LUMBERTON The new $3.7 million terminal at the Lumberton Regional Airport will be move-in ready by June 15, airport management and contractors said Friday.

Ground was first broke almost exactly a year ago in April for the terminal, located at 163 Airport Blvd., after the nearly 50-year-old building was demolished. The new two-story building will boast 8,000 square feet, more than twice the 3,000 square feet of the previous one.

The project is funded through state and federal grants, with matching funds coming from the city of Lumberton and the Robeson County Board of Commissioners.

Airport Manager Bob Snuck said the building is nearly complete and offices will be move-in ready by June 15.

The entire building is framed, Snuck said. Most of the electrical is in, the Sheet Rock is in. Its 90% complete.

On Friday morning the weather was ideal for United Builders of Lumberton workers who are subcontracted by Simcon Company, the projects general contractor.

We still got to do the siding on the outside, Simcon Project Superintendent Brent Williams said. Inside we got to do the painting and the trim.

Adding flooring and redoing the parking lot also are on the agenda, Williams said.

Williams has been living in Lumberton overseeing construction on the project for the past year.

Were staying on track, Williams said. Were getting there slowly but surely.

Williams said that COVID-19 restrictions have made the process tougher, but he feels confident.

I dont want to put no more than 10 people on the job, he said. I dont want to subject nobody to getting sick, so were trying to keep our numbers down.

The building will be a major economic boost for the county and will house the Robeson County Economic Development office.

A lot of people dont realize the benefit of the airport, Snuck said. For economic development, an airport is a major driver. If you have any major corporation, theyre going to have cooperate aircraft that fly in and out of here, and we have corporate aircraft that fly in and out of here.

This is going to make a statement for the whole county area having this nice building and nice offices, especially when youre trying to attract new businesses.

The executive director of Robeson County Economic Development said it will make his job a lot easier when courting potential clients to the county.

Im very excited about moving into the new building and having a meeting room, Channing Jones said. Its a wonderful opportunity for economic development just for the fact of being able to have meetings in a way that is impressive and very professional for companies coming in.

In addition to meeting rooms and offices, the interior will include state-of-the-art equipment to be able to give world-class presentation to clients, Jones said. It will also have space in which to entertain guests.

Things that weve incorporated in the building are going to be very useful for myself personally to host clients, Jones said.

The buildings modern exterior also will leave a positive image with clients who enter.

If you look at it from the top of the building, when the architects designed it, they designed it to look like a plane wing, Jones said. Itll be very unique in just its design. I think the city of Lumberton and the county will have something to be very proud of once its complete.

On the construction site Friday, workers were applying the siding to obtain the unique shape.

They wanted a building that really hasnt been built before, and I think they did a really good job on designing it, Williams said. Its quite the building.

Snuck said that in 2019, the State of North Carolina did a study that showed the economic impact of airports. The study found that the Lumberton airport brings in $14.2 million locally.

Theres a huge economic benefit to the local community, he said.

Jones confirmed that it will impact the county greatly.

Obviously for the city of Lumberton and for the county its going to be a great welcome center for folks who are coming in via plane, Jones said. Its going to be a great first impression of our county. It will be an attribute in attracting business and having confidence that our county is well positioned for various economic development opportunities.

The airport has two runways, one 5,500 feet long, the other 5,000 feet long. There are 35 airplane hangers on the airports property.

The next big airport project will be replacing the existing fuel farm. The original fuel farm was build more than 40 years ago and not for aviation purposes, but as an oil storage tank and it was converted, he said.

They dont meet many of the new requirements, and weve been spending a lot of money repairing leaks, Snuck said.

The total cost would be about $1.1 million, but the airport recently was awarded a $112,500 grant by the state Department of Transportations Division of Aviation to pay for the fuel farm engineering study, Snuck said. The local share of the grant is $12,500.

Its really difficult to get the engineering funding and I managed to get it, Snuck said. Usually, if you get the engineering funding, its shortly down the road that youll get the construction funding.

The fuel farm would consist of two 12,000 gallon tanks. One to hold jet fuel and the other to hold aviation gasoline.

That fuel farm is used to fill up the fuel trucks because you buy fuel in quantity, Snuck said. Also, that fuel farm will have self-service capability like you would have self-service capability at a gas station where the aircraft can pull up and get fuel.

Snuck said he will soon be going before city council and county commissioners to speak about the project.

Snuck

Jones

Williams

United Builders of Lumberton workers apply siding Friday on the $3.7 million terminal being built at the Lumberton Regional Airport. The terminal, which will house the office of Robeson County Economic Development, is scheduled to be completed on June 15.

ORyan Campbell, a plumber for Wilkins Plumbing, lays pipes for a bathroom in the new terminal building under construction at the Lumberton Regional Airport. The terminal is scheduled to be move-in ready on June 15.

The $3.7 million terminal under construction at Lumberton Regional Airport is expected to be move-in ready by June 15. The two-story building will be 8,000 square feet in size, more than twice the size of previous 3,000-square-foot terminal.

Expected to be move-in ready June 15

Tomeka Sinclair can be reached at [emailprotected] or 910-416-5865.

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New airport terminal expected to be move-in ready June 15, to be economic tool - The Robesonian

Single-family housing starts exemplify the construction economys COVID-19 heartbreak in the first quarter of 2020.

Total 2019 residential starts were 1.4 million units, just 0.3% above 2018, with single-family starts down 1,000 and multifamily up 1%.

We expected 2020 single-family starts to decline mildly again, Richard Branch, chief economist with Dodge Data & Analytics told webinar attendees on April 9. But Q1 was the best quarter since 2007 940,000 units (seasonally adjusted annualized rate).

Then March became a tale of two months; Dodge expects Q2 single-family home sales could fall by 50%, to Great Recession depths, but begin to recover quickly in 2021.housing starts growing early as the construction season unfolded, in line with March of 2019. And then the virus hit. Construction moratoria and stay-at-home orders in the last week doused so much work.

Q2 home sales probably could fall by 50% compared to Q1, bringing us back to the levels we last saw during the Great Recession in 2007, 2008 and 2009, Branch says. And that could be optimistic, depending on how long the stay-at-home and physical-distancing requirements stay in place.

Details of Branchs 2020 GDP forecast post-COVID-19

The spring and probably the summer selling seasons are gone, and this weakness might continue into Q3.

Dodge forecasts single-family starts to be down 10% in 2020, but begin to recover quickly with 5% growth in 2021.

Multifamily construction didnt start the year nearly as strong, with units falling in Q1 16% (-12% compared to Q1 2019). And its recovery prospects are not nearly as encouraging as single-family housing.

This market has a lot more exposure, Branch cautions. Were running 16 to 17 million in unemployment insurance claims. Jobs were down sharply in March. They will be down even more sharply in April. This will certainly lead to a pickup in delinquencies. This will put owners and developers into increasing financial difficulty.

Vacancy rates ended 2019 at 4%; by the time we get to the end of 2020, they will be closer to 6%. In truth they would probably be much higher if it werent for local moratoriums on evictions. But even as the economy starts to recover, assuming that rent is just delayed and not forgiven, it will take time for renters to accumulate that back rent.

Dodge forecasts multifamily starts to plunge 19% in 2020 and fall an additional 2% in 2021. As we get into 2021, the multifamily market will also have to contend with growth on the single-family side, Branch explains.

