Editors’ Weekly News Roundup August 12 – August 16

Although office-to-residential conversions often aren’t as cut-and-dried as some believe they would be, there have been some notable successes. The current owners of 222 Broadway in Lower Manhattan’s Financial District hope to add their project to that roster, and their plans for doing so were the basis of this past week’s most-read story on Connect CRE. 

FiDi Office Tower Poised to House 800 Apartments reported that TPG and GFP Real Estate have filed plans to convert 222 Broadway at an estimated cost of approximately $44 million. Readers in New York and nationwide gravitated to the story during the week ending August 17, which may illustrate an example of an opportunity for conversion at an attractive basis. Even with conversion costs factored in, the current ownership of 222 Broadway will have paid approximately 60% less than its previous owner did in 2014. 

That said, it’s to be hoped that the apartment market trend reported in the past week’s second most-read story will have passed by the time the 222 Broadway conversion is completed. Online residential marketplace Zillow sees landlord concessions on the rise, which we reported in Zillow: One Third of U.S. Apartment Listings Offer Concessions. 

The trend is most pronounced in a handful of Sunbelt markets, with six major metro areas in the region seeing more than half of apartment listings offering concessions to prospective tenants. Conversely, a few metro areas have seen year-over-year declines in concessions. 

Even as pricing in the office sector has slipped, the same can’t always be said about valuations. Derived from a report by the New York State Comptroller, NYC Office Market Values Surpass Pre-Pandemic Levelsinformed Connect CRE readers that market values for New York City office buildings reached nearly $205 billion in fiscal year 2025, up 4% from FY 2020.  

Newer construction was largely responsible for the growth, said Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. Here again, the story, our third most-read for the week, resonated with both regional and national readers. 

If New York office values are up, then the same can’t be said for returns on core funds. The National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries’ latest NCREIF Fund Index – Open-end Diversified Core Equity (NFI-ODCE) remained in the red.  

However, as was implied by the headline in our fourth most-read story–Core Real Estate Fund Returns Stay Negative but Improve–things are looking up. The NFI-ODCE total return for the second quarter of 2024 was -0.45%. That’s up from -2.37% in the previous quarter. 

Not one to keep a low profile, Hines has been especially active in 2024, as evinced by the Hines headlines across Connect CRE’s national coverage map. The Houston-based owner/developer/fund manager figured in the fifth-ranked story for the past week. 

This particular Hines story concerned the opening of a Dallas residential tower it developed in partnership with Mitsui Fudosan America and McNair Interests. Hines Debuts 345 Uptown Dallas Residences, Officesculminated a redevelopment built around the historic Maple Terrace building, whose original designer is commemorated with a craft bar named in his honor.