MIAMI -

While standing about a block away from the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. federal courthouse in Miami, Jose Rios said "having no money" made him feel "invisible."

Rios was setting up a sleeping area early Friday morning on a sidewalk next to an empty parking lot. He said he had been living near Miami's Overtown neighborhood for the last year, because he was running away from "step dad sex abuse and no one gave a f---."

A few blocks away, there was a line in front of Club Space, a nightclub that remains open 24 hours. Another Jose, also known as Joe Ramirez, was also running away. He was there for "EDM acoustics" and was "already drunk and ready for $7 water" bottles.

"We're space cadets. That side has [the] Terremark conspiracy. You have strip club pervs, Grand Central hipsters [and] bay yuppies," Ramirez's friend Tatiana Alvarez, 22, said. "One day, cops will send homeless crack heads running. Dollar bills gonna come. It'll be like newspaper bomb turn[ed] into rich opera [expletive] glass."

That was Alvarez's description of Miami's Park West neighborhood, an area west of Biscayne Bay, north of downtown Miami and east of Overtown, formerly known as Colored Town.Developers have been talking about a Miami Worldcenter vision in the area for about a decade. This year, Miami commissioners have been giving the 28-acre mixed-use $1.5 billion project the green light.

What the city wants in the area is "substantially similar, if not identical, to that of plans that have been approved for Brickell City Center, River Landing and the Design District," Nitin Motwani, Miami Worldcenter developer, said in a statement.

Developers want to start construction this year. The project -- a partnership between Boca Raton based The Falcone Group and Marc Roberts Companies -- faced bitter litigation against commercial broker Edie Laquer who wanted to be a partner in the project. They also faced opposition on their management of public streets.

According to the Miami Worldcenter plan Northeast 7th and 9th Street would be closed to traffic. Seventh from North Miami Avenue to Northeast 2nd Avenue would become a pedestrian-only promenade, and 9th Street would turn into retail space. Northeast 8th Street would be open for traffic.

"Miami Worldcenter has earned the support of the Miami Entertainment District Association as well as the owners of Mekka, Will Call, E11even and others," Motwani said.

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Miami WorldCenter to begin construction soon

Amid an intensely competitive property market, leading developers have had to create a new business model in order to boost demand for their residential projects by building community malls and other facilities close to their projects.

This new type of approach has been adopted by companies aiming to sell out their residential projects and meet their targets, according to property experts.

For example, Sansiri has introduced a community retail project, Habito, at Sukhumvit 77, located close to several of its residential projects worth Bt8.7 billion in total.

The nearby projects are Blocs Sukhumvit 77, The Base Sukhumvit 77, The Base Park East Sukhumvit 77, The Base Park West Sukhumvit 77, Garden Square Sukhumvit 77 - an upscale townhouse development with prices starting at Bt10 million - and its latest condominium project, Hasu Haus.

These projects comprise more than 1,000 units in Sansiri's portfolio.

We Retail, the retail arm of Property Perfect, is investing Bt20 billion to develop four new community malls from last year through to the end of 2015. They are also located close to the developer's residential projects.

Two of the mall projects, worth Bt1.5 billion, commenced construction last year, with operations scheduled to begin in the final quarter of this year. They are Metro West Town, located at Kalapapruk, and Metro East Town, located at Sukhumvit 77-Lat Krabang.

One of the other projects will be situated on Ram-Indra, with retail space of 150,000 square metres and an investment cost of Bt6 billion, and the fourth on Ratchadaphisek, with retail space of 300,000 square metres at a cost of Bt12 billion.

Construction of these two projects is scheduled to commence next year.

Besides its community-mall development programme, Property Perfect has also sold land on Bang Na-Trat road to The Mall group for the development of a shopping mall, which will be located close to its Sky Sukhumvit condominium project.

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Residential firms turn to mall, other projects to boost sales

8 hours 47 minutes ago by Cody Proctor (cody@krtv.com)

GREAT FALLS -- The new Easter Seals-Goodwill store is set to open in Great Falls on Thursday.

The store's new location is at 1201 7th Street South, and has about 25,000 square feet.

The retail space accounts for about 15,000 square feet, much larger than the old store's 9,600 square feet.

The official grand opening of the new Goodwill store takes place on Thursday, October 9th, at 8 a.m.

(October 5, 2014) After months of construction, the Easter Seals-Goodwill's Great Falls Goodwill store is just a week away from its grand opening.