Given our assumptions of the track of the Warehouse construction starts set a record in 2019, are forecast to be just off that record pace in 2020, and grow 7%, breaking the record again, in 2021.virus and macroeconomic assumptions, by the time we get to Q4 the level of (commercial building) starts activity is (expected to be) starting to return to the normal. With total 2020 commercial starts down 16%. But then forging ahead in 2021.

Dodge forecasts the square footage of parking garage starts this year falling 29%, office starts dropping 13%, retail space down 33% and hotels and motels down 31%. Their biggest commercial building sector warehouses however, is only expected to slip 1%.

Thats particularly impressive when you consider warehouse construction set a Dodge Data record in 2019 with 336 million sq. ft. started.

Branch concedes that the portion of warehousing dealing with global trade will suffer from disrupted trade flow with the rest of the world, pushing up vacancy rates and suppressing starts. But the other big segment of warehousing is dedicate to ecommerce fulfillment, which of course has been flourishing during the coronavirus crisis.

Branch sees current conditions accelerating a more-permanent switch to on-line retailing. Pre-COVID-19, Amazon had telegraphed that it would continue building, but smaller (1 million sq. ft.) fulfillment centers instead of the 2 to 3 million sq. ft. centers of recent years.

If youve tried to buy anything on Amazon in the last two or three weeks, youve noticed that the shipping times have been pushed out. I think theres going to be a big push, particularly for Amazon, to carry larger inventories. I think Amazon will continue to push those 2- to 3-million sq. ft. distribution properties.

Q1 was very strong in warehouse construction. Sharp decline in Q2. But this is a pure V (shaped progression). By Q3 and Q4 were right back up in this 330-million sq. ft. pace. So a record level in 2019, just a little bit off a record level in 2020, and youll notice a 7% increase there, breaking the record again, in 2021.

Total institutional building construction starts The K-12 side of education building may be down a little, but the sector's greatest risk is in college and university improvements, whose financing problems will extend into 2021 and suppress growth even that far out to 3%.were initially forecast to decline 2%, and the pandemic pushed the Dodge Data forecast to -7%.

Education building is one of the largest nonresidential building sectors, running nearly as many square feet of starts as the office sector, and accounting for just under half of the total institutional construction. The COVID-19 effect is expected to cause education building starts to repeat its 2% 2019 decline in 2020. Dodge forecasts a 3% rebound in 2021, though, despite potentially significant financing challenges.

Many states and local areas (governments) will suffer revenue shortfalls not just this fiscal year but next, at the same time the cost of social programs will be increasing, Branch says. So that could undermine the strength were seeing in the K-12 market and suppress construction activity.

I think that going forward, colleges and universities will be placed under additional financial strain for a couple reasons: 1) there have been significant pushes by student bodies who are now at home to have room and board refunded. If that happens, that is money the universities have already committed, whether to overhead or to debt service. 2) Universities rely heavily on the returns from their endowment funds to fund capital improvement programs, and of course the stock market is still much lower than it was in February.

Nonbuilding construction starts present a If you remove electric power and LNG plants from 2019's nonbuilding starts, construction spending in the sector actually fell 7% last year. Power and gas will be down significantly in 2020, but Dodge forecasts highways and bridges to recover by year's end and grow energetically 2021.curious dynamic. The value of starts in the biggest sector highways and bridges was down 7% in 2019. The highway portion was flat and bridge construction was down sharply.

First quarter data was particularly weak, so were starting from a much lower jump-off as we head into the forecast, Branch says. Were expecting Q2 for highways and bridges to be down 12% from what we saw in Q1 not as steep a drop as we saw in the building categories. Again a lot of infrastructure work has remained as an essential category, however we do need to keep in mind that workforce issues may delay some projects over the coming quarters.

We do expect this category to have much more of a V-shaped recovery. Getting back in Q3 to where we were in Q1, and maybe closer to Q4 (2019). But the FAST Act does expire at the end of September, and of course that brings with it challenges as well as opportunities.

Were thinking that the plan that went through the senate public works committee unanimously will go through the house and the full senate and will have presidential approval probably within the next few months, Branch suggests. If that happens, the average level of spending within that replacement program is, on average, $10 billion a year higher than what we saw in the FAST Act. Certainly good news for 2021 in the highway and bridge sector. Potential for stimulus funding would certainly boost prospects into 2021 as well.

Power and gas plant starts grew 124% in 2019 to $54 billion, which was expected to cut deeply into the sector starts in 2020. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved construction of a number of LNG facilities this year.

But given where the global economy is and where natural gas prices are right now, we think that those projects get pushed out to 21, Branch predicts. Which is why you have those numbers in 21 pushed up 49% to $42 billion.

This sector also contains utility grade solar and wind, and as those two sectors come much, much closer to grid parity theyre actually supporting some of the growth here and why were not seeing powerplant construction drop much further than $28 billion this year its kind of a long-term historical normal level for power and gas.

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Dodge Reforecast: COVID-19 Impact on 2020 Construction Starts - ForConstructionPros.com

The 24-story City Tower promised to be Wheeler Development Groups next flagship project, but now COVID-19 and the ensuing shelter-in-place order for the state of Michigan has put the project on ice as the developers examine the next steps.

The city of Grand Rapids earlier this year entered a one-year agreement with Wheeler Development Group to conduct due diligence and negotiate a development agreement for the build site at 22 Ottawa Ave. NW in Grand Rapids, but with COVID-19 putting a stranglehold on contractors and architects, it looks like the process may take longer than expected.

We were finalizing preconstruction, working with architects and engineers, so we can put that project to bid, said WDG VP of Marketing Jason Wheeler. All of our subcontractors are frozen, and we cant just be forking dollars over to an architect until we know when construction is going to come back online.

Planned features and uses for the building include 5,215 square feet of ground-floor retail, five floors of parking with approximately 185 spaces, three floors or approximately 44,000 square feet of office space, 10 stories for about 118 apartments and five floors for about 19 condominiums.

Wheeler said WDG may ask the city for a deferment on the months of progress lost due to Michigans shelter-in-place order, allowing the company essentially to pick up where it left off.

When it first came out the first phase of shelter-in-place we were under the impression that essential services did include home construction, Wheeler said. It later became more defined as any work that presented a safety issue.

The Business Journal previously reported on communications between the Home Builders Association of Michigan and Gov. Gretchen Whitmers office. When Whitmer declared industries like housing construction are not essential under her Stay Home, Stay Safe executive order, she offered only the exception of completing construction to eliminate onsite safety hazards.

HBAM called on Whitmer to re-think her assessment and to consult with federal Homeland Security officials.

The Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile, designated single- and multifamily housing construction as essential infrastructure. The designation serves as a recommendation and not a mandatory action for state governments to comply.

Wheeler Development also had to halt a previously unannounced project with the city of Rockford. The company had planned Hotel Rose, a standalone, four-story hotel building slated to begin in the fall, but the project now is on hold, as well.

Wheeler Development also has three ongoing multifamily projects that are its main priority: Michigan Meadows in Grand Rapids, the Hanover in Caledonia and the Preserve in Spring Lake, all of which are in various stages of completion.

WDG originally had ribbon cuttings scheduled for each townhome community throughout 2020, but the projects can only be shored up for now. Both Hanover and Michigan Meadows have people living on them and require essential construction to prevent safety issues.

