Editors’ Weekly News Roundup October 28 – November 1
When manufacturing is in the news in 2024, more often than not it entails a tech-forward sector. That was the case with the past week’s most-read Connect CRE story, which focused on Locus Robotics, a provider of AI-powered warehouse automation.
Robotics Maker Opens New Headquarters in Northern Boston Suburbswas the headline and the occasion was the launch of Locus Park, a 157,000-square-foot build-to-suit in Wilmington, MA. It can accommodate a local workforce of 400, twice as large as the one that is currently housed there.
Another regional story of sorts was the week’s second most-read selection on Connect CRE. In fact, it was a story with national implications, although it originated at one of the regional banks in the Federal Reserve system. Analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York put together a white paper that carried a warning about the practice of many lenders to extend the terms on troubled commercial real estate loans.
Titled NY Fed: “Extend and Pretend” Increases Risk to Financial System,the story summed up the main arguments in the white paper. One is that banks with ‘weaker” marked-to-market capital levels tend to drive the current cycle of extending and pretending—itself a throwback to a widespread practice during the Great Recession. Another is that keeping problem loans on the books hurts lenders’ ability to make new loans.
On the subject of CRE distress, a story from Portland, OR tied in with a trend which, if far from widespread, is being seen with increasing frequency. The lender in Portland Office Building Returned to Lenderwas Nuveen, which had foreclosed on the Five Oak Building this past August and took back another Portland office property last year in a deed-in-lieu transaction. It was the past week’s third most-read story.
Even as rubble on the site of the former Tropicana hotel-casino in Las Vegas remained from the property’s recent demolition, Bally’s Corporation began providing details on what will be built in place of the Trop. Readers of A’s, Bally’s Release Early Development Plans, our fourth most-read story, learned that Bally’s and the Oakland Athletics are coordinating their development plans.
The Major League Baseball franchise plans to open a new stadium in time for Opening Day 2028, while Bally’s plans to have a portion of its new resort property operational when the ballpark opens. Both the stadium and the new Bally’s property will occupy the former Tropicana site.
Elsewhere in the Southwest, another sports-related development project rounded out the top five for the week. Developer Obtains $425M Loan for Massive S. Arizona Sportsparkprovided the details of the financing, which will support the first phase of a Tucson development known as Mosiac Quarter. Knott Development will be the tenant and developer of Mosaic Quarter, expected to break ground this month. Pima County is the lessee. BWE originated the financing.