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☆ How to save San Francisco
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-16 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +18 min

But treating San Francisco as some sort of outlier, a sui generis example of urban decay, is wrong, too. After I washed out back there I washed up on the Embarcadero, a typical San Francisco story. Because here's my one crazy trick to fix San Francisco: homes. Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty ImagesThis is just a matter of good old-fashioned supply and demand. To revive the city, San Francisco needs to get back to its freak-flag-flying roots.

Persons: Nobody's, I've, It's, it's, who'd, Paul Chinn, nix, aren't, rafter, Tayfun, Francis Wood, fixable, Berkeley, Adam Rogers Organizations: Liberal, Homelessness, Bay Area, Pride, Black Panthers, Washington Monthly, San Francisco, Getty, SF, Supervisors, Crafts, Planners, Foods, Anadolu Agency, Walgreens, Nordstrom, Unit Locations: San Francisco, Bay, Francisco, California, Black, Los Angeles, Boston , New York, Washington, United States, Barcelona, Paris, St, Barbary, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Angeles, Houston, Helsinki, East, Treasure, Emeryville

☆ Amazon leaders are worried that a 'Day 2' mindset is seeping in at the company
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-16 | by ( Matt Turner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Selipsky does work at a "big company" of course, but he doesn't want Amazon to feel that way. At Amazon, it's always supposed to be "Day 1," the dawn of a new era where the customer comes first and bold bets are backed. Selipsky said in the staff meeting that Amazon has to keep the mentality that "we are going to be the insurgents." Economic update: I wrote a week ago that the dream scenario for the economy was looking more likely by the day. More than 30 people involved in the tech industry told us the real problem was lazy managers.

Persons: Adam Selipsky, it's, Insider's Eugene Kim, Selipsky, that's, Andy Jassy, let's, Arantza Pena, —, David Clapp, Insider's Adam Rogers, Rogers, Phil Rosen, George Mickum Mike Vitelli, George Mickum, he'd, Birkin, Mitchie Nguyen, Matt Turner, Hallam Bullock, Lisa Ryan Organizations: AWS, Federal Trade Commission, San, Getty, Google, LinkedIn Locations: San Francisco San Francisco ,, San Francisco, Manhattan

☆ East Coast mayors call for more office-to-apartment conversions
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-15 | by ( Carlos Waters | In Carloswaters | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Mayors in cities across the U.S. want to loosen rules that can slow the pace of office-to-residential conversions. In some instances, cities have offered generous tax abatements to developers who build new housing. Prominent investors Societe Generale and KKR have worked with developers like Philadelphia-based Post Brothers to finance institutional-scale office conversions in expensive central business districts. Many experts believe local governments will alter zoning laws and building codes to make these conversions easier over the years. Watch the video above to learn how cities are getting developers to convert more offices into apartments.

Persons: Muriel Bowser, Erica Williams, Eric Adams, Michael Pestronk, Dan Garodnick Organizations: DC, Societe Generale, KKR, Brothers, Post, New York City's Department of, Planning Locations: U.S, Washington, DC, New York City, Philadelphia

☆ Climate-change safe havens can still get hit hard. Vermont's flooding is a reminder.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Catherine Boudreau | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

As the water recedes, officials said the storm shows an ongoing need to adapt to the climate crisis. It was the highest level in nearly a century, when the river reached 27 feet during the Great Vermont Flood of 1927, according to local officials . Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets via APEven as water levels recede, more rain is expected on Thursday and Friday. Some residents said the flooding was worse than Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, which at the time seemed like an anomaly in the state. About 18% of properties in Vermont are at significant risk of flooding over the next 30 years, predicts First Street Foundation .

Persons: Justin Michaels, Phil Scott, Irene Organizations: Service, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, AP, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Foundation, FEMA Locations: Vermont, Wall, Silicon, Montpelier, Waterbury, Ludlow, Montpelier , Vermont

☆ Industries Reliant on Thriving Downtowns Suffer From Remote Work
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-03 | by ( Peter Grant | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/woe-in-office-market-from-remote-work-spreads-to-multibillion-dollar-ecosystem-d195809e

Persons: Dow Jones

☆ The Uneven Effect of Remote Work, in One List
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Emily Badger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The list also helps explain why the pandemic has left more lasting scars in some parts of the country — and in certain downtowns — than others. In some cities, the economy is much more heavily skewed toward occupations at the top of the list. And downtown San Francisco and Washington have remained particularly hobbled by the pandemic (San Jose has less of a downtown to speak of). The distinction isn’t just about which places have more white-collar workers. Even certain kinds of white-collar work (say, computer programming) are more likely to be remote than others (civil engineering).

