In the News—Week of October 14, 2024

In the initial transactions of Phase 5 in the Alamar master-planned community, Brookfield Residential Properties conveyed 148 lots to two national homebuilders, with combined sales totaling $13.2 million. Phase 5 of Alamar spans 180 acres in Avondale, Arizona, comprising 694 lots. The land trust holding the property during development is administered by Underwriting Counsel Chadwick Campbell, while the lot transactions were closed by Vice President and Senior Commercial Escrow Officer Sheila Hunter. Thomas Title has been involved in Alamar since its inception in 2018.

Landlords’ resistance to leasing to marijuana businesses is fading

Commercial real estate landlords have become more open to leasing space to cannabis businesses, MJ Biz Daily reports. This shift is driven in part by economic pressures, including high interest rates and a surplus of commercial properties post-COVID. Major cannabis companies, particularly multistate operators, are now able to secure prime retail locations previously unavailable to them. The industry’s maturation has alleviated many concerns landlords once had about legal risks and compliance issues. The potential reclassifying of marijuana at the federal level could further normalize cannabis real estate transactions.

Milton blows the roof off baseball stadium; damages in the billions

Hurricane Milton struck the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida area and caused significant damage to the roof of Tropicana Field, Construction Dive reports. Tropicana Field is home of Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays. The stadium’s canvas roof, designed to withstand winds up to 115 mph, was torn off and shredded by the hurricane’s intense winds. In addition to the stadium damage, a construction crane collapsed onto an office building in downtown St. Petersburg, highlighting the dangers posed by ongoing construction projects during severe weather events. Those were the most visible property damages of the storm, which is estimated to have caused between $50 billion and $100 billion or more in property damage.

Seattle’s financial district among most vulnerable, research shows

Seattle’s financial district ranks among the most vulnerable in the U.S. according to recent research, Axios Seattle reports. Figures from the Kaplan Group show the city is experiencing a surge in commercial real estate loan defaults and rising office vacancy rates, which have increased to 24.7% in Q1 2024. This situation is attributed to the lasting effects of the pandemic, including the shift to remote work and changing business needs for office space. The potential struggles of building owners to refinance maturing loans, coupled with dropping commercial property values, pose a serious threat to the district’s financial stability. Despite some companies implementing return-to-work mandates, the overall demand for office space in Seattle remains low, marking a stark contrast to the pre-pandemic era when the city boasted a vacancy rate under 5%.