We had to enclose the buildings, make sure they were locked and there were no safety hazards, Wheeler said.

Hanover has about 48 completed units, with five occupied and another three scheduled to move in over the next month.

Michigan Meadows, which started earlier, currently has 11 occupants and 13 scheduled move-ins out of the 87 units planned for the site. The site currently has 38 completed units.

The main challenge is discovering what services are deemed critical so we can complete the maximum number of units and then turn them over to PURE for lease, Wheeler said. That will hopefully allow us to keep some stability and presence.

Anne Ficeli, president of PURE Real Estate Management, which manages all WDG-owned properties, said some of the scheduled move-in units are in various stages of completion, and some may not be complete by move-in day if construction remains nonessential.

Some are complete, but not move-in ready, Ficeli added. We dont have certificates of occupancy on all of them.

PURE has remained open as an essential service, although many agents now are working from home. The companys service technicians still are onsite maintaining the properties, but they are not allowed to enter peoples units unless its an emergency, Ficeli said.

I know management is important, because we need to maintain peoples homes, but I dont understand why construction is not essential, Ficeli said. People are still looking for places to live. We have some places to put them, but unless we can get construction online, its going to be difficult.

Ficeli said she has weekly calls with the Property Management Association of West Michigan, and construction is frequently discussed as a necessity. Both PMAWM and HBAM are in on the effort to convince Whitmer to designate construction as an essential service.

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COVID throws a wrench in City Tower - grbj.com

Policy

Snarled traffic. Sky-high rents. And entire neighborhoods that soon may be underwater. Our city planners have steamrolled over communities and failed to build a city that is livable for us all. Is there still a chance to get it right?

Like a scene out of The Departed, a pinched old white man in a black jacket leans across the passenger seat of a car to collect a fan of fresh $100 bills from the driver. Its such a blatant setup. Theres no envelope. The Benjamins are in full view. The whole choreography of the handoff seems designed to get him in front of a dash caminstead of a quick drop through the drivers window, the briber forces the man to reach into the car, his pink face nicely centered in the frame. But John Lynch, the assistant director of real estate at the Boston Planning & Development Agency, doesnt notice. He is wholly focused on taking whats his, lips drawn in a taut smile, the crisp new bills within his grasp. In fact, if you look closely at the surveillance photo, he seems relaxedat ease, even, like hes done this before.

Across Boston, critics of the citys billion-dollar real estate bonanza viewed that single 2018 photo of a bribe given and received as indisputable proof that the city still runs by J.M. Curleystyle rules. But for those who know how city planning happens here, it was merely the tip of an iceberg of troubles at the BPDA, arguably Bostons most powerful agency.

Whether or not cash is changing hands, Bostonians should be outraged at how the BPDA functionsor doesnt. If you think, for instance, that Boston is unaffordable, mired in traffic, and chronically unprepared for climate change, you can mostly blame the BPDA. The citys entire development process, from zoning to planning to project approval, is controlled by this single agency on the ninth floor of City Hall. In fact, it holds a concentration of power not seen in any other American city, shaping every square inch of our town, yet it is not accountable to the elected members of the city council. Its operations, meanwhile, are plagued by shortsightedness, ineptitude, and misplaced priorities.

This is nothing new. In fact, seven years ago I argued in this magazine that the BPDA (then known as the Boston Redevelopment Authority) had a mission that was so riddled with conflicts of interest that it should be abolished. So why am I at it again? Because despite Mayor Marty Walshs promises to reform the agency after audits in 2014 and 2015 revealed that it was a hot mess, not much has changed on the ninth floor since he took office. Worse still, this agency has overseen a larger building boom since 2014 than has ever occurred in a six-year period in Boston since the city was founded in 1630. Over the past decade, the citys planning agency has systematically squandered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to steer well-planned, equitable, and climate-change-ready growth, and has instead focused on a single goal: approving as many projects as quickly as possible.

This build-more, build-fast mindset has had grave consequences. Thousands of high-margin luxury condos have been approved and completed, many of which, bought by entities hidden behind LLCs and shell corporations, sit in unoccupied splendor while driving up the regions real estate values and costs. The BPDAs failure to plan, and its deep faith in market forces, has helped balloon the cost of living to the breaking point because everythingfrom food to payrolls to servicesis in one way or another linked to our inflated housing prices. Thousands of Bostonians have been displaced through eviction or aggressive rent increases, and middle-class families are getting pushed farther and farther out of the city, in some cases all the way to New Hampshire. The agency has lost the trust of the community to carry out the planning process with competence and integrity, wrote City Councilor at Large Michelle Wu in a recent report demanding the BPDAs abolition.

Never before has the need to break up the BPDA been more urgent. Right now, the agency is poised to approve the largest private development in its historymillions of square feet at the former Suffolk Downs racetrack. The agency has barreled ahead as if this were just another downtown office tower, aligning with the developer at the expense of the community, and repeating every unforced error that got us to where we are today. Unless the BPDA is abolished before the project breaks ground, Boston will likely lose its last big chance to do development right.

The BPDAs John Lynch (left) leaves federal court in Boston with his lawyer after pleading guilty to accepting a $50,000 bribe, allegedly from a real estate developer. / Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe via Getty Images

Cranes in full swing over the foundation of 115 Winthrop Square. / Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe via Getty Images

The BPDA announced its arrival in Boston 63 years ago with the roar of an army of bulldozers. Founded to funnel federal money toward urban renewal efforts, the agency, known back then as the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), evicted thousands of minority and immigrant families and razed neighborhoods, including the West End, to make way for office buildings and luxury high-rises.

A seemingly minor tweak in 1987 created the all-powerful BPDA we have today. That year, Mayor Ray Flynn removed the agency from the city budget, arguing it could sustain itself financially using the fees it collects from real estate developers. After that, the agency no longer had to answer to the city council, and ever since then, it has been servile not only to the whims of the mayor, but to the people who keep its lights on: developers.

Walshs predecessor, Tom Menino, used the freshly off-the-books agency as the base of his power. To Menino, everything was personal; he made sure that all development decisions went through him, rendering the BRA as little more than a rubber-stamping agency where he could park his political supporters who needed jobs. Not much got built under Menino, but everything that did had his fingerprints all over it.

Walsh ran for mayor in 2013 as a BRA reformer. As a former trade union leader, he also wanted to keep those cranes busy. Once in office, he commissioned an audit that revealed the agency was in shambles. Few staffers, it showed, had any idea what their actual duties were. Records were so shoddy that the BRA didnt even know what land it owned or what fees and rents were due. Consequently, the city may have failed to collect millions of dollars on leases and linkage fees from developers to fund affordable housing.

Despite grand promises made in the heat of the mayoral campaign, as well as a $675,000 rebranding initiative that included a name change from the BRA to the BPDA, Walsh has done little more than replace the drapes and repaint the house. On the positive side, BPDA head Brian Golden says that 60 percent of staff members are new, and the planning department has grown from 32 to more than 54 employees. Hes hired some multilingual staffers, and employees are learning how to work within Bostons many different communities. The agencys overhauled website is easy to navigate and loaded with helpful documents available to the public. The press office is very responsive.