Organizations: Survey Locations: San Jose, San Francisco, Washington, Jose

☆ Midwest American Cities Are Facing a Downtown Crisis, Urban Doom Loop
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

But Midwestern cities are also facing a crisis of their own — struggling to attract workers, residents, and visitors to their downtowns. Nine of the 13 Midwestern cities tracked in the study were in the bottom half of the rankings. In the early part of the 20th century, Midwestern cities boomed — attracting workers and families seeking out manufacturing jobs and education. Many Midwestern cities relied on a single industry or even a single company to buttress its economy. "If office workers are coming downtown less, but college students are willing to come downtown more, what about literally putting a college in your downtown?"

Persons: COVID, Michael Hicks, Jacob Frey, Salesforce, Karen Chapple, Hicks, Michael Siluk, Amanda Weinstein, Weinstein, weren't, it's, Tracy Hadden Loh, Hadden Loh, It's, they've, you've, Chapple, Edwin Remsberg, downtowns, I've, —, Columbus, Keyvan Esfarjani, Eliza Relman Organizations: metros —, metros, Ball State University, University of Toronto, St, of Cities, Midwest, University of Akron, Brookings Institution, Institution, Arizona State University, Cleveland, Housing, While Ohio, Ohio State University's, Intel Locations: San Francisco, Seattle, Indiana, Midwest, Louis, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Kansas City , Missouri, Detroit, Akron, leafier, downtowns, Lake Erie, Burke, Downtown, Kansas, Chicago, Columbus, While, Ohio

☆ Wall Street Sours on America’s Downtowns
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Heather Gillers | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Persons: Dow Jones

☆ Westfield Gives Up San Francisco Mall, Signaling More Pain Ahead
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Jordyn Holman | Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In San Francisco, Nordstrom said it would close its longtime store at San Francisco Centre in August, which will leave the mall 45 percent empty. Westfield isn’t the first mall owner to decide to leave a longtime downtown shopping center. Last year, Brookfield Property Partners relinquished Chicago’s Water Tower Place, the mall that anchors the Magnificent Mile, an upscale commercial district. More than half of the space in Water Tower Place is vacant, including an anchor store location that was a Macy until 2021, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Indeed, Westfield’s decision in San Francisco is part of a broader strategy by its parent company, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, to greatly reduce the number of malls it operates in the country.

Persons: Yasukochi, ” Banks, ” Mr, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, REI, Macerich Organizations: San Francisco Centre, Hudson, Nike, Brookfield Property Partners, Macy, Cushman & Locations: San Francisco, New York, Manhattan —, Seattle, Portland, downtowns, Westfield, Cushman & Wakefield, United States

☆ Adam Neumann, the ousted CEO of WeWork, toyed with a rescue package for the company
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Al Yoon | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Adam Neumann made motions in October to invest in WeWork, The New York Times reported. Options for the company have been whittled down, and now include bankruptcy, The New York Times reported on Monday. One opportunity batted away by Mathrani came from Adam Neumann, who was pushed out as WeWork's CEO in 2019, the Times reported. The meeting, which was potentially to discuss an investment with other investors of as much as $1 billion and a debt buyback, didn't happen, the Times reported. More recently, IWG, a company that also offers work spaces for remote and hybrid workers, made an offer to operate WeWork's spaces, according to the Times.

Persons: Adam Neumann, Sandeep Mathrani, IWG, —, Mathrani, Neumann, JLL, WeWork, Trepp Organizations: The New York Times, Service, Times, WeWork Locations: WeWork, The

☆ Third Point Real Estate's managing partner said it's 'a foolish debate' to say the office market will fail
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-11 | by ( Al Yoon | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Frank Scavone, managing partner of Third Point Real Estate Strategies, said offices aren't dead. Frank Scavone, the managing partner of Third Point Real Estate Strategies, told Insider he's up for the challenge. But are there opportunities now for investors like Third Point Real Estate Strategies? What's going to happen with all the commercial real estate debt coming due in this higher interest rate environment? And let's not forget about the more than $300 billion in dry powder aimed at North American commercial real estate investment.