Step inside the Great Falls Goodwill store on Tuesday and you'll find a lot of empty space.

After years in their location near 9th Street, the store held it's last business day on Tuesday. After weeks of discounts, the pickings are slim.

But move over to the store's new location at 1201 7th Street South and the shelves are full.

Store manager Laurie Gorence says, "We've been producing in this location to fill it since September 15th. So by the time we get into, we have about three weeks worth of production and product on the floor. This is all new fresh product from donations that have recently come in."

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New Goodwill store opens on Thursday in Great Falls

North Jerseys Meadowlands, once home mainly to warehouses and industrial sites, will be getting a new mixed-use redevelopment with two hotels, 500 apartments and retail space in Rutherford.

The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission has approved amendments that Lincoln Equities Group LLC sought to the roughly decade-old redevelopment plan for its Highland Cross project.

Lincoln Equities is ready to proceed with the project, set for 26 acres near the intersection of Routes 17 and 3, said Joel Bergstein, president of the East Rutherford-based real estate firm. The property, a former brownfield site, fronts on Veterans Boulevard and is behind the Meadows office complex on Route 17.

Construction is likely to start in about 18 months, Bergstein said.

There is certainly a changing landscape in the Meadowlands, where communities are recognizing that mixed-use development is a good thing, he said. It helps bring ratables, which all the municipalities need. And its the next stage of evolution in the Meadowlands.

With North Jerseys office market still struggling to recover from the recession, and a growing demand for apartments, real estate developers are increasingly looking to build projects that incorporate residential, hospitality, retail and office space. The proposed plans for drug giant Roches campus, on Route 3 in Nutley and Clifton, call for mixed uses, including a hotel. And Hartz Mountain Industries Inc., whose original bailiwick was industrial real estate in the Meadowlands, has taken the mixed-use tack with great success in Secaucus.

Lincoln Equities officials anticipate an increased demand for hotel rooms when the American Dream project eventually comes online in East Rutherford. However, they add that Highland Cross can succeed without the huge new entertainment-retail venture.

The original redevelopment plan for the Rutherford property allowed the construction of 1 million square feet of commercial office space and a hotel.

But North Jerseys office market declined following the recession and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, prompting Lincoln Equities to look for other uses for the Rutherford site. The developer and the borough went back and forth for years on how the Rutherford site should evolve into a mixed-use project, in terms of the density of the residential units and other issues.

In pre-2007, before the financial crisis, there was a more ambitious proposal with high-rise residential buildings that arent appropriate in todays environment, said Robert Schenkel, Lincoln Equities senior director of development.

Originally posted here:
Rutherford industrial tract getting 2 hotels, 500 apartments, retail space

North Jerseys Meadowlands, once home mainly to warehouses and industrial sites, will be getting a new mixed-use redevelopment with two hotels, 500 apartments and retail space in Rutherford.

The New Jersey Meadowlands Commission has approved amendments that Lincoln Equities Group LLC sought to the roughly decade-old redevelopment plan for its Highland Cross project.

Lincoln Equities is ready to proceed with the project, set for 26 acres near the intersection of Routes 17 and 3, said Joel Bergstein, president of the East Rutherford-based real estate firm. The property, a former brownfield site, fronts on Veterans Boulevard and is behind the Meadows office complex on Route 17.

Construction is likely to start in about 18 months, Bergstein said.

There is certainly a changing landscape in the Meadowlands, where communities are recognizing that mixed-use development is a good thing, he said. It helps bring ratables, which all the municipalities need. And its the next stage of evolution in the Meadowlands.

With North Jerseys office market still struggling to recover from the recession, and a growing demand for apartments, real estate developers are increasingly looking to build projects that incorporate residential, hospitality, retail and office space. The proposed plans for drug giant Roches campus, on Route 3 in Nutley and Clifton, call for mixed uses, including a hotel. And Hartz Mountain Industries Inc., whose original bailiwick was industrial real estate in the Meadowlands, has taken the mixed-use tack with great success in Secaucus.

Lincoln Equities officials anticipate an increased demand for hotel rooms when the American Dream project eventually comes online in East Rutherford. However, they add that Highland Cross can succeed without the huge new entertainment-retail venture.

The original redevelopment plan for the Rutherford property allowed the construction of 1 million square feet of commercial office space and a hotel.