Still, the BPDAs most problematic featuresthat its beyond city council control and was designed to be developer-responsive rather than planning-orientedremain locked in place. Most egregiously, unlike many other major American citieswhich have laws mandating implementation of a master planBoston hasnt drawn one up since 1965. By law, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco, and Vancouver systematically update their master plans and have clear protocols for incorporating those plans into urban development. In California, by law, master-plan updates must be codified into zoning. The city of Boston doesnt have a master plan because the BPDA isnt designed to do that kind of work, and also, possibly, because it would undercut the BPDAs power. According to BPDA director Golden, Mayor Walshs Imagine Boston 2030 initiativewhich provides a roadmap for 21st-century growthis the citys master plan. Still, the plan lacks teeth because the BPDA has neither the mandate nor the protocols to make it anything more than a wish list.

The BPDA says nearly one-third of the citys land is covered either by active or relatively recent planning efforts. Indeed, the agencys staffers have conducted community-based planning sessions in nearly every neighborhood over the decades. But when a developer brings a project proposal to the ninth floor, theres no formal mechanism for incorporating what was learned in those planning sessions into the approval process. There are no standardized metrics board members can use to evaluate a projects value or impact. Instead, the BPDA merely serves as an adviser to the developer, escorting a project through the process while keeping an eye on the clock.

The fact that the agency is partly funded by developers is the fundamental problem, says City Councilor Lydia Edwards. You shouldnt be incentivized to develop because your paycheck depends on it, she says. You should be incentivized to develop because the city, and the future, and equity depend on it.

Supporters of the BPDA say Bostons vocal communitieslabeled as NIMBYsare the single biggest obstacle to progress in the city and that we need an all-powerful planning agency because it is the only way to get anything done in the face of their opposition. In fact, I would argue the opposite is true: Bostons planning and approval process is so inverted that the BPDA has created the NIMBYs.

By the time a development team arrives in a neighborhood, the BPDA already has skin in the game. The agencys staff has spent considerable time working with the developer to prep for community meetings, and during this period, the BPDAs and developers interests often align. Armed with inside knowledge, legal expertise, and the mayors backing, they make a formidable team. Once the public process begins, communities dont have much time to react and often feel blindsided by the proposals. They have to scramble to understand their rights, determine what negotiating power they have, and figure out which tools they can use to steer the impact of a project. Lacking the background and unity to negotiate concessions with a powerful developer and the BPDA, many communities resort to outright opposition.

They have good reason to be wary, given that any amenities won by neighbors have historically had a bad habit of disappearing once a project is approved. Case in point: When Millennium Partners bid for the privilege of building 115 Winthrop Square, a $1.3 billion multi-use tower now going up downtown, the developer promised Bostonians a three-story Great Halla glorious, multifunctional civic space sold as Bostons living room, as well as a space for startups that would be as large as 8,000 square feet. Just three years into the complex process of approving such a large project, Millennium submitted its notice of project change. Among the revisions, 100,000 gross square feet of residential space had evaporated. The initial 500 housing unit count had shrunk to 387. Gone were about seven affordable units. Public conference space seemed to disappear. Two grand staircases designed to elevate the look of the Great Hall were obscured by walls. Bostons living room became a hallway. The startup space was no longer mentioned.

Even the Boston Civic Design Commission (BCDC)a voluntary board run by some of the citys finest architects that has the ability to review all large projects in Bostonlacks any statutory power to rein in poorly designed, unwieldy development. As a result, it has scored only a very few small victories in the way of improving projects.

Theres a better way: Plan for growth in a neighborhood before the developer arrives on the scene. Then incorporate that arduous community work into law by updating zoning. Establish which amenities the neighborhood needs and tie those projects to land use. Break planning out of the BPDA and fund it with city money so that its accountable to voters. Its how Americas finest cities handle demand and growth. Why does Boston deserve anything less?

A birds-eye view of construction in the Seaport District. / Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe via Getty Images

Activists protest to demand that developers make half of the units at Suffolk Downs affordable housing. / Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe via Getty Images

When Steven Turner allegedly handed all of that cash to Lynch, he owned a one-story South Boston warehouse on a 10th of an acre. Turner knew he could make a pile of dough if he could get a permit extension allowing construction of multifamily housing on that site. So, in exchange for $50,000, Lynch agreed to convince a Boston zoning board member to extend the permit to redevelop the property. Once he secured it, Turner sold the warehouse for a $1.6 million profit in 2018 without developing it. The cost for Turners gains will get passed along to condo buyers to the tune of an additional $146,000 per unit. (Turner has not been charged with any wrongdoing.)

Lynch wasnt the only guy looking to use zoning adjustments to turn a buck. Over the past 15 years, small-time developers have fanned out around South Boston, knocking on doors, offering longtime homeowners loads of money for their triple-deckers. One by one, families have been selling off their homes for huge profits and moving out.

Some developers, like Turner, received permission to build higher than existing zoning allowed. Others did not. Thats why South Bostons zoning map now looks like a crazy quilt. Single-family and multifamily homes, apartments and condos, and industrial, mixed-use, and institutional buildings are jammed together side by sidethe result of hundreds of individual petitions approved by the Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA).

Perhaps all of this side-dealing would be acceptable if Boston were truly booming. In fact, the city is being crushed under the weight of poorly regulated development geared to enrich a few at the expense of the many. Based on current stats, more than 34,000 households are cost-burdened, meaning that out of every dollar they earn, 50 cents goes to rent or the mortgage. Subtract taxes, and theres not much left for food. Over the past decade, the number of homeless families in Greater Boston has increased by 27 percent and the number of homeless individuals by 45 percent. A 2020 report by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council revealed that the majority of large units in Greater Boston are occupied by roommates (who can pool resources) or a handful of retirees rattling around in big apartmentsnot families.

Walsh says hes concerned, but the one thing he hasnt been able to confront is Bostons development machine. And because the mayor would like to have his development and eat it, too, hes demanding that the BPDA solve Bostons housing crisis the only way it knows how: by building more.

In the six years that Walsh has been mayor, 18,607 residential units have been built around the city. Sounds good, until you consider that most of them are small and expensive. Notably, more than half of these units are in luxury or ultra-luxury buildings, many of them in the South Boston Waterfront neighborhood. Records show that only a slim majority of all new units built since 2012 are owned by people who claim them as their primary residences. Many were bought by LLCs or shell corporations as a way to park wealth or launder money.

Of course, solving the housing crisis isnt merely about simple math, and yet the BPDA is still chasing numbers, furiously approving every proposal that comes its way to reach a quotathe mayor wants 53,000 new units built by 2030without much consideration given to equity. When I met with Councilor Edwards, I repeated the administrations argument that more housing will eventually satisfy demand.

Where? she asked me. When I laughed, she said, No, Im serious. Where has that happened? You show me where building a bunch of luxury studios helped house working-class families. You show me where it happened, and Ill shut up.

The BPDA argues that we can build our way out of the crisis because when developers need variances (and nearly every project requires a variance because the citys zoning is so outdated), they must either build affordable units into their projects or pay so-called linkage fees that go into a fund for affordable-housing construction. For example, Jonathan Greeley, BPDAs director of development review, defends Seaport Squarea huge South Boston Waterfront projectby pointing out that in return for approval, We got significant investments inaffordable housing, significant investments in the arts, a whole bunch of different things.

