Category Archives: Places

Luxury building boom continues in New York City

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The housing market may still be somewhat sluggish throughout the country but the luxury market continues to grow in NYC:

New York City developers will spend 60 percent more on new homes this year, while adding only 22 percent more units, a sign of the market’s tilt toward luxury condominiums, the New York Building Congress said.

Spending on new housing will reach $10.9 billion, the most in records dating to 1995 and $4.1 billion more than last year’s total, the trade group said in a report released today. The number of homes that money will build is 22,500, up from 18,400 in 2013.

A record wave of ultra-luxury condo projects planned or under construction in Manhattan accounts for the “wide disparity” between costs and unit production, said Frank Sciame, chairman of the New York Building Foundation, the trade group’s philanthropic arm…

Even as construction spending increases, the number of homes produced still falls far short of the 30,000-plus built annually from 2005 to 2008, the building congress said. In 2008, the city gained 33,200 units at a cost of $5.9 billion.

This echoes the larger housing market in the United States: while the market for cheaper or more affordable homes is slow, the luxury market still has plenty of builders and buyers. And we are talking about New York City, one of the places to be for the wealthy and influential.

The article also hints that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio promised lots of affordable housing in the next ten years. Having more luxury condos doesn’t necessarily preclude also building cheaper units but the statistics above suggest overall building is down. What big-city mayor could truly turn down or fight luxury projects? Cities desperately need such money even as they need to find ways to help promote housing for more average residents.

What will the closed CPS properties become?

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When the Chicago Public Schools closed nearly 50 elementary schools (part of the story of the series Chicagoland), they noted it would be difficult to sell many of these properties. Well, the first one just sold:

The Chicago Board of Education on Wednesday unanimously approved the sale of the former Peabody Elementary school site and building to the Svigos Asset Management company for $3.5 million.

The site at 1444 W. Augusta Blvd. was one of only three closed schools that reached a bid stage for a potential sale.

The other two — the former Marconi Elementary in West Garfield Park and Wadsworth Elementary in Woodlawn — will receive new bid solicitations from the school district. CPS said both the closed schools “failed to generate qualifying bids.”

The board also unanimously approved the sale of the district’s soon-to-be-vacated headquarters at 125 S. Clark St. to Blue Star Properties for $28 million.

This is a minimalistic explanation that leaves out some very important information. Like:

1. Were these fair prices for the properties? The suggestion that other properties haven’t sold does hint that CPS is asking a decent amount.

2. How are these properties going to be used? Perhaps it doesn’t matter once they generated some revenue and are now off the hands of CPS.

It still sounds like this could be a drawn-out process.

Continued mansionization debates in Los Angeles

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The Los Angeles Times reports that controversy over mansionization in Los Angeles continues as the city struggles to develop guidelines that will please residents:

Los Angeles leaders say they want to tighten restrictions on mansionization, but citywide fixes are expected to take at least 18 months to allow for repeated hearings and environmental review, according to city officials…

Local politicians and planning officials say that L.A.’s rules against mansionization — meant to prevent bloated houses from being built on modest lots — have fallen short. The restrictions, put in place six years ago, curb the size of new and renovated homes based on lot size. But the rules also include “bonuses” of 20% or 30% more space than otherwise allowed…

In the meantime, city planners have suggested temporary rules to curb demolitions and give residents “breathing room” in neighborhoods that have mobilized against mansionization, including Sunset Square, Studio City and North Beverly Grove.

The Los Angeles chapter of the Building Industry Assn. is worried about those moves, saying that the temporary restrictions could “result in a flurry of lawsuits.” Homeowners have not been given enough warning about the restrictions, which “will immediately remove property owner rights,” the group’s chief executive, Tim Piasky, said.

Planning officials say the temporary restrictions would immediately address the problem in mansionization hot spots: desirable areas with older, smaller homes targeted for teardowns…

“It creates a situation of haves and have-nots,” said Traci Considine, whose Faircrest Heights neighborhood has been recommended to get temporary curbs on home demolitions. “If you do a few Band-Aids for a few select neighborhoods, the target is just bigger on the backs of the neighborhoods that aren’t protected.

Los Angeles is a big city so having city-wide regulations could be quite difficult. Austin passed a noted anti-McMansion ordinance but the city has 885,000 people in 272 square miles while LA has 3.88 million residents in 503 square miles. In addition to size differences, real estate in California is huge: the housing market is still quite pricey so limiting the ability of property owners to cash out is a bigger restriction than in the cheaper Austin market.

