Editors’ Weekly News Roundup June 16 – June 20
Although the once-ubiquitous department store brand is no more, it can’t be denied that Sears had a knack for location—which explains the track record of selling former Sears stores for redevelopment. A case in point is the most-read story of the past week on Connect CRE, Simon Buys Former Boca Raton Sears Store.
The 180,029-square-foot department store shell that Simon Property Group acquired had been vacant for seven years, but the 1.77-million-square-foot mall surrounding it continues to thrive. It’s not yet clear what Simon, which owns the Town Center at Boca Raton, intends to do with its ownership of the former anchor store.
Moving from a local perspective to a global one, the week’s second most-read story took a macro view of the commercial real estate market. Hines Sees Global Real Estate Set for Accelerated Growth reported that the firm’s 2025 Global Mid-Year Outlook sees conditions running parallel to a favorable 16-year period for CRE that was last experienced between 1966 and 1982.
During that time period, said Hines CIO David Steinbach, “real estate performance accelerated due to income growth driven by scarcity, discipline and rising replacement costs.” Similarly, today we’re seeing global construction falling off compared to historic averages, “yet demand has remained.”
Ranking third in the past week’s top five was a cross-border story centered on Greater Chicago. The foreign investor in this case was a railroad; readers learned in Canadian National Railway Co. to Invest $170M in Chicago Region that the investment will support both routine track maintenance and strategic infrastructure initiatives in the state, including efforts toward the construction of the Chicago Logistics Hub.
Although its main trackage runs from coast to coast in Canada, CN is hardly a newcomer to the Midwestern U.S. “CN has been a tremendous community partner across Will County for many years,” said Hugh O’Hara, President of the Will County Governmental League.
The week’s fourth most-read story also focused on the logistics sector, albeit on the West Coast rather than in the Midwest. Stream Breaks Ground on Four-Building Industrial in Oxnard told readers of a 738,000-square-foot project in the North Los Angeles industrial submarket.
Known as 101 Logistics Center, the development includes buildings ranging in size from 109,050 to 308,561 square feet. Per Stream Realty Partners, it’s designed to meet the demands of modern occupiers, including last-mile, e-commerce and fulfillment operations.
The fifth-ranked story in the top five stayed with industrial work and returned to the Chicago region—specifically, the city’s South Side. Here, though, the idea is not so much to facilitate the transport of goods as to smooth the way for the transport of people.
In Chicago Midway International Airport Starts on $47M Project, we reported that the project will repave Runway 13C/31C–Midway’s main runway—and its intersecting taxiways, upgrade airfield geometry to meet federal standards, and install new safety features, including runway guard lights and a dedicated emergency access road. The Chicago Department of Aviation is angling for financial support from the federal government to cover the bulk of project costs.
The latest edition of Weekender is highlighted by another midyear perspective, this one from Cushman & Wakefield. It notes changes in the capital markets environment since the start of the year, especially when it comes to tariff uncertainty, but predicts that “demand conditions for most property subtypes and most markets will remain resilient.”