Editors’ Weekly News Roundup May 5 – May 9
National news dominated the top five roster for the past week’s most-read stories on Connect CRE. Ranking first was a contributed article from Coldwell Banker Commercial which reported that 44% of global family offices plan to expand their exposure to commercial real estate over the next 18 months.
Family Offices Are Doubling Down on CRE in 2025 explored the market dynamics of this investor sector and provided guidance on how to engage with them. Among other guidelines, the article pointed out that family offices prefer off-market deals to widely marketed offerings.
In second place was the outcome of ongoing negotiations between Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management and Howard Hughes Holdings (HHH). With the $900-million investment reported as breaking news in Pershing Square Investment Enables Howard Hughes to Become Holding Company, the developer will seek to become a diversified holding company by acquiring controlling stakes in public and private operating companies while continuing to invest in and grow its core real estate development and Master Planned Communities business.
Although Pershing Square’s CIO will assume the same role with HHH and Ackman will become executive chairman of the board, the management team will otherwise remain unchanged. CEO David O’Reilly and his team will remain in their current posts with expanded roles and responsibilities.
Apartment development has been a very busy industry post-pandemic, sometimes at the expense of local market fundamentals. However, our third most-read story of the past week informed readers that new supply and demand are getting back into alignment as the pace of construction has slowed.
As a result of the equilibrium reported in U.S. Multifamily Absorption Posts Strongest Q1 Since 2000, the national vacancy rate dropped by 20 basis points in the first quarter of 2025, coming in below the long-term average. Simultaneously, investment sales volume for apartment properties rose 33% year-over-year.
On a smaller scale but arguably even more dramatic as far as comebacks go, a discount chain that declared bankruptcy and shuttered all its stores last year is returning, albeit on a limited basis. Big Lots Back in Business in SE USA, a regional story covered on our Atlanta page, reported that Variety Wholesalers has taken over hundreds of leases and will operate the stores as Big Lots.
Totaling 54 stores, locations in the Carolinas and other Southeastern states comprise approximately one-quarter of the Big Lots sites that Variety is reopening throughout the spring. That said, Big Lots operated as many as 1,400 stores before filing for Chapter 11 protection this past September.
Connect CRE regularly covers development milestones of individual multifamily properties, but only a few such stories ever make the top five in readership for the week. The most recent to do so is Ray Begins Leasing at Harlem Apartments Atop National Black Theatre, which ranked fifth for this past week.
National Black Theatre (NBT) and Ray are partners in the redevelopment of the site at 2035 Fifth Ave., which has housed NBT since its founding in 1968. Known as Ray Harlem, Ray’s flagship building comprises 17 stories of apartments atop 27,000 square feet of space owned and operated by NBT.
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