I would guess that the long-term solution is different guidelines for different neighborhoods in accordance with what residents desire. Yes, this might push the mansionizers to different neighborhoods. But, this is how communities often tackle this problem.

Chinese homebuyers flood LA suburb with big homes

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Bloomberg examines an influx of large-home purchases by Chinese buyers in Arcadia, California:

A year ago the property would have gone for $1.3 million, but Arcadia is booming. Residents have become used to postcards offering immediate, all-cash deals for their property and watching as 8,000-square-foot homes go up next door to their modest split levels. For buyers from mainland China, Arcadia offers excellent schools, large lots with lenient building codes, and a place to park their money beyond the reach of the Chinese government.

The city, population 57,600, projects that about 150 older homes—53 percent more than normal—will be torn down this year and replaced with mansions. The deals happen fast and are rarely listed publicly. Often, the first indication that a megahouse is coming next door is when the lawn turns brown. That means the neighbor has stopped watering and green construction netting is about to go up.

This flood of money, arriving from China despite strict currency controls, has helped the city build a $20 million high school performing arts center and the local Mercedes dealership expand. “Thank God for them coming over here,” says Peggy Fong Chen, a broker in Arcadia for many years. “They saved our recession.” The new residents are from China’s rising millionaire class—entrepreneurs who’ve made fortunes building railroads in Tibet, converting bioenergy in Beijing, and developing real estate in Chongqing. One co-owner of a $6.5 million house is a 19-year-old college student, the daughter of the chief executive of a company the state controls.

Arcadia is a concentrated version of what’s happening across the U.S. The Hurun Report, a magazine in Shanghai about China’s wealthy elite, estimates that almost two-thirds of the country’s millionaires have already emigrated or plan to do so. They’re scooping up homes from Seattle to New York, buying luxury goods on Fifth Avenue, and paying full freight to send their kids to U.S. colleges. Chinese nationals hold roughly $660 billion in personal wealth offshore, according to Boston Consulting Group, and the National Association of Realtors says $22 billion of that was spent in the past year acquiring U.S. homes. Arcadia has become a hotbed of the buying binge in the past several years, and long-standing residents are torn—giddy at the rising property values but worried about how they’re transforming their town. And they’re increasingly nervous about what would happen to the local economy if the deluge of Chinese cash were to end.

Interesting look at how this affects one particular community. It seems to bring together several issues that might trouble the average American suburbanite:

1. An influx of immigrants. This is happening across the suburbs as many new immigrants move directly to the suburbs. At the same time, there are a number of ethnoburbs in the LA region so this is not unknown.

2. An influx of immigrants from China. The United States has an interesting current relationship with China and Americans didn’t treat Chinese immigrants well in early California. A large group of wealthy foreigners from a country with a huge economy and shadowy government might make some nervous.

3. This big money means older homes are being torn down and replaced with big houses. A large number of teardowns in an established community tends to attract attention as the homes can change the character of neighborhoods as well as raise prices (though this is also presented positively in this story as long-time residents can cash out).

All together, this rapid change will be worth watching.

Several of Chicago’s most dangerous intersections the result of diagonal streets

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A new list of the most dangerous intersections in Chicago for pedestrians includes several with three streets:

The six-way intersection of Milwaukee, North and Damen avenues on the North Side is the most dangerous junction for pedestrians in Chicago, according to a list released by the advocacy group Active Transportation Alliance…

There were 43 crashes involving either a pedestrian or a bicycle at the Milwaukee/North/Damen intersection from 2006 through 2012, the highest number of any city intersection for that period, the group found…

“There are proven solutions to make crossing these intersections safer,” said Kyle Whitehead, a campaign directorat the alliance, said Tuesday. “Things as simple as improving the markings on a crosswalk or installing a pedestrian countdown signal can make a difference.”…

The three most dangerous intersections in Chicago were Milwaukee/Damen/North; Cicero and Chicago avenues on the West Side; and Halsted Street/Lincoln Avenue/Fullerton Parkway in Lincoln Park.

It makes sense that some intersections with more streets involved are more dangerous: there are more routes for vehicle traffic and pedestrians have to navigate more crosswalks while having to look in unique directions for potential danger.

Yet, I was struck by two features of these diagonal, and potentially dangerous, streets.