Persons: Frank Scavone, Scavone, Daniel Loeb's, —, Trepp, CBRE, That's, San Francisco — Organizations: Service, Third Point, Hedge, CBRE, downtown, Employers, North Locations: San Francisco, downtown San Francisco, Marin County, York, multifamily, New York City

☆ A 26-year-old developer whose firm owns 40 acres of land in Richmond explains why he's betting on the capital of Virginia — and why he would personally invest in real estate there
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Kathleen Elkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Meanwhile, "the DC market was considerably faster-moving, especially the condominium market." So I developed single-family homes on those myself and it turned out pretty successful." Thakker bought land in Richmond in 2020 and developed three, single-family homes, including the one pictured, on the lot. Across their three major projects in Richmond, Dorado has acquired 40 acres of land, which is equivalent to over 40 football fields. The interior of one of the single-family homes Thakker built and sold in Richmond.

☆ A Nascent ‘YIMBY’ Movement
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( David Leonhardt | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“My living room is bigger than any apartment in New York I ever had,” said Eduardo Lerro, 45, a former public-school teacher who now lives in Minneapolis and works as a consultant. In many ways, the trend is a healthy one. Americans are responding rationally to financial incentives and building lives for themselves in new places. It helps that more cities have added amenities once associated with the Northeast and the West Coast. “There’s good Indian and Thai food to be found in more places.

In midsized metros Metros with 250,000 to one million residents. An Emerging Divide Mobility has risen for college-educated workers, even as it has fallen for workers without a degree. College-educated workers leaving the most expensive parts of the country are also not spreading out equally everywhere — or even going to parts of the country that are struggling. Net migration among college graduates Loss Gain Among the 12 most expensive metros, net college migration has generally declined or turned negative. “Consumer cities,” as she puts it, are increasingly replacing “producer cities” as the places where college graduates want to live.

☆ The real reasons stores are closing in big cities
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Nathaniel Meyersohn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

These big chains and others have closed stores in major US cities recently, raising alarm about the future of retail in some of the country’s most prominent downtowns and business districts. How policymakers remake their downtowns — with retail as a crucial attraction — will be crucial to cities’ fiscal health and regional economies. People who are being employed in those stores are losing their jobs” because of crime, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, said in February. San Francisco lost around 6% of its retail establishments from 2019 to 2021, according to the think tank’s research. For example, chain-store closures in New York City have correlated to the products most frequently bought online.

☆ New York Is Full of Empty Offices After Covid. Make Way for the Playground City. - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Edward L. Glaeser | Carlo Ratti | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +20 min

We are witnessing the dawn of a new kind of urban area: the Playground City. The transformation toward the Playground City will not happen on its own. To draw people into the Playground City, we need to show, not tell. 6.Engage citizensGovernments should empower citizens to participate directly in making the Playground City. The Playground City sees people as both a means and an end, and it should involve them in the process of its creation.

☆ Nordstrom is the latest retailer to leave San Francisco
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Jordan Valinsky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Nordstrom’s exit dealt another blow for San Francisco, as several well-known chains have closed in the city. Incidents of theft in San Francisco have gained national attention, though crime has generally fallen over the past six years. Property crimes in San Francisco have garnered national attention because of several attention-grabbing videos of thieves in action. In total, there were 56 homicides in San Francisco in 2022, which is the same number of homicides the city saw in 2021. For starters, remote work following the pandemic has caused a decrease in foot traffic in major US downtowns, including San Francisco.

☆ A San Francisco office building was worth $300 million before the pandemic. Now, it could sell for only $60 million — a perfect example of why downtowns are in trouble
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Britney Nguyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A 22-story office tower in San Francisco that was worth $300 million in 2019 is for sale. The office tower, which sits at 350 California Street, was previously worth around $300 million during its last sale, office brokers told The Journal. The building's expected decline in value reflects the current crisis facing the real-estate industry across the US, and remote work's heavy impact on San Francisco's office buildings, in particular. Over a quarter of San Francisco's office space is empty as well, according to CBRE. Last summer, for example, Salesforce had half of its Salesforce Tower office space listed for lease as a sublet.