The BPDAs build-more-to-get-more-affordable-housing argument might make sense at first blush. Over the past decade, developers incorporated 2,983 affordable units into their market-rate projects (though the definition of affordable is up for debate). Other developers paid the one-time fee instead, contributing $93 million to the citys housing fund. But when you crunch the numbers, youll see that $93 million doesnt buy much in Boston. Over that same decade, federal, state, and city governments have spent an additional $2 billion in Boston to finance 5,286 new affordable units and refurbish existing ones, which cost the city an average of $450,000 a pop.

Based on these figures, its clearly more economical for the city to have developers fold affordable housing into new developments or just build for the mid-market than to conjure such housing from scratch via linkage fees. (The latter also further segregates the city, building by building, neighborhood by neighborhood.) For example, if real estate developer Millennium had made 15 percent of its massive new downtown tower affordable, it would have created 66 units. Instead, the developer paid $1.9 million to the city, a sum that, without state and federal subsidies, will cover the cost of only four such units.

Regardless of how affordable units get built, there are consequences to pursuing luxury housing in formerly middle-class neighborhoods. Rampant speculation. Evictions. Aggressive pricing out. Joseph Michalakes, a housing attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services, has worked for several years defending hundreds of families from eviction in East Boston, one of the most recent battlegrounds of development and displacement. Michalakes argues that if projects in Boston continue to be approved without bringing a fair housing perspective to the planning process, then what weve seen happen in East Boston over the past five years, and really longer, is going to keep happening until theres nowhere left.

He knows the market-oriented response to people getting priced out: If you cant afford Boston, then move someplace cheaper. But, he says, Where is that place? Where are people going to live? People who dont have a car and make between $20,000 and $50,000 a year, where are they going to go?

Tom OBrien, the former director of the BRA, is currently overseeing the development of Suffolk Downs for the HYM Investment Group, where he is the managing director. / Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe via Getty Images

Suffolk Downs may feel like the hinterlands, over there in Eastie beyond the airport. But if you think our traffic is bad now, if you think the cost of living is high now, if you think Boston is the countrys most segregated city now, just wait until our last affordable neighborhood vanishes.

On a freezing January afternoon, I met Councilor Edwards at Maverick Station in East Boston to drive to Suffolk Downs, where we sat in the car and looked over the abandoned racetrack and clubhouse while the winter wind whipped across the vast, open expanse. This is the site where a massive, multi-phase project is slated to be built. Of the 161 acres before us, 122 of them lie in Edwardss backyard in East Boston, with the remainder in Revere.

For Edwards, the 16-million-square-foot project proposed for the site is a potential threat for the mostly Latinx, renter-heavy, lower-income population that she represents. For local developer HYM Investment Group and 33-year-old Texas billionaire William Bruce Harrison, who together bought the land in 2017 for $155 million, its a potential gold mine.

Although the BPDA had plenty of warning that the racetrack was shutting down and was potentially ripe for development, the agency had few thoughts about how this enormous piece of land might be used, or about how development might affect the local community. Those questions were left to the marketor, more specifically, Harrison and Tom OBrien, HYMs managing director and a former head of the BRA. They drafted their own plan, complete with new zoning that would allow office, residential, and retail space. Anticipating some pushback, the developer preempted impact fees by proposing that his team pay for some roads and infrastructure improvements. Most of these so-called improvements, however, are streets within the development itself.

So far, the project has been designed like a Houston office park, with chunky buildings looming around a yet-to-be-defined open space, linked by wide streets designed to get cars in and out of the development. It is nothing like Easties existing street grid, in no way resembles the Boston 2030 vision, and certainly looks nothing like the citys most livable neighborhoods. The project is so inconceivably big that the 65,300 to 76,500 additional vehicle trips per day its expected to generate would hopelessly snarl traffic on Route 1A. Its shocking, opponents of the development argue, that the BPDA has once again escorted the developer through the usual steps, using the standard large-project timeline, without regard for the many serious problems that the project is bound to create.

During a pair of four-month-long public-comment periods in 2019, in fact, objection letters poured into City Hall, many several pages long and carefully crafted by lawyers working for nonprofit advocacy organizations such as Boston Lawyers for Civil Rights. The letters argued that the BPDA did not properly prepare the community, failed to do sufficient outreach in the multiple languages of the community, and, most important, failed to understand the impact this enormous development would have on the people of Eastie, the environment, and Greater Boston. The complaints repeatedly noted that the affordable units being proposed were not affordable enough, large enough, or numerous enough to accommodate even a fraction of those living in the neighborhood who would likely be displaced. Other complaints came from environmental stewards, who warned that raising the land to protect the immediate Suffolk Downs development from flooding would exacerbate drainage issues throughout the surrounding area within a few years.

Leading the charge was Edwards, who invoked the Fair Housing Act of 1968 to demand that the BPDA take concerns about equity more seriously. Appalled at the fast-track approval process and lack of consideration for her vulnerable constituency, she directed her office to draft Planning for Fair Housing, a document that details how the city could use planning and zoning to create a better Boston for everyone. The report calls for the BPDA to join the 21st century by embracing a holistic equity lens in its planning decision and negotiating for public interest concessions from development projects to impose fair housing obligations on private developers.

Although its been just three years since HYM and Harrison bought the racetrack, Greeley says the BPDA has put in the necessary work to sign off on the largest private development ever proposed in Boston. If we were in a rush, which were often accused of being, Greeley says, we would have done this thing a long time ago. But were not. We have slowly, iteratively, tried to figure this out. In the BPDAs defense, Greeley adds, If you were to sit with Tom OBrien, hed tell you how many hundreds of meetings [with the community] hes had.

Meetings, though, are useless if the two sides arequite literallyspeaking different languages. On February 3, Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development against the BPDA, citing the lack of translated materials available to community members with limited English throughout the process. The complaint also asserted that the BPDA, using archaic tools, had failed to properly assess the larger impact on the region. Suffolk Downs will fundamentally change the character, cost, and composition of every neighborhood it touches and all surrounding communities, it states. Simply put, the stakes for affected communities in Boston, who are primarily Limited English Proficiency residents of color, are enormous. For those reasons, the group requested that the BPDA immediately halt its review process. The BPDA says it did provide the necessary translations required by law, and as of press time, the agency was still formulating a response to the letter, but it continues to usher the project along.

Regardless, the project is so huge and its impacts so unfathomable that it may finally provide city councilors and civil rights advocates with a big enough platform to shine a spotlight on the BPDAs shortcomings. It seems to be working: Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders tweeted about Suffolk Downs ahead of the March 3 primary, saying, We need affordable housing for all instead of more gentrifying luxury developments for the few.

Edwards, for her part, decided that the only way to rein in the BPDA was to change the law. In January, her office submitted a lengthy amendment to the Boston Zoning Code designed to incorporate equity-based impact analyses into the approval process. Her proposed amendment is now going through working sessions in the city council. She admits it may not get passed soon enough to save the city from Suffolk Downs.

In the meantime, the wheels of justice continue to grind away elsewhere in Boston. There was considerable fallout after Lynch was charged with (and later convicted of) bribery involving an organization receiving federal funds and filing a false federal tax return. Though no one else was charged, one member of the Zoning Board of Appeal stepped down after the scandal. In February, Walsh issued an executive order tightening the conflict-of-interest rules for those who sit on the board.

Still, some see Walshs response as akin to trying to fix the cracked foundation of a house with paint and spackle. The ZBA isnt the problem; it is just one feature of a city planning and development structure that is fatally flawed. What Walsh needs to do with the BPDA is what his administration has done besttake a wrecking ball to the old agency and build something shiny and new and modern where it once stood.

