Editors’ Weekly News Roundup September 16 – September 20
With occupancy still exceeding 80%, Solomon Pond Mall in the Boston suburb of Marlborough, MA isn’t yet what would be considered a moribund retail property. However, its latest assessment is at a fraction of its 2012 value, the loan has been in special servicing for the past four years and its receiver believes that now is the time to begin exploring a sale. Connect CRE’s story on the property, Receiver Plans to Bring Marlborough’s Solomon Pond Mall to Market, was our most read for the week ending Sept. 19.
The transfer of this Simon-owned, 400,000-square-foot shopping center to special servicing reflected the impact of the pandemic on brick-and-mortar retail. Similarly, remote working by office employees took hold in much of corporate America during that time.
Since then, though, many large employers have turned away from the remote working model and now expect employees onsite at least a few days per week. Last week, Amazon joined those ranks.
As reported in Amazon Calls Employees Back to the Office by Jan. 2, 2025,CEO Andy Jassy has established a timetable for workers to begin showing up five days a week. “Before the pandemic, it was not a given that folks could work remotely two days a week, and that will also be true moving forward — our expectation is that people will be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances,” Jassy wrote in a memo to employees. The story was our second most read of the past week.
Coming in third among our top five stories last week was a report on a massive development in North Texas. The Honey Creek project detailed in Sprawling McKinney Development Could Span over 1650 Acresis one of several that Dallas-based Republic Property Group has in the works, including another in McKinney.
The project could include as many as 10,500 homes in a mix of housing types, including both single-family and multifamily. At present, it’s going through the approvals process; due to its scale, the development would require the establishment of a district by the state Legislature.
On the subject of scale, Connect CRE is best known for presenting the day’s most important news in 150 words or less, rather than deep dives into sprawling subject matter. However, we published just such a deep-dive story last week on the universe of non-traditional lenders, quoting no fewer than 13 experts.
The Capital Markets: Who’s Still Lending and Howranked fourth among our most read stories for the week, featuring insights from leading alternative capital sources. The upshot of the story: it’s possible to get most deals financed—if you have all your ducks in a row. The story is the latest in our series of “cover stories,” meaning that it will be featured prominently on Connect CRE’s home page for the next few weeks.
The Federal Reserve hadn’t yet held the September meeting of its Federal Open Market Committee when interviews for the cover story were being finalized. However, a rate cut was a widely expected outcome of that meeting, as reflected in some of the story’s quotes. Sure enough, the FOMC did the expected—but also did the unexpected in lowering the federal funds rate by a larger percentage than most industry members anticipated.
Appearing first as breaking news on our sister websiteConnect Money and then on Connect CRE a few minutes later,Federal Reserve Slashes Rates by 50 Basis Pointswas our fifth most read story last week. We added observations from CRE experts to our republication of the original Connect Money story.