Market Data
Regional Outlook
South
Orlando’s Big Deal
Location, location, location
convinced Hyatt Hotels Corp. to buy its sixth hotel in the Orlando market — the
Peabody Orlando adjacent to the Orange County Convention Center. Hyatt
purchased the 1,641-room hotel for $717 million cash from UST Hotel Joint Venture
Ltd. in October. The deal gives Hyatt an instant convention presence in the
nation’s second-largest hotel market and is expected to bring in before-tax
earnings of $55 million in 2014 according to the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately the Peabody ducks
that parade through the lobby every day were not included in the deal.
North
National
Conversion
Trend Aloft
The opening of Aloft Tulsa in the
former city hall in Tulsa, Okla., exemplifies the hotel brand’s new growth
strategy: converting older urban buildings. Hotels are opening in rehabbed
structures in Orlando, Fla., Tampa, Fla., Miami, Detroit, Calgary, Alberta, and
Atlanta in the next two years. Those join converted properties already opened
in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Calif., Nashville, and Tucson. The brand is
aiming for 100 hotels worldwide by next year, according to Simon Turner,
Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ president of global development. Geared toward a
younger generation of travelers, Aloft views adaptive reuse as in keeping with
millennial’ ideals. “Adaptive reuse projects aren’t just an expedient way to
bring more Aloft properties online quickly; they’re also a way to expand
sustainably, and merge Aloft’s urban aesthetic with historic structures,” he
said. “For the next generation of traveler, how we grow Aloft is just as
important as where we grow Aloft."
Walmart
Scales Down
Walmart is happy enough with the
performance of Walmart Express pilot stores to consider greenlighting the
format nationwide, according to Bill Simon, president and CEO, in recent
remarks. The 20 pilot express formats
range between 10,000 sf to 15,000 sf and offer groceries, pharmacy, and gas,
competing directly with drugstores, dollar stores, and small grocery stores. Simon
also said that Walmart is increasing the number of Neighborhood Markets, a
40,000-sf grocery format that features fresh produce, from 300 to 500 in the
next 18 months. “This is one of the fastest-growing formats in retail,” he
added.
East
Pittsburgh Industrial Snapshot
“Second-quarter
industrial vacancy was 8.8 percent, which may encourage speculative
construction. Pressure on class A occupiers of warehouse/distribution space
mounts due to lack of available class A space in excess of 125,000 square
feet.”
—
Jones Lang LaSalle
Southwest
Phoenix
Market Report
Arizona State University’s W. P.
Carey School of Business and the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice
introduced a new commercial real estate report in 3Q13 for the Phoenix market.
Consisting of survey results and anonymous comments from active commercial real
estate brokers, the report provides a “boots on the ground” look at where
apartment, industrial, retail, and office vacancy rates and rents are headed in
the Phoenix metro area, as well as survey results and comments on investment
fundamentals such as interest rates, cap rates, and investor returns. The
report is available at www.wpcarey.asu.edu/realtyreports. ASU is CCIM
University Alliance member; graduates of its master’s of real estate
development qualify for CCIM’s fast track program: www.ccim.com/membership/university-fast-track
Midwest
West