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The BPDA: Paved and Confused - Boston magazine

"The outlook for tenant demand for retail property has deteriorated given the downturn in trading conditions, with declines in rents and increases in vacancy rates now likely," it said.

Commercial property prices have risen faster than rents in recent years given the decline in risk-free interest rates. More highly leveraged owners could struggle if tenants were unable to pay rent, particularly in the very weak retail sector, it said.

For some geared investors, that could mean they breach loan covenants, while developers with projects still under construction could find it difficult to finalise sales at a profitable price.

"Developers will then be left holding inventory and debt on their balance sheets with little or no revenue. This is a key risk for lenders."

Asset valuations in property markets had increased to very high levels over recent years, both in Australia and overseas, it said.

"Banks have incurred substantial losses from construction loans in past downturns, and while construction lending accounts for a small share of business lending, it has grown rapidly recently."

Banks exposure to commercial property is around 6 per cent of their total assets. But the RBA also highlights non-bank lenders who have been particularly active in lending for commercial property construction, including apartments.

It also points to risks in office markets. While previously strong, they are also expected to deteriorate.

"Of note, an above-average volume of office supply is due to be delivered into the Sydney and Melbourne CBD markets this year and demand will be unlikely to keep pace with this stronger supply," it states.

Goldman Sachs analyst Ian Randall has a similar view on office market risks.

Revised modelling by Goldman Sachs suggests rising vacancy rates will drive rent reductions for Sydney and Melbourne's CBD office markets of about 30 and 34 per cent between December 2019 and 2022, at least 12 per cent higher than its previous estimates.

The completion of multiple new office developments will coincide with a sharp drop in demand.

"We also expect near-term office net operating income (NOI) across the sector to be impacted by the need for assistance for tenants experiencing financial difficulty, and now assume that tenants accounting for 25 per cent of NOI receive three months of rental abatement across all office portfolios."

As a result, Goldman Sachs has reduced its estimates of underlying funds from operation per security for the big office landlords Dexus, GPT and Mirvac by between 3 and 8 per cent.

Net demand for office space in Melbourne's CBD turned negative in the first quarter of this year. "We expect Sydney CBD net absorption to remain negative over the balance of this calendar year," Mr Randall said.

Vacancy in Melbourne will more than double to 10.1 per cent by December next year and Sydney's will peak at 10.6 per cent by December a year later, Goldman forecasts.

Simon Johanson is a business journalist at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Carolyn Cummins is Commercial Property Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald.

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Property valuations a risk for banks and developers, RBA warns - Sydney Morning Herald

The latest market drawdown has hit the preferreds market like a ton of bricks. Lower short-term rates have hammered fixed-to-float securities, while cyclical sectors like banks and REITs, which are heavily represented in the population, took a heavy brunt of an oncoming recession. Investors who thought they held relatively diversified portfolios may have been surprised by sharp and broad-based losses. In this article, we take a look at a number of portfolio dimensions that investors may be overlooking when constructing their preferreds portfolios.

Our takeaway is that investors should look beyond merely increasing the number of securities in the portfolio, allocating to higher-quality stocks or picking across a number of different sectors. Other dimensions worthy of consideration are intra-sector, coupon type and duration diversification, as well as institutional vs. retail market exposure.

What do investors typically do in order to diversify their portfolios? The traditional approaches are selecting a sufficiently high number of securities, allocating across different sectors, and selecting higher-quality securities for at least a part of the portfolio.

We call these insufficient diversification approaches - pseudo or lazy-diversification. This is because they can give investors false comfort while setting them up for nasty surprises ahead. Let's go through them in order.

Some investors will often aim to diversify their portfolio holdings by increasing the number of securities they hold. The suggestion that appropriate diversification can be achieved by increasing the number of holdings has come from both the media and academia. Jim Cramer, on his Mad Money program, used to air a segment called "Am I Diversified?" where users called in with Jim's view of a 5-stock portfolio. Somewhat more seriously, in their 1970 paper, Lawrence Fisher and James H. Lorie found that a random portfolio of 32 stocks reduced the return volatility of the portfolio by 95%. This approach, while interesting, is not the same as diversification, however, and most investors are clearly well aware of this fact.

This is why investors also try to allocate across different sectors. However, apart from the CEF and utilities sectors which dropped by "just" 20%, all other sectors experienced very heavy drawdowns.

Source: Systematic Income Preferreds Tool

Tilting entire towards investment-grade securities is no guarantee of success either. The chart below plots total returns over the past month of investment-grade securities where drawdowns have ranged from low single-digits to over 60%.

Source: Systematic Income Preferreds Tool

In the sections below, we discuss additional dimensions of preferred securities that investors should consider in constructing their portfolios.

As we suggest above, allocating to securities from different sectors may not do the job, since a given sector can contain securities with very different characteristics. To take the mREIT sector as an example, the recent drawdowns within the sector have ranged between 40% and 95%. While 40% is a terrible result, it is surely miles better than 95%. In the case of this particular sector, the key differentiator lies in the underlying portfolio holdings of each company with companies focused on agencies performing better.

Source: Systematic Income Preferreds Tool

By definition, the individual institutional preferreds market is largely inaccessible to retail investors who are mostly limited to the $25-par market with a few exceptions. This doesn't mean that retail investors cannot hold institutional securities, however, with many preferreds funds allocating to the institutional space.

In the chart below, we plot the total returns over the last two months of the two markets. We proxy the two markets using two funds: the iShares Preferred and Income Securities ETF (NASDAQ:PFF) for the retail market and the First Trust Institutional Preferred Securities and Income ETF (NYSEARCA:FPEI) for the institutional market. This is not a perfect comparison, given the credit quality, regional, and industry differences, but the results are still telling. Initially, the two populations tracked each other relatively well, but then began to diverge sharply, with the retail population showing significantly more volatility. We suspect the lower liquidity of the retail space revealed more liquidity gaps in the trading and pushed the retail market nearly 10% below the institutional one at the lows. Although, in the end, the two sectors have again converged, the sharper drawdowns in the retail sector may have made it more difficult for investors to hang on to their holdings during the drawdown.

Source: ADS Analytics LLC, Tiingo

In the chart below, we plot the total returns of retail preferreds by dividend type: floating-rate, fixed-to-floating, and fixed. We exclude non-investment grade securities to control for credit quality. The chart shows that fixed-rate preferreds have held up the best, with fixed-to-floating suffering drawdowns similar to floating-rate securities but rallying harder since then.

Source: Systematic Income Preferreds Tool

This relationship makes sense for two reasons. First, fixed-rate preferreds have a higher duration, which is an asset in an environment of decreasing interest rates. And secondly, lower short-term rates due to sharp Fed cuts have lowered the distributions of floating-rate securities as well as reset yields of fixed-to-float securities in relation to fixed-rate preferreds. A steepening yield curve means that the prices of floating-rate and fixed-to-floating securities had to drop further in order for their stripped and reset yields to catch up to fixed-rate yields.

If we look at total returns of investment-grade fixed-rate securities by the amount of call protection, we see an interesting dynamic. Securities with the shortest amount of call protection have fallen the least, and vice-versa. This makes sense intuitively since the time to first call acts as a kind of conditional duration and securities with the least time to first call should have the lowest duration. And because the moves in credit spreads were much higher than moves in risk-free yields, the securities with the lowest duration were least impacted.

