Commercial Real Estate Finance

Posts Tagged ‘tourism’

Today’s Top 10 comes from Integra Realty Resources’ Viewpoint 2013, which includes data from Smith Travel Research. Though hospitality real estate was among the worst-hit CRE sectors during and after the recession, there are signs of substantial recovery in select markets, such as those below. Here are the Top 10 Hospitality Real Estate Markets of 2012:

10. Dallas, Texas

9. Orange County, California

8. San Diego, California

7. Boston, Massachusetts

6. Los Angeles, California

5. Miami, Florida

4. Chicago, Illinois Read the rest of this entry »

Secondary markets host plenty of economic and real estate activity, but much of this progress fails to gain national attention. I’m sometimes puzzled by the bandwagon mentality that brings real estate investment to a select few gateway markets. New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. certainly offer great stability and high demand, but what about yield? What about new opportunities?

Some are beginning to look more closely at secondary markets in their search for yield. Some are beginning to challenge the notion that investment capital should only flow to the so-called “safe harbors.” With some searching and a little creativity, one may find a strong value-add opportunity in a market with higher cap rates or older inventory.

To discover a market’s CRE opportunities, we have to look to its overall economic activity. What industries are growing? Which submarkets offer the best opportunities? Is the market bringing in more professionals, students, tourists?

Atlanta, Georgia is a perfect example. Atlanta is one of the biggest and most prominent cities in the South, yet its real estate market has languished behind others in its recovery from the recession. In fact, a Jones Lang LaSalle report listed Atlanta as one of the “Top 10 Hospitality Markets in which to Sell.” This shows how crucial tourism will become to Atlanta’s growth.

Last fall, I discussed a new attraction coming to Atlanta: the College Football Hall of Fame. Such a unique, nationally known attraction is essential to a market’s ability to attract residents, visitors, and capital.

The challenge, as always, is funding. Read the rest of this entry »

The Ravens won this year’s Superbowl, and the 49ers made a respectable comeback in the second half, but the real winner of last Sunday’s game (other than Beyonce) was the city of New Orleans.

The half-hour power outage notwithstanding.

Considering the fact that this Gulf city has experienced two of America’s worst environmental tragedies in the last decade (Katrina and the BP oil spew), the metropolis has made a remarkable recovery, strengthening its infrastructure and image to reclaim its position as one of the nation’s most popular tourist destinations.

To be sure, it didn’t happen overnight. CNBC’s Brian Shactman explains,

…the effort has not been easy, and the cost has not been cheap. Here are some of the numbers: Approximately $365 [million] was spent upgrading the airport. The Mercedes Benz Superdome received a $336 million facelift. Hotels spent hundreds of millions to upgrade facilities, and even the street car system got almost $150 million.

More importantly, Shactman points out,

…the infrastructure is now in place for future events: BCS title game, Final Four, etc. And the expectation is that the Super Bowl will be back sooner than the 11-year gap between the last two.

When we’re talking about rebuilding a city’s infrastructure and most crucial industry, seven years is actually an incredibly brief time period, even for a city as small as New Orleans (which has a population smaller than Wichita’s).  Read the rest of this entry »

Mensch:

Noun, informal. A decent, upright, mature and responsible person.

Schlemiel:

Noun, slang. An awkward, clumsy, or unlucky person whose endeavors tend to fail; a loser.

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Mensch of the Week:

Stephen Starr, Starr Restaurants

I’m a little embarrassed that it’s taken me this long to do a proper post on Philadelphia restaurateur and taste-maker Stephen Starr, whose Starr Restaurants organization has done as much as anyone to revive Philadelphia’s Center City and Old City neighborhoods. Mr. Starr’s development of unique restaurants has boosted the area’s appeal to both locals and visitors, and his many accolades include being named “Restaurateur of the Year” by Zagat and “Mensch of the Week” by the Llenrock Blog.

Since my writing is totally biased in favor of Philadelphia’s CRE news, the establishments driving this area’s culture and reputation are major interests for me.

Mr. Starr has been in the restaurant hospitality business for decades, and his many restaurants include such well-known eateries as the Continental, Buddakan, and Morimoto (co-owned with the Iron Chef of the same name). Read the rest of this entry »

Commercial real estate is complicated. In recent months, I’ve discussed many of the concerns CRE investors must consider–local/global economics, politics, market conditions, culture, law, asset types, and so much else–and still I’ve barely scratched the surface. This industry doesn’t exist in a vacuum; when it comes to CRE finance decisions, everything is relevant. So it’s no surprise many developers, fund managers, principals, and others spend untold hours researching a particular opportunity before committing. Something as apparently straightforward as a multifamily or retail property deal can be riddled with what-ifs.

As if this industry weren’t complex enough, Saudi Arabian developer Jabal Omar Development Co. has found a way to make it even more complicated by adding one unlikely element: religion.

Bloomberg reports the developer is planning to construct not one but ten new hotels to accommodate the unrelenting flow of religious pilgrims to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. Bloomberg’s article explains, Read the rest of this entry »

Happy 4th of July!

In a Top 10 List that’s at least vaguely linked to this national holiday, here’s a list of the Top 10 Most Historic U.S. Cities:

10. Savannah, Georgia. This is the state’s oldest city, established in 1733.

9. San Antonio, Texas. Established in 1718 around the Alamo Mission, the future location of the city was first visited by the Spaniards in 1691.

8. New Orleans, Louisiana. Surprisingly, most of the famous historic architecture you see in this unique city is of Spanish pedigree despite its more common association with the French.

7. Charleston, South Carolina. Established in 1670, although a little northwest of the present location, today’s city was built starting in 1680.

6. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The official founding of the city as we know it today began with William Penn’s 1682 ambitious grid-layout that still marks the modern foundation of the city’s planning. However, a little know fact is that there were colonists who inhabited parts of what is today’s Philadelphia as early as 1637.

5. New Castle, Delaware. New Castle dates to 1651, when it was founded as an outpost of the Dutch West India Company… Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Memorial Day. In addition to honoring the memory of America’s fallen troops, this holiday has come to mark the unofficial start of summer. In the Northeast, this is the weekend vacationers start going down to the shore ( “down the shore” if you’re coming from Philadelphia). For many towns on the coast, this is the start of a few-months tourist season that must sustain the local economies for the rest of the year. Unfortunately, this has become increasingly difficult since the Recession.

Unlike Miami, San Diego, or Las Vegas (which recently hosted the ICSC RECon), places like the Jersey shore only get one brief season to draw in tourists;  the period between now and Labor Day is absolutely essential. But the battered real estate market has created significant economic problems for such areas.

Read the rest of this entry »

Top 10 International Cities for Tourism:

10. Darwin, Australia

9. Orlando, FL, US

8. Hong Kong

7. Santiago, Chile

6. Guimaraes, Portugal Read the rest of this entry »

Here are the Top 10 Most Visited Tourist Attractions in the United States:

(Based on the number of annual visitors, in the millions…)

10. Navy Pier, Chicago

9. Great Smokey Mountain National Park (Tenn/N.C.)

8.  Niagara Falls, NY

7. Fisherman’s Wharf/Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco

6. Disney Land, Anaheim, CA

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are the 10 worst places in the U.S. for job seekers:

(Based on the number of unemployed people per posted job)

10. Orlando, FL (2.11)

9.  St. Louis, MO (2.33)

8. Rochester, NY (2.31)

7. Memphis, TN (2.33)

6. Sacramento, CA (2.70)

5. Detroit, MI (2.75) Read the rest of this entry »