In December of last year, the City of Hamilton launched an RFP process to find a team (from the list of prequalified bidders) to develop a new urban community at Pier 8 along the waterfront. The ambition is somewhere around 1,500 new residential units and approximately 13,000 square meters of commercial and institutional space.
That process has narrowed the pool to 4 teams and 1 will ultimately win the exclusive right to develop the new community. Here are the teams, along with a link to their submission materials, including a short video that I understand was a requirement of the RFP.
In December of last year, the City of Hamilton launched an RFP process to find a team (from the list of prequalified bidders) to develop a new urban community at Pier 8 along the waterfront. The ambition is somewhere around 1,500 new residential units and approximately 13,000 square meters of commercial and institutional space.
That process has narrowed the pool to 4 teams and 1 will ultimately win the exclusive right to develop the new community. Here are the teams, along with a link to their submission materials, including a short video that I understand was a requirement of the RFP.
This is a super exciting project for Hamilton. So I would encourage you to take a look at the presentation materials. At this point, you only have until Tuesday, April 17, 2018 to provide any comments to the City’s evaluators. If you’d like to view the boards in person, you can do that this Monday and Tuesday in the main lobby of City Hall.
The New York Post has some interesting articles, here and here, on the growing retail vacancy problem in NYC. (Thank you Michael for the link in the comments this week.)
The vacancy rate on Amsterdam Avenue in the Upper West Side is said to be around 27% and it is said to be around 20% on a stretch of Broadway in Soho. It has become such a problem that Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to implement some sort of retail vacancy tax:
“I am very interested in fighting for a vacancy fee or a vacancy tax that would penalize landlords who leave their storefronts vacant for long periods of time in neighborhoods because they are looking for some top-dollar rent but they blight neighborhoods by doing it,” he said on WNYC. “That is something we could get done through Albany.”
But this is based on the assumption that greedy landlords are simply holding out for exorbitant rents. It doesn’t consider the fact that, maybe, there is simply too much retail space:
Only a few grasp the true scope of the problem. Vornado Realty Trust titan Steven Roth said we can only cure the national plague through “the closing and evaporation” of up to 30 percent of the weakest space — which would take five years.
All of this, of course, has me thinking about the future of ground floor main street retail. What are your thoughts?
This is a fascinating study by Issi Romem about the characteristics of cross-metropolitan migration in the United States. The key findings are that in-migrants to expensive coastal cities tend to have higher incomes and more education than the out-migrants, and that the opposite is true for the less expensive cities in the US. “Expensive” means expensive housing.
Here is the income chart:
Let’s use San Francisco as the example since it’s the most expensive metro (all the way to the right on the x-axis). The way to read this is that on average, from 2005 to 2016, in-migrants to the San Francisco metro area earned $12,640 a year more per household (y-axis) after they arrived compared to out-migrants before they left. This chart shows the difference between in and out incomes.
This is a super exciting project for Hamilton. So I would encourage you to take a look at the presentation materials. At this point, you only have until Tuesday, April 17, 2018 to provide any comments to the City’s evaluators. If you’d like to view the boards in person, you can do that this Monday and Tuesday in the main lobby of City Hall.
The New York Post has some interesting articles, here and here, on the growing retail vacancy problem in NYC. (Thank you Michael for the link in the comments this week.)
The vacancy rate on Amsterdam Avenue in the Upper West Side is said to be around 27% and it is said to be around 20% on a stretch of Broadway in Soho. It has become such a problem that Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to implement some sort of retail vacancy tax:
“I am very interested in fighting for a vacancy fee or a vacancy tax that would penalize landlords who leave their storefronts vacant for long periods of time in neighborhoods because they are looking for some top-dollar rent but they blight neighborhoods by doing it,” he said on WNYC. “That is something we could get done through Albany.”
But this is based on the assumption that greedy landlords are simply holding out for exorbitant rents. It doesn’t consider the fact that, maybe, there is simply too much retail space:
Only a few grasp the true scope of the problem. Vornado Realty Trust titan Steven Roth said we can only cure the national plague through “the closing and evaporation” of up to 30 percent of the weakest space — which would take five years.
All of this, of course, has me thinking about the future of ground floor main street retail. What are your thoughts?
This is a fascinating study by Issi Romem about the characteristics of cross-metropolitan migration in the United States. The key findings are that in-migrants to expensive coastal cities tend to have higher incomes and more education than the out-migrants, and that the opposite is true for the less expensive cities in the US. “Expensive” means expensive housing.
Here is the income chart:
Let’s use San Francisco as the example since it’s the most expensive metro (all the way to the right on the x-axis). The way to read this is that on average, from 2005 to 2016, in-migrants to the San Francisco metro area earned $12,640 a year more per household (y-axis) after they arrived compared to out-migrants before they left. This chart shows the difference between in and out incomes.
Take note of Miami which is sitting at a similar place to New York and Los Angeles on the horizontal income line, but has home values similar to Phoenix, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
Now here’s the education chart:
Similarly, it is showing the difference in educational attainment between in and out migrants.
So what does all of this tell us?
Well, it tells us, among other things, that US metros are continuing to sort based on income and that this process of polarization is probably contributing to home price appreciation. Because even if the incomes of current residents aren’t growing, these “expensive cities” are effectively swapping out poorer residents for richer ones. That, alone, would mean more money for expensive homes.
Take note of Miami which is sitting at a similar place to New York and Los Angeles on the horizontal income line, but has home values similar to Phoenix, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
Now here’s the education chart:
Similarly, it is showing the difference in educational attainment between in and out migrants.
So what does all of this tell us?
Well, it tells us, among other things, that US metros are continuing to sort based on income and that this process of polarization is probably contributing to home price appreciation. Because even if the incomes of current residents aren’t growing, these “expensive cities” are effectively swapping out poorer residents for richer ones. That, alone, would mean more money for expensive homes.