But North Jerseys office market declined following the recession and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, prompting Lincoln Equities to look for other uses for the Rutherford site. The developer and the borough went back and forth for years on how the Rutherford site should evolve into a mixed-use project, in terms of the density of the residential units and other issues.

In pre-2007, before the financial crisis, there was a more ambitious proposal with high-rise residential buildings that arent appropriate in todays environment, said Robert Schenkel, Lincoln Equities senior director of development.

The rest is here:
North Jersey's Meadowlands getting 2 hotels, 500 apartments, retail space

After years of being an eyesore to Evesham residents and those traveling along Route 70, the Tri-Towne Plaza will be transformed from a lot of vacant storefronts to a $25 million shopping center and apartment complex.

Evesham Mayor Randy Brown, in a Tuesday news conference, boasted that once the project was completed, the location, which would be renamed the Shoppes at Renaissance Square and the Residence at Renaissance Square, could potentially be "the most active site in Evesham Township."

The mayor noted it had been a long process to reach an agreement with the property's owner, RD Management of New York, about what should be done with the 20-acre site. The township had threatened to use eminent domain to seize the land before recently reaching the project agreement.

"I didn't think this day was going to come, but I'm very glad it did," Brown said. "We're on the same page. We're moving on to next year."

Developers and residents alike hope that part of the 180,000 square feet of retail space will include another grocery. Birdoff said that no retailers had been contracted yet, but that some have already started discussions with his team about moving in to the Tri-Towne Plaza. The last store moved out of the plaza a year ago.

No construction will happen until the township council and the planning board approve the plans for the site, though Brown said he was confident that the project, which will be completely funded by RD Management, could start next year.

"I would be hopeful that by early spring," Brown said, "we will have shovels in the ground to begin construction."

The township offered payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) as an incentive for RD Management to develop the property. Brown said that they were still months from an exact agreement about what kind of tax cuts the developer would receive, but added that "it is understood that they will have some sort of a five-year PILOT."

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Plans advance in Evesham to develop vacant plaza

SACO - On the other side of the Saco River, another long-awaited project is taking shape. Initial plans are to turn a vacant, 225,912-square-foot brick mill building on Saco Island into 150 market-rate apartments and retail space, according to Saco Mayor Don Pilon.

The 1841 building, referred to as the Saco Island West Building No. 4, has been empty for more than two decades, Pilon said. Its been eight years since plans were first discussed for the $100 million redevelopment of Saco Island. Several of its old buildings have since been renovated and rehabilitated, including Building No. 2, which houses the local Social Security Administration office and the popular Saco River Market.

Plans for the proposed apartment complex call for amenities such as an exercise room and a conference room, said Pilon, and a portion of it is being planned as commercial space for small, local entrepreneurs or local artisans to open up shops.

The building is under contract with Chinburg Properties Inc. of Newmarket, N.H., a development and construction firm that has more than 20 years of experience in New Hampshire and Maine, and specializes in single-family and multi-unit housing projects.

Eric Chinburg, the companys president, said Chinburg Properties has completed several mill renovations in New Hampshire communities and is now wrapping up a project in Amesbury, Mass.

There would not likely be a lot of retail (space), but there would be some on the east end near the main road, said Chinburg, of the Building No. 4 project. We would consider other uses for commercial in the lowest level, which could include artist space, and perhaps community space. The upper three floors would be 100 percent residential under our current vision.

According to Chinburg, the architecture of the mill itself and the general location near a river and downtown are the best amenities. We plan to do very nice apartments as weve done in other projects and take advantage of the high ceilings, beams and brick and large windows.

Chinburg said that Building No. 4 is a desirable piece of property because Saco and Biddeford seem to be growing and seem to be vital.

In addition, he has always had a passion for refurbishing old mill buildings.

You cannot recreate these structures today, Chinburg said. It would be cost prohibitive.

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Saco Island project progressing

BAY ST. LOUIS The new owners of the brick facade building at 111 Main St. will enhance the retail space on one side, open a coastal bistro on the other and rebrand the new development as The Shops at Magnolia Alley. Also in the plans is construction of exclusive apartments behind the building.

The Parrish family, who took over ownership last week, chose the name in honor of the Magnolia State Lumber Supply business that occupied the building from 1937 to the 1980s. The Phillips family created four retail spaces as part of the buildings post-Katrina makeover in 2008.