Source: Systematic Income Preferreds Tool

This only works up to a point, however, since the closer the company is to default, the more the prices of its pari passu securities will move towards the same price. You can see this dynamic in the corporate bond space when the yield curve will typically flatten and then invert at credit spreads of around 500-1000bps. This is because, when prices of bonds with different maturities move towards the same price i.e. recovery, the yields of shorter-term bonds will increase more sharply than the yields of longer-term bonds.

Let's take a look at a few fixed-rate preferreds issued by Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) to see if this dynamic is evident in preferreds as well. The Bank of America, 6.2% Series C (BAC.PA) has the least call protection with a call date in January 2021, and the Bank of America 5.0% Series LL (BAC.PN) has the greatest amount of call protection with a first call date in September 2024. As we would expect, the BAC.PA has moved much less than BAC.PN.

Source: Systematic Income Preferreds Tool

Let's see what happened in yield terms. The yields of the six stocks compressed through the drawdown and inverted during the worst episode and then normalized again. This jives well with the experience of the corporate bond market but also suggests that investors may be more willing to take a lower yield if they can lock in that yield for a longer period of time.

Source: Systematic Income Preferreds Tool

When constructing portfolios of preferred stocks, investors should look beyond the issuer count and sector representation. Taking into account such security dimensions as intra-sector quality, coupon-type and duration diversification, as well as institutional vs. retail representation should lead to more resilient portfolios that could potentially withstand a greater number of challenging market conditions.

Check out Systematic Income and explore the best of the fund, preferred stock and baby bond markets with our powerful interactive investor tools.

Identify the most attractive CEFs and track the entire market with our fund ratings and evidence-based bespoke metrics. Get investment ideas from our quantitative yield-target portfolios and systematic strategies.

Pick up the best preferred stocks and baby bonds that fit your criteria.

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Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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Beware Lazy Diversification In Preferreds - Seeking Alpha

Frog Pond West construction could be slowed, however, as developers adhere to social distancing

Though Gov. Kate Brown's recent executive orders to reduce the spread of COVID-19 have restricted schools, restaurants, retail facilities, the entertainment industry and other sectors, they did not specifically limit the construction industry.

This means that construction in Wilsonville's new Frog Pond West residential neighborhood, which is north of Boeckman Road and west of Advance Road, is continuing largely unimpeded. Currently, a 36-lot development (Morgan Farm) and a 44-lot development (Stafford Meadows) are under construction, while two more developments that will total at least 114 lots are on the horizon.

Ezra Hammer, the vice president of policy and government affairs for the Home Builders Association of Metro Portland, explained why he thinks keeping development going is important.

For one, he said construction activity can take place under social distancing requirements because work is done largely outdoors and in spacious environments. Stephanie Hosmar, marketing and sales manager for Stafford Meadows builder West Hills Homes NW, said the company is implementing social distancing and sanitation measures and the fact that there are only a few homes currently under construction makes it easier to abide by guidelines.

"There's naturally not many people on site at a time," Hosmar said.

However, she has heard of construction projects in more dense areas pausing due to the challenges of maintaining personal space.

Another benefit of keeping construction going, Hammer said, is the potential need for medical services and emergency housing infrastructure.

"Emergency homeless shelters, emergency triage spaces for patients and hospitals are going to be absolutely critical," Hammer said. "There's going to be physical structures done to build the spaces to defeat COVID-19."

Hammer, though, expected development activity to slow regionally with fewer workers on site and fewer available. He also surmised that a potential slowdown of the governmental approval processes caused by the cancellation or postponement of meetings and municipal staff shortages could stall construction.

City of Wilsonville Community Development Director Chris Neamtzu and Building Official Dan Carlson did not expect that to happen in Wilsonville.

Neamtzu said the City's Development Review Boards, which approve development applications, likely will continue to hold meetings remotely and Carson said the building department is continuing inspections at the same rate as it previously had. The city also is offering virtual inspections for sites city officials already have examined in person.

"It's not going to slow us down any. We have staffing capacity and have backup plans in place. Staff can work remotely if necessary and are able to conduct field inspection with iPads and using technology," Carlson said.

Carlson also said inspection loads have continued at a steady rate since coronavirus concerns and restrictions proliferated.

"Our goal is to keep development happening, to keep construction sites working and to not get in the way of that but to facilitate it," he said.

Like Hammer, Hosmar expected the pace of development to slow a bit, partially due to construction contractors being shorthanded.

"Part of that is we've seen a slight slowdown some shorthanded subcontractors pushing out work a couple weeks," she said.

Hosmar said just over 10 homes have been sold in Stafford Meadows, four are under construction, three are finished and still on the market, and construction of the remaining homes hasn't begun.

She said West Hills NW is still selling homes and that virtual tours make it easier for customers to move forward with the purchasing process without stepping foot in a home. However, she has heard some potential buyers express hesitation due to the plummeting stock market and said that required walk-throughs at the end of the process can be tricky due to social distancing.

"Things have stayed pretty stable. There's a lot of fear out there, but we want to maintain any sense of normalcy we can, and we know people still need homes and want homes," Hosmar said. "Everyone is experiencing economic impact one way or another."

Hammer said disruptions to the supply chain caused by trade restrictions also could hinder development efforts.

"A great deal of construction material comes from overseas and comes from countries that have been hit by COVID-19," he said.

Overall, though production of homes and buildings is continuing, Hammer expected the coronavirus and a related economic downturn to hit the development industry hard.

"A great number of folks in construction employ less than 50 people. Those businesses have less capacity to weather economic downturns," he said.

"We expect there to be significant hits across the board. As the economy takes a turn for the worse, we would anticipate our industry would be impacted as well."

You count on us to stay informed and we depend on you to fund our efforts.Quality local journalism takes time and money. Please support us to protect the future of community journalism.

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Infill on the way at Frog Pond West despite COVID-19 - Pamplin Media Group

Nir Shoshani, Ron Gottesmann and Terry Wellons, with a rendering of NR Investments proposed mixed-use project

NR Investments will get $14 million in property tax rebates and grant money in exchange for providing 252 units of affordable and workforce housing in a 29-story tower in the Omni area.

The Miami City Commission, acting as the Omni Community Redevelopment Agencys board of directors, unanimously allocated $5.5 million to the developer on Thursday, to help fund its $80 million mixed-use project at 70 Northeast 17th Street. Headed by Nir Shoshani, Ron Gottesmann, and Terry Wellons, NR Investments previously built Filling Station Lofts and Canvas Condominiums in the Omni area.

NR Investments latest project will include 41,288 square feet of offices, 4,413 square feet of retail space, as well as the rent-restricted apartments.

A property tax rebate equivalent to $8.5 million had been granted to NR Investments by the Omni CRA last October. The total subsidy amounts to $55,000 a unit, said Adam Old, the Omni CRAs director of policy and planning.

In its proposal, NR Investments said that the subsidy was needed to make up for an estimated $17.8 million in rent losses.

The apartments will be set aside for people making between 60 percent and 140 percent of Miami-Dade Countys median area income, which is currently $54,900 a year. The projects 188 studios will be rented for between $889 and $2,075 a month. The 60 one-bedroom units will have rents ranging from $953 and $2,224 a month. Four two-bedroom apartments, reserved for a household making 140 percent of Miami-Dades median household income, will rent for $2,670 a month.