1. The diagonal streets have a long history preceding the efforts of Americans to impose a grid on the Midwestern landscape:

Well, it turns out that most of Chicago’s diagonal streets were originally Native American trails. No, really. Milwaukee Avenue (originally West Plank Road), for example, was once a buffalo route that led to the Chicago River. Eventually settlers moved in, kicked the Native Americans out, and started building taverns along the trail. Once there were taverns, homes and businesses cropped up and the street thrived. Sound familiar? These diagonal paths in the city (Lincoln was Little Fort Road, Elston was Lower Road, Ogden was Southwestern Plank Road) became plank toll roads, and then finally regular streets that serve as some of the major arteries of Chicago.

In other words, the diagonal streets were more direct routes between settlements.

2. Diagonal streets are one of the features of Daniel Burnham’s lauded Plan of Chicago. Such roadways cut through a grid, providing quicker access into and out of the center of the city. However, only one major diagonal was even extended as the result of Burnham’s plan: Ogden Avenue was extended to go closer to the lake. Burnham had a number of avenues intended to radiate out from his proposed Civic Center which was never constructed. (Read more in this booklet in honor of the centennial of the Burnham Plan.)

The New York Times has compared many places to Brooklyn

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The New York Times has been fond of comparing Brooklyn to all sorts of places including Oakland, Beijing, New Orleans, The Hudson Valley, and Everywhere. What might be the effect of doing this?

Beyond beards and Girls (or why NYT trend pieces are problematic), I always wonder how the residents these cities feel about being deemed a Brooklyn-like place. I also wonder what it’s going to do to their property prices.

There are two reasons: First, studies show that a prestigious sounding name adds value to a neighborhood. For example, researchers found that buyers were willing to pay a 4.2 percent premium for the term “country.” The Brooklyn dream branding has become a certain kind of prestige to young professionals looking for housing. They loosely know what real estate being “Brooklyn” means: cool neighbors, artisanal food shops, Zagat-rated restaurants and bars. It’s the stylish land of Blue Bottle coffee and No.6 clogs. The sell is: It has places you want to be and people you want to be around.

This narrative is problematic because it is unfairly discounting vast parts of the borough that’s not being gentrified in this specific way, which is why so many Brooklynites hate Brooklyn trend pieces. But it’s also just another way of saying it has a specific set of amenities that are appealing to a certain group—Brooklyn has become a euphemism for a kind of urbanism that millennials like.

Interesting that both reasons above deal with the hip, cool side of Brooklyn that appeals to young people. They imply that Brooklyn has become a trendy brand, even if many of its residents don’t see these benefits. Being a trendy brand also likely means that the frequent comparisons will stop at some point as Brooklyn (1) becomes less cool and (2) other neighborhoods, perhaps in New York City and perhaps elsewhere, become the places to be.

At the same time, I wonder why the Times has to make such comparisons at all. Is it because it helps their readers understand unfamiliar and foreign places? Or is it because New Yorkers think they have the best places (New York exceptionalism) so they impose their vision on other contexts?

Biologist estimates 2,000 adult coyotes living in Chicago

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A biologist says there are at least a few thousand coyotes living in Chicago:

Stanley Gehrt, a biologist from Ohio State University has been studying and tracking coyotes in Chicago for over 14 years and has estimated that there are roughly 2,000 adult coyotes living right here in the Windy City. If pups are included, this estimate could double to roughly 4,000 coyotes in Chicago. Gehrt has tracked over 800 coyotes in Chicago since 2000 using GPS collars and found that coyotes live everywhere in the city – including the densely populated downtown area. According to researchers, more coyotes are moving into dense urban areas because they’ve become adaptive over the years. They’re resourceful animals and can thrive in different types of climates.

If the numbers are growing, we expect more contact with humans. If I had to guess, city dwellers – just like suburbanites in recent years – will often be quite surprised by such encounters.

It’s too bad this short blurb doesn’t add any more information about the City of Chicago plans to respond to coyotes. Would politicians gain or lose points by limiting the population of coyotes or allowing them to grow? You don’t want to cross a lot of owners of small dogs…

Chicago’s O’Hare set to become world’s busiest airport again?

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Officials suggested O’Hare Airport is on pace this year to become the world’s busiest airport:

O’Hare International Airport is on pace to again be the world’s busiest airport, a designation it lost a decade ago, Chicago city officials noted Wednesday.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport wrestled the top honor away from O’Hare in 2005 and has held onto it since, according to the official flight count by the Federal Aviation Administration. Before that, O’Hare had bragging rights to the title since the dawn of the Jet Age, when it surpassed the number of flights at Midway Airport, which had been the leader.

