of Texas’ eccentric state capital is getting another pair of new additions after Hudson Yards developer Related Companies announced plans this month for two new separate Austin office buildings designed by Gensler and KPF. Related says both projects will be located in... View full entry
There’s been a surge of demand from real estate owners for pleasant fragrances to make the air a little fresher and the workplace a little more comforting and energizing [...]
“Here in New York City, for example, real estate companies are interested in scenting the building itself, as opposed to just the individual tenant spaces [...] There are lots of vacant office spaces these days. So what can the real estate companies do to attract tenants?”
— Commerical Observer
So-called "scent profiles" have been documented to improve productivity, avoid a phenomenon known as olfactory fatigue, and achieve a psychological familiarity helpful to marketers when developing brand recognition. This is one of many approaches companies are attempting to use in order... View full entry
“Historically, spec buildings have been risky, but in a market environment like we are in now, where there is a race to get goods to people faster and to manufacture more things, the flexibility of the spec space becomes an asset, not a liability.” — The New York Times
Biomedical clients are among the most popular movers of the building trend, propelled by demand imbalances for lab space. E-commerce is another common tenant, followed by light manufacturing operations from companies like IBM that leverage high-paying jobs in smaller communities like West Chester... View full entry
Architecture firms are billing more from reconstruction and renovation projects than they are from new builds for the first time; a milestone driven by soaring demand for office renovations. In the 20 years that the AIA has been collecting data on billings for renovations versus new build... View full entry
As a follow up to the recent surprising news that insurance giant Lloyd’s of London may be considering a potential exit from the award-winning Lime Street headquarters designed for them by late architect Richard Rogers in the late 1970s (opened in 1986), The Architect’s Journal UK is now... View full entry
Lloyd's of London (SOLYD.UL) is considering whether to remain in its flagship City of London headquarters and may make a decision this year, the commercial insurance market said on Tuesday. — Reuters
The news comes just over a month after the death of its Pritzker-winning architect in London at the age of 88. A Lloyd’s spokesperson pointed to the shifts in workplace culture brought on by the Coronavirus as significant factors behind the potential change. The insurance giant's... View full entry
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 2018 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) data is now available. The CBECS is a national sample survey that collects information on the stock of U.S. commercial buildings, including their energy-related building... View full entry