☆ Sunlight in your bedroom could become a luxury as cities debate allowing landlords to rent windowless rooms in former office buildings to alleviate the housing crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Housing advocates are debating whether windowless bedrooms are the solution to the housing crisis. Enter windowless bedrooms. Journalist Matt Yglesias argued last year that windowless bedrooms would "save downtowns" by facilitating the mass retrofitting of office buildings into apartments. Supporters argue that building apartments with windowless bedrooms could both help alleviate the severe housing shortage and affordability crisis and repopulate urban business districts. But in recent years, windowless bedrooms have become somewhat normalized on college campuses.

☆ Amazon closing some of its cashier-free stores
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Amazon is permanently closing eight of its 29 Amazon Go convenience stores that offer customers the ability to shop without any kind of checkout process. It hailed the stores as the future of shopping, especially for convenience stores in busy downtowns of major cities. In this case, we’ve decided to close a small number of Amazon Go stores in Seattle, New York City, and San Francisco,” said Amazon in an emailed statement. In addition to the 21 Amazon Go stores that will remain, there are two locations in New York that the brand shares with Starbucks. Amazon has been trying its checkout-free technology at select Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh stores in addition to its Amazon Go locations.

☆ Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian gave a fiery speech on AI during an internal town hall
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

I'm digging deep to feel the inner Elon that Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff apparently experiences. In an exclusive interview with my colleagues Ashley Stewart and Ellen Thomas, Benioff said executives are all currently asking themselves: "Do they need to unleash their own Elon within them?" Leaked audio reveals Google Cloud CEO giving a fiery speech on AI. During an internal town hall, Thomas Kurian slammed people for saying Google is late to the AI competition. Media companies are eyeing a big payout from Big Tech for using their content this way.

☆ The 'office apocalypse' won't doom big cities — it's actually making them stronger
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Matthew E. Kahn | Christopher Okada | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

In San Francisco, tax revenue is projected to drop by as much as a billion dollars over the next six years. In order to bring in these new residents, cities will have to shift some of their priorities. Research coauthored by Steven Levitt of "Freakonomics" found that increases in violent and property crimes were correlated with city residents migrating to the suburbs. All is not lostThere's little doubt that superstar cities like New York and San Francisco have serious problems on their hands. Christopher Okada is the CEO of Okada & Company, a full-service commercial real estate brokerage and investment company in New York City.

☆ Big city restaurants and bars are missing office workers' spending on Mondays and Fridays
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Noah Sheidlower | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Commuters arrive into the Oculus station and mall in Manhattan on November 17, 2022 in New York City. According to data collected from June to November, the per-person reduction in spending in New York City was $4,661, followed by $4,200 in Los Angeles and $4,051 in Washington, D.C. In-person work days declined the most, 37%, in Washington, compared with pre-pandemic levels, followed by Atlanta at 34.9% and Phoenix at 34.1%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found in a study that increased remote work results in a reduction in foot traffic for urban centers. There was a reduction in remote work in January to about 27% from 29%, though he predicts remote work levels will not drop below 25% in the near future.

☆ Your work's favorite happy hour spot wants you to come back to the office. Here's how remote work is costing big-city restaurants and bars billions.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Aidan Pollard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Restaurants and bars in big cities are reducing hours and closing as remote work cuts in on weekday traffic, CNBC reported. The problem extends to smaller cities as well, like Baton Rouge. Hybrid and remote work is costing big cities billions in lost revenue, and restaurants and bars are bearing much of the brunt. Restaurants in Baton Rouge are offering customers deals like $15 three-course, dine-in lunches, WAFB reported. "It will have pros and cons," Jake Polansky, Baton Rouge Area Chamber's economic and policy researcher, told WAFB.

☆ Converting empty office buildings into apartments sounds like a no-brainer, but big landlords are resisting for one big reason
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Three experts tell Insider office prices need to fall before conversions are commonplace. But for these plans to be successful, the world of real estate must address the elephant in the room: Office buildings are simply too expensive. Moody's laid out some basic math: In 2021, the average New York apartment building traded at $434 a square foot. Now in the US, he's up to the same business but not yet with the vacant office buildings that dot the downtowns of large metropolises. Among them is an older, 130,000-square-foot St. Louis office building, which represents some of the city's most outdated stock, Rubin told Insider.

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