From January to August of this year, more than 580,000 flights departed or landed at O’Hare, according to the FAA. City officials say part of the growth is due to international passenger volume, which through the first half of the year rose 8 percent at O’Hare, to 5.2 million passengers, and rose 15 percent at Midway, to 289,300 passengers. In the last 18 months, O’Hare and Midway International Airports welcomed six new international airlines and added dozens of new destinations.

“O’Hare isn’t just the busiest airport in the world, it’s an asset for the City of Chicago,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement. “These new gains will help us attract new businesses and solidify our place as the best connected city in the U.S. and around the world.”

A distressing lack of data here as we get some numbers about the flights at O’Hare but no data about Hartsfield. But, if true, this would give something Chicago to brag about again (reinforces Chicago’s position as a transportation hub which is part geography in the middle of the country and located near the southern end of one of the Great Lakes as well as the construction of transportation infrastructure) though I suspect frequent fliers will be less thrilled.

Additionally, is there any correlation with this data and the recent rise in complaints about noise from O’Hare?

The new High Line extension opens

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I thoroughly enjoyed my one visit to the High Line in New York and I look forward to seeing the new section that recently opened:

Officially titled The High Line at the Rail Yards, this is the park’s third section, extending from West 30th to West 34th Streets, bounded by 10th and 12th Avenues on its east and west. With this extension, visitors are now able to explore the former elevated railway-turned-park in its entirety, from its southern end at Gansevoort Street, up to its new northern terminus at 34th Street — an impressive 22 blocks. The 10th Avenue Spur, incorporated into the Hudson Yards mega-development, remains unfinished and will open towards the end of 2015, in tandem with the 52-floor tower that will straddle it.

A few nice pictures here. Also, as this brief description hints, there is some interesting potential for interaction between the new parts of the park and nearby buildings.

Naperville now at #33 of Money’s Best Places To Live

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As little as a decade ago, Naperville was at the top of Money‘s Best Places to live (#2 in 2006) but it comes in at #33 in 2014. Here is the description of the community:

Naperville, a regular on MONEY’s Best Places to Live list, consistently draws families for its highly rated schools and safe neighborhoods. Yet unlike many Chicago suburbs, a vibrant downtown also gives Naperville a cosmopolitan feel. People run or stroll along the four-mile long brick Riverwalk, which hugs the DuPage River that runs through downtown. The pedestrian-friendly city center has more than 50 restaurants (pizza lovers will find both wood-fired varieties and Chicago’s signature deep-dish style on offer), as well as art galleries, boutiques and live music clubs.

Many residents do the 30-minute train commute into Chicago but local jobs are plentiful too: Naperville is located on the Illinois I-88 technology and research corridor and home to major companies like ConAgra and OfficeMax.

The big complaint around Naperville? Traffic. Rush hour can be brutal, and you can find yourself suddenly sitting in gridlock at any time of day.

What has changed?

1. The description mentions traffic. This is particularly bad going north-south in Naperville as the major highways goes east-west. You don’t want to be stuck on Route 59 on the western edge of Naperville, a road full of people traveling to Naperville as well as other burgeoning suburbs like Aurora and Plainfield.

2. Is something lost in the size of the community? Maybe, maybe not – the #1 place is McKinney, Texas which has a population around 140,000.

3. The methodology for the rankings might have changed. Here is how the found the Best Places To Live for 2014:

Next, we narrow down the list further by excluding places with a median family income of more than 210% of the state average or a median home price of $1 million or more. Then we use a proprietary formula to rank the remaining cities according to 45 factors in eight categories: Economic opportunity and jobs, housing affordability, education, crime, health, arts and leisure, ease of living, and diversity.

We give the most weight to the first four factors, and evenly represent the major regions of the country (West, Northeast, Midwest, South). That leaves us with about 100 cities…

Economic opportunity is based on purchasing power, foreclosure rate, tax burden, and state’s fiscal strength. Job opportunities is based on income growth, county employment (not seasonally adjusted), and projected job growth. Housing affordability is based on median home-price-to-income ratio and average property taxes. Education is based on test scores, educational interests and attainment, and percentage of kids in public schools. Health is based on number of doctors and hospitals in the area and health of residents. Crime is based on property and violent crime rates. Arts and leisure is based on activities in the town and area, including movie theaters, museums, green spaces, and sports venues.

If the first four factors matter more, Naperville might hampered by the state of Illinois’ fiscal strength and higher housing prices than a number of the top-ranked places. Looking further down the list, crime might be up some in Naperville.