Build it up by tearing it down

That's the concept espoused by Michael Pollock: tear down old shopping areas and build high-density residential, or at least in Chandler, Arizona. "Housing would increase population, creating customers for infill retail spots, he said."

Of course, we've been seeing developments like this for a while in cities, and that can be really exciting. (I am an even bigger fax of mixed-use.) Lots of fun dirt and rezoning work to do, as well. You can even have environmental thrown in to the mix if your center had, oh, a dry cleaner. If you can sell the city poobahs on this one it can be a very profitable venture.

H/T Retail Traffic.

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Clients in the News - New City moving forward

I guess I can talk more about this deal now: in a followup to a previous Crain's piece, Globest.com reports that the New City mixed-use project being developed by Structured Development and Commonfund Realty at Clybourn and Halsted is a go. Dirt should finally start moving by January to meet construction milestones.

Why the delay? Well, you've gotta adapt to the market and changing conditions, and that makes a few months' delay worthwhile. Here, this means less residential and some more commercial/retail. As my friend Jeff Berta points out:

"We originally envisioned condo uses, but housing market conditions shifted, so we reduced the number of units in total to 280," Jeff Berta, senior director of real estate development with Structured, tells GlobeSt.com. "We also saw opportunities for hotel and theater entertainment uses, which we began to realize were a good fit with our location. We replaced some of those units with space for those commercial uses."

I have watched this development shape from day one, and, while I don't think it is appropriate to comment on all the inside workings, I can say its changes have been fascinating to me. And yes, I like the way Structured is able to do this at this location. The adaptations make so much sense on so many levels and doing apartments and commercial uses is the right idea right now. Note: my former colleagues and friends are spearheading the legal efforts right now, while my title company handles that end of the deal. But I can tell you this: New City's a fun project with a lot of complicated legal work being done, and I am excited about it.

There's also a little tidbit in the past paragraph about the Blackhawk-Halsted project across the street and the status of leasing.

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Is Orland Park blowing its new downtown? The Main Street Triangle may just be a sliver

I think they might be. Reports are that the village has decided to put off any bids for a new developer to take on the $100 million project until the fall. Why, why, why?

Related Midwest, based in Chicago, had been chosen approximately three years ago by the village to develop the triangle, but pulled out of the project in April, [village development services director Karie Friling] says. The village had a request for proposals, which was initially due in May and then pushed back until last month. “We had suspended it before we received any bids,” she says. The village halted the request because many of the interested developers had questions that village officials could not answer yet, she says.

These questions are presumably about the fate of a pretty old shopping center at the corner of 143rd and LaGrange that have some tenants with long term leases. Ummm....how about, buy them out?? And after all these years, how can the Village not only not have answers but need months and months of time to figure them out? The problem is that this project will lose traction and die on the vine. With business slow, now is the time to try and get developers at least interested in the project. They have time to think this through.

Let's face it, folks: Naperville this isn't, nor will it ever be. And support seemed awfully tepid, unless it was just the weather. I was at the ribbon cutting a couple of weeks ago, and the crowd for the ceremony and concert was almost outnumbered by the politicians in attendance. I will say this: the train station is very nice. But the pavilion they built in front of it is not especially attractive with oversize columns and a just plain feeling of "Why did they put this here?" It reminded me a little of Soldier Field. Blair Kamin would have a field day with this. And by the way, if this was pavilion was meant for concerts and music, the acoustics are just awful.

So, you south suburbanites, if you are waiting for a nice mixed-use, transit oriented development to go or even to live, don't hold your breath.

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Mixed-use, transit-friendly projects: Having clients ahead of the curve is fun

This is for a good and smart cause in a day and age of $4.00+ gas. GlobeSt.com reports that, at the Transwestern/Real Estate Forum Twelfth Institutional Investor Symposium, the hot topic was mixed-use, in-fill projects near mass transit. That was news to me, because I just assumed everyone's been doing this for years. Obviously I cannot take the credit, but I remember doing these deals very early in my career. So, you current and former clients of mine doing this cutting edge work, congratulations! You were a decade or so ahead of the game.

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