The median rent in Omni is $2,146 a month, according to Niche.com. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, city of Miami planners predicted that Omni rents would climb higher. The development agreement with the Omni CRA freezes the rents for NR Investments project until 2047.

According to Florida International Universitys affordable housing master plan, commissioned by the city, Miamis median annual household income is $33,999. For renters, the median household income for the city is $28,650 a year. Due to rising rents and property values, 57 percent of Miamis households spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

Most of Omni, however, falls within Miamis waterfront adjacent District 2, where the median household income for renters is $61,850 a year, according to FIUs report. Nevertheless, half of District 2s renters are cost burdened, while 26 percent are severely-cost burdened, according to FIUs report.

In his letter to the Omni CRA, NR Investments lawyer, Javier Fernandez, stated that the project will provide needed housing inventory to critical employees within the Miami market such as hospitality service workers, teachers, police officers, firefighters, registered nurses, and recent college graduates.

NR Investments invested $4.8 million to buy 22,625 square feet of land for the proposed mixed-use project between September 2016 and April 2019.

The company aims to start construction in July, and complete the project in January 2023.

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NR Investments gets $14M subsidy to build workforce and affordable housing - The Real Deal

A new way of accessing Westminster Pier Park is expected to be in place this summer.

Construction of a new overpass into Westminster Pier Park from the Front Street Parkade at Sixth Street got underway last spring. The overpass will include stairs and an accessible ramp, allowing pedestrians and cyclists to get to and from Westminster Pier Park.

As part of its Pier West development on the west side of the park, Bosa Developments committed to building an overpass and an elevator. The city, however, preferred that a ramp be built because it wanted to increase accessibility options for those going to the park and to avoid some of the issues its had with the existing elevator access into the park at Fourth Street.

Work related to the pedestrian overpass and ramp continues, as does the planning/design and intended construction for the new plaza and play area to be constructed beneath the ramp, said Dean Gibson, the citys director of parks and recreation. Our best scheduling assessment at this timeindicates that the overpass and ramp will be complete in late June.

Construction of the plaza and play area around the base of the overpass is intended to start in July, with completion in the early fall of 2020.

As you might guess, there are many factors currently impacting the construction industry at this time, so all timelines are subject to change pending local market conditions, Gibson said in an email to the Record.The city continues to prioritize the completion of this project at this time.

Currently, visitors have two ways to access Westminster Pier Park; they can enter by an elevator at Fourth Street (at the Front Street parkade) or they can use a ground-level access on the west side of the site.

At the April 6 council meeting, city staff voiced concerns that the current connection between Fraser River Discovery Centre and Westminster Pier Park, which goes through the Bosa construction site, is a narrow corridor that has limited sight lines, which is posing constraints for physical distancing. Because of social distancing in response to COVID-19, staff has recommended the introduction of one-way travel through this corridor during times of peak use, the provision of an alternate return route to the waterfront via Columbia and Front streets and the provision of on-site traffic control personnel to manage people going to the park.

Once the new overpass is complete, people will be able to walk onto the parkade at Sixth Street and use the new pedestrian/cyclist overpass and ramp to get in and out of the park.

The overpass structure, which will extend over the rail tracks, will be assembled off-site and will be delivered as a complete unit to the site, where it will be installed over the rail tracks using a mobile crane.

During construction of the overpass, the childrens playground in Pier Park thats closest to River Market has been closed. The city will build a new playground at the same location.

Pier West, which is now under construction at 660 Quayside Dr. will include 53- and 43-storey residential towers, a three-storey commercial building with child-care and retail space, an extension to Westminster Pier Park, a public plaza, surface and underground parking and about two acres of park.

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Improved access to Westminster Pier Park coming this summer - The Record (New Westminster)

Despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic bringing the country to a standstill, there is, in fact, a future ahead of us.

And across Mansfield and Ashfield that future looks very bright - with dozens of new housing, construction and retail developments on their way to change the face of the region.

Be it through new distribution centres, huge new retail parks, a hotel or a supermarket, the region has got a lot to look forward to in the coming years.

Nottinghamshire Live has put together this list of the five biggest developments arriving in our area over the coming months.

With them are the arrival of more than 3,000 jobs, new transport links and more opportunities for shoppers, workers and tourists to the area.

The Summit Park development is by far the biggest of the five major moves on this list, bringing with it up to 1,800 jobs, transport and bus links and a huge, international retailer.

The land at Summit Park had been set aside in 2014 to become a new state-of-the-art logistics and business park, with officials in Mansfield and Ashfield District Councils describing it as the beginning of a rise in skilled employment in the area.

However, no progress was ever made on finding developers to move onto the land and it has remained derelict since the initial plans were announced in July 2014.

Yet last year plans were approved for a huge distribution warehouse across a 162,781sqm facility, in what was described by council officials as "the biggest single private sector investment in the district".

Construction is expected to finish on the site by September 2020, with the major international retailer expected to reveal itself in the coming months.

Plans for the final phase of a massive 46 million retail and industrial scheme were approved in November 2019 - bringing more than 1,000 jobs.

Park 38, opposite the East Midlands Designer Outlet at South Normanton, will see a new retail park created on farmland, as well as industrial units.

The first phase of the scheme for 10 retail units and a 95-bedroom hotel was approved a few years ago, however phase two involves building a number of warehouse and distribution units, including a trade counter or gym.

Documents submitted by Q and A Planning, on behalf Limes Developments, said: There will be substantial economic benefits arising from the proposed development comprising new jobs, gross value added to the economy, additional business rates for the council and spin-off benefits for the construction and operational supply chains.

Construction work on the new 22,000 sq ft Lidl supermarket at its Leeming Lane development in Mansfield began in February, the developer behind the project confirmed.

The new store is expected to open in summer, bringing dozens of new jobs to the local area.

Property development and investment group Strawsons Property agreed a long-term lease with the retailer in 2018.

It has since worked alongside the popular supermarket brand to secure planning approval for the site, which was granted by Mansfield District Council at the end of last year.

Plans to convert the former Strand Cinema and bingo hall site into five retail units and office space were approved in October 2019 - bringing with it the potential for dozens of jobs.

The Strand Retail Centre, submitted by the ARBA Group, will bring the demolition of the historic site in Church Street, Warsop, making way for new development.

Frozen food retailer Heron Foods confirmed in May last year that it will be the first to take up one of five available retail spaces at development.

And the ARBA Group says the plan will "generate opportunities" for the parish.

Andrew Allen, ARBA director, said: This site has been derelict for some time, and it is clear that local people want to see something done with it that benefits the local community."

Despite the ongoing pandemic temporarily halting its construction, work is still progressing on the new 4 million Travelodge in Mansfield town centre.

The site, which brings with it up to 15 hotel jobs as well as in construction, will be the towns first national chain hotel and based on the old Gala Bingo hall, on the corner of Albert Street.

It will be the firms second hotel in the area, after Travelodge Mansfield, Mansfield Road, Sutton.

Shakila Ahmed, Travelodge spokeswoman, said: The local economy is growing at pace and, with increasing visitor numbers to the area, there is a shortage of good quality and great value accommodation to meet customer demand.

"Therefore, there is a need for a second Travelodge in the heart of Mansfield."

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5 major developments that will bring thousands of jobs to Mansfield and Ashfield - Nottinghamshire Live