The current tenants Uptown Interiors, Bay Breeze, Biz-Zee Bee and Gourmet Galley all will remain under the new ownership.

Pass Christian architect Leah Watters is creating the Alley of Magnolia Alley on the side of the building where Uptown Interiors is. A new open air entrance off Main Street will lead to two side-by-side retail spaces running the length of the building, with a secure gated entry leading to the lobby of the planned three-story luxury apartments.

The two retail spots in the middle of the building where Gourmet Galley and Biz-Zee Bee are will be unchanged.

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New owners adding bistro to historic Bay St. Louis Main St. building

Construction is underway at the north end of Branson Landing where HCW Development, LLC, is adding new retail space.

HCW CEO Rick Huffman said its still uncertain what retailers may fill the space.

The tenants that we have, Im still under nondisclosure, he said. Theyre still working out various kinks.

The new 29,000 square feet of retail space will allow for an undetermined number of tenants, Huffman said. The amount of space each store requires will determine how many stores fill the three buildings.

Huffman said roughly 130 parking spots will also be added.

Huffman said there is good diversity of retail stores among interested parties, noting some restaurants could move in.

The estimated cost of construction is $1.5 million.

HCW was able to move ahead with further development after a lawsuit was settled over the ownership of the property.

HCW and the city of Branson has been involved in litigation with Douglas Coverdell and Coverdell Enterprises, Inc., since 2003.

The city and HCW also had lawsuits against insurance companies for their failure to cover legal costs protecting both entities claims to the land.

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North Landing set for May 2015 completion

Rick Kuhle (left) speaks about retail development as Kemper Freeman looks on.

SAN DIEGOWhile retail developers are busier than they were a few years ago, theyre still doing more redevelopment and repositioning of existing shopping centers than ground-up construction, said panelists at ICSC Western Division Conferences general session yesterday. The panel was titled, Development is Revving Up, but speakers said theres still too much available retail space on the market to warrant new ground-up development.

Moderator Kevin MacKenzie, senior managing director of HFF LP, said that on the spectrum of retail centers, outlet centers are the furthest along in the development cycle, while power centers are seeing the least amount of development nationally. Rick Kuhle, chairman and CEO of Vestar, noted that an increase in pension fund money going to real estatea new allotment from 6% to 10% among pension funds around the worldwhich will drive cap rates down. But, he added, pension funds will be the most aggressive buyers out there.

When asked which markets the panelists were focusing on in the West Coast and why, Kuhle said his firm targets markets where they can be the dominant center in that area in their subspecialty. He added, Our geographic diversity is that of our partnersthose are the areas in which they want to participate. Brad Geier, managing partner of Merlone Geier Patners, said his firm targets markets that are supply constrained with barriers of entry and infill locations within those markets.

Comparing this development cycle to the previous one, the panelists were cautious. Jeffrey Berkes, president, West Coast, of Federal Realty Investment Trust, said, Theres too much retail space in the US right now; its early on in the cycle, and Kemper Freeman, president/partner of Bellevue Square Managers Inc., added, We have a conservative standard for growth.

Kuhle said, Redevelopment has taken off over the last two years, and its in full swing, and other panelists agreed that redevelopment is strong, but ground-up development has not yet hit its stride because of the amount of space still available.

The panelists also agreed that mixed-use space is getting stronger for retail uses and that retail helps pull in apartment, hotel, theater, restaurant and even office users and drives up rents in most of those product types. The synergy of uses makes each of the components run better, said Geier.

Berkes said executing the ground floor of a mixed-use development correctly is the driver of its success. Above-retail space gets a 20% to 25% premium over what you would get down the street. He added since experts in most other property types dont know how to execute retail components, retail experts can have a leg up and create value in these developments.

In addition, the panelists agreed that todays retailers are finding a balance between online and bricks-and-mortar sales and using them in tandem rather than one fighting the other. Apple is the best retailer in the world, said Freeman, adding that on a recent Saturday afternoon at 2:00, he noticed a 1:1 employee-to-customer ratio in his local Apple store, which was hopping with customers.

Freeman noted that bricks-and-mortar retailers need to provide the customer with a great, emotionally fulfilling experience, and Berkes added, People are still social creatures. You must create some place people want to go, with ample parking, thats clean, exciting and different. Pick retailers that embrace that. Be a differentiated shopping experience; you cant be a commodity anymore.

Continued here:
Development Still Looks Like Redevelopment