ABG Commercial Real Estate Blog
Local Boston & Cambridge Commercial Real Estate News from Industry Experts.
Lumber Prices Fall Back to Around Their Pre-Covid Levels
Lumber prices have fallen to their lowest level in more than two years, bringing two-by-fours back to what they cost before the pandemic building boom and pointing to a sharp slowdown in construction. Lumber futures ended Tuesday at $429.30 per thousand board feet,...
New Owners Update 980K SF Gateway Project in Somerville
A new ownership group is revising plans for a commercial development on the outskirts of Somerville’s Union Square, dropping a 330-room hotel while retaining a pair of office-lab towers. Capital Hall Partners, Spaulding & Slye Investments and Union Square master...
REPORT: National Retail Availability Hits Lowest Level Since Great Recession
It has been a brutal half-decade for retail owners amid record-breaking retailer bankruptcies and a pandemic that brought in-person shopping to a temporary halt. But the fundamentals of retail real estate are looking better now that at any point in over a decade,...
Partnership Trio to Build $230M Life Science Development in Somerville
JLL has arranged a $230-million construction loan for the development of 15 McGrath Highway, a speculative life sciences development totaling 262,000 square feet in Somerville, MA. Brett Paulsrud, Henry Schaffer and Mike Shepard of JLL represented DLJ Real Estate...
BANKER & TRADESMAN’S FAST 50
CRE Lending Powers Fast Community Bank Growth But as Rates Rise, So Does Caution By Diane McLaughlin Banker & Tradesman Staff Local banks and credit unions have emerged as big winners from the 65 percent year-over-year- growth in commercial mortgage volumes...
CRE Investment Volume Climbs 10% in Q2
Both gateway and Sun Belt markets recorded strong growth. U.S. commercial real estate investment volume rose 10 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2022, to $167 billion, with industrial and logistics investments providing nearly $32 billion of the total...
The Space Force wants to clean up junk in orbit. This NH company has the robots.
There are more than 5,400 satellites currently orbiting the Earth, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, and some of them —plus other space junk — will inevitably fall back to the surface. Earlier this month, one did. Debris from a large Chinese rocket fell...
CRE Price Growth is Slowing but Still Going
By Erik Sherman via GlobeSt In science and engineering it’s the difference between what calculus calls the first and second derivatives: how fast something is changing and then the shift in that rate of change. For commercial real estate properties overall, April was...
As office-centric downtowns struggle, suburbs cater to the laptop crowd
Developers are adding outdoor co-working space — bocce ball, anyone? — to attract remote workers to stores and restaurants By Katherine Shaver via The Washington Post On a recent weekday afternoon at Northern Virginia’s Mosaic District, a nail salon was two-thirds...
Scorching inflation hits 9.1%, highest since 1981
Consumer Price Index, year-over-year percentage change By Courtenay Brown via Axios Inflation soared to a fresh four-decade high in June, as prices rose 9.1% from last year — 1.3% from the prior month — the government said on Wednesday. Why it matters: The price...
The U.S. Economy Is in Serious Trouble if Latinx Founders Don’t Get More Funding. Here’s Why:
By Arnobio Morelix Latinx founders are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in America--but their businesses are struggling to scale. While the percentage of Americans running a business has stagnated at 6.2 percent over the past two decades, Latinx...
The HYM Investment Group, Cathexis, National Real Estate Advisors, Break Ground on Historic Suffolk Downs Redevelopment
by Boston Real Estate Times REVERE – Revere Mayor Brian Arrigo along with Revere and Boston city officials, joined executives from The HYM Investment Group (“HYM”), Cathexis and National Real Estate Advisors (“National”) to break ground on the former racetrack site at...
Porter Square Shopping Center has been sold off by Gravestar, one of nine sites in a $390M deal
The Porter Square Shopping Center, owned by Gravestar since its formation in 1994, has been packaged with eight other properties and sold to TA Realty of Boston in a $390 million deal. TA Realty’s partner was Wilder, also of Boston, which operates retail properties...
Cambria Hotel Boston Somerville opens its doors
Cambria Hotel Boston Somerville has opened its doors. Situated on the Somerville-Cambridge line, it converges with a unique moment in time for Somerville as it experiences a modern-day renaissance, and it adds to the exciting transformation that Somerville’s historic...
Fed’s preferred inflation measure rose 4.7% in May, around multi-decade highs
By Jeff Cox via CNBC Inflation held at stubbornly high levels in May, though the monthly increased was slightly less than expected, according to a Commerce Department gauge closely watched by the Federal Reserve. Core personal consumption expenditures prices rose 4.7%...
Elon Musk Has a Bigger Problem Than Twitter Bots: A Huge Debt Burden
By Paula Seligson via Bloomberg Elon Musk may be directing his buyer’s remorse at Twitter Inc.’s bot problem. But underpinning the deal is a $13 billion debt bill that’s looking like a bigger burden by the day. The package, drummed up in a rush and signed by banks...
Powell says the Fed will not hesitate to keep raising rates until inflation comes down
By Jeff Cox via CNBC Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell emphasized his resolve to get inflation down, saying Tuesday he will back interest rate increases until prices start falling back toward a healthy level. “If that involves moving past broadly understood levels...
For some companies, there’s no escaping the office. So they’re changing it.
By Anissa Gardizy & Catherine Carlock Firms that signed big leases right before COVID are trying to design an office worth coming back to. After repeated false starts during the pandemic for returning to the office, the future of in-person work for white-collar...
Cambria Hotel Boston Somerville opens its doors
By Boston Real Estate Times Somerville, MA – Cambria Hotel Boston Somerville has opened its doors. Situated on the Somerville-Cambridge line, it converges with a unique moment in time for Somerville as it experiences a modern-day renaissance, and it adds to the...
Commercial Real Estate Performance Remained Strong in the First Quarter of 2022
By John Worth & Savannah Delullo, Via Nareit Commercial real estate fundamentals continue to point to strong performance in the retail, multifamily, and industrial sectors with vacancy rates mostly declining on a year-over-year and quarter-to-quarter basis, robust...
IRS Chief Pushes Congress for Law Change on Land-Rights Tax Deals
By Richard Rubin via The Wall Street Journal Rettig says abusive syndicated conservation easement transactions persist despite stepped-up enforcement WASHINGTON—Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig sought congressional help Tuesday in stopping...