Articles About Development

President Barack Obama recently visited Penn State University to introduce his Better Buildings Initiative, an incentive program intended to stimulate energy-efficient retrofits to existing commercial buildings.  The initiative is also designed to create jobs in the construction and manufacturing industries. Despite the long-term economic benefits of energy efficiency, many building owners often run into difficulty […]

New-home construction fell 4.3 percent in December compared with November to its lowest level in more than a year to a seasonally adjusted rate of 529,000 starts for 2010.  December saw the lowest level of new home starts since October of 2009, according to Department of Commerce statistics.  Starts ended the year 8.2 percent below […]

Chicago is # 1!  Unfortunately, this is not good news because the Windy City has been ranked by one study as having the worst traffic congestion in the nation.   The news was one finding of the Urban Mobility Report (UMR),  conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute, the United States’ largest university-affiliated transportation research agency.  Earlier […]

As Chicago’s longest serving mayor leaves his post in May of 2011, Richard M. Daley leaves a legacy that includes the iconic Bean in Millennium Park to the flower-filled planters that ornament 85 miles of the city’s streets.  Whoever fills his post will find that budget shortfalls resulting from the Great Recession will collide with […]

Approximately half – 47 percent – of American companies whose sales range from $25 million to $2 billion say they will hire more employees in 2011, according to a Bank of America survey of chief financial officers (CFOs).  The new number represents a significant uptick over the 28 percent who planned to hire new employees […]

The $625 million sale of the 49-story Hyatt Center at 71 South Wacker Drive is proof that the market is still strong for high-credit trophy buildings; the price represents a 6.1 percent cap rate.  The purchaser is Southern California-based Irvine Companies, which plans to close the deal as quickly as possible. The $419 PSF sales […]

One of the biggest albums of the year is “The Suburbs” by the Canadian group, Arcade Fire, which exposes the dark side of urban sprawl.  The band, fronted by the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne have created a concept album as emblematic of our generation as The Wall was for […]

Because Chicago is home to approximately 80 wind companies, including corporate headquarters and turbine factories, the city is seen as a hub for the wind industry.   With plenty of farmland suited to wind turbines, Illinois has a law mandating that the state gets at least 18 percent of its electricity from wind by 2025.  Unfortunately, […]

With the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act now the law of the land, commercial real estate executives are waiting to see what impact the legislation will have on their business.   Consensus is that the new healthcare law changes crucial demand drivers for real estate by introducing alternative models to deliver medical services.  The potential […]

Celebrity architect Helmut Jahn has created a vision for redeveloping Chicago’s Navy Pier, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2016.  Writing in the Chicago Tribune about Jahn’s plan, architecture critic Blair Kamin says “Yes, it’s over the top and, in all likelihood, ridiculously expensive.  But it’s full of creative sparks — precisely what was missing […]