NY tweaks housing conversion proposal for offices, hotels

New York State has tweaked its proposal for the conversion of offices and hotels to housing, limiting which buildings would be eligible. But some feel that the measure still doesn’t go far enough in creating new affordable housing.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s initial budget bill offered a temporary window for owners to override local zoning rules to turn vacant and struggling office properties into housing. Now, a series of amendments provides that only certain old office buildings and new ones in financial distress could be converted.

Specifically, the measure applies to office properties that either had a certificate of occupancy as of Jan. 1, 1980, or had one as of Dec. 31, 2020, and are also bankrupt or under receivership.

Two options for meeting the initial measure’s affordability requirements have also been eliminated. Hotels and offices that are converted must set aside 25 percent of residential units as affordable, through an agreement with the state’s housing regulator. In an earlier version, that threshold was 20 percent, and property owners could opt to use the property for supportive housing or pay into an affordable housing fund.

The amendments also shorten by two years the time that owners have to pursue such conversions. The law would expire at the end of 2024.

But some feel the measure largely incentivizes the creation of market-rate and luxury housing.

“Big picture, I don’t think this is the proposal we need right now,” said Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference. “On balance, this is going to add to our supply of luxury rentals.”

State Sen. Brian Kavanagh has pitched an alternative that would automatically approve certain hotels for residential use. Under a separate bill, hotels could be used to house low- to moderate-income tenants through an agreement with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

At least part of a hotel must be within 800 feet of a district that allows residential use to be converted into housing. Certificates of occupancy issued to such hotels would simultaneously be authorized for residential use. Unlike the budget measure, this bill would not expire.

In an interview, Kavanagh said his bill focuses on hotels because they are likely easier to convert than office buildings. The 800-foot clause aims to allow conversions in areas with necessary services, such as transportation, and not in manufacturing zones.

“We don’t want to lose hotels that we need just to create more luxury housing,” said Ted Houghton, president of Gateway Housing NYC, who advised on the Kavanagh bill. “We want to find hotels that are in real distress that can be used for affordable housing for homeless New Yorkers and those in need.”

Cuomo’s new budget language includes a change similar to Kavanagh’s bill, calling for every certificate issued for hotels to allow for residential occupancy as well, in cases where the developer has an agreement with the state to set aside units as affordable.

Like the rest of the budget bill, it does not define affordable housing but leaves that distinction up to the state’s Division of Homes and Community Renewal or the city’s housing agency. This provision would also expire in 2024.

“These proposals speed development through what would be years of bureaucratic processes by allowing for the conversion of unprecedented vacancies in commercial spaces to highly needed affordable and supportive housing,” Freeman Klopott, a spokesperson for the state Division of the Budget, said in a statement.

He noted that the 25 percent set-aside is a baseline requirement and that the budget bill leaves the door open for the state to impose further regulations.

The changes to Cuomo’s amendments have created some confusion over whether hotel and office conversions would be permitted in manufacturing districts. Klopott said such conversions would be allowed. The amendments, he said, would not affect residential conversions in districts where they are already allowed.

The geographical boundaries for hotels and offices eligible for conversions have also been changed. The budget bill would apply to office buildings below 60th Street in Manhattan, expanding the previous area, which was largely limited to Midtown.

The amendments reverse the boundaries set for hotels in Manhattan, now excluding those between the Financial District and 110th Street. Hotels north of that or outside Manhattan are eligible for conversions, according to the amendments.

The changes to the budget measure appear to ignore the concerns raised by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who complained that it supersedes local zoning and hands control to “wealthy real estate interests.”

Mitch Korbey, partner and chair of Herrick’s land use and zoning group, said the discussion of recycling existing building stock, especially to create affordable housing and help the city recover, is important. But he said several issues need to be addressed by the city and state.

“The question really is, how best to vet these ideas and how best to assess their impact?” said Korbey. “What does it mean for density levels if a building can just create hundreds of units in a former office building? If you can, what does that say about the ability of the local infrastructure to handle it?”

https://therealdeal.com/2021/02/24/state-tweaks-housing-conversion-proposal-for-offices-hotels/

Life Sciences Leasing Doubled in New York City Last Year

 

A LOOK AT POTENTIAL LAB AND OFFICE SPACE FOR LIFE SCIENCE TENANTS AT 125 WEST END AVENUE. RENDERING: PERKINS + WILL

The life sciences sector keeps proving that it’s pandemic-proof.

Leasing for the life sciences sector more than doubled around New York City between 2019 to 2020, reaching its highest level in nearly a decade, a report from CBRE found. 

All told, life sciences companies took 155,925 square feet of laboratory and other-related space around the city, the largest amount since at least 2011, according to the report. The bulk of that was in Manhattan, with 137,925 square feet leased in the borough. Contrast this with office leasing, which plunged 56 percent annually in 2020 in Manhattan.

What was especially positive for the sector was that the activity was driven by a whole crop of new life sciences firms moving to the city, said Steve Purpura, head of CBRE’s life sciences division.

“It wasn’t one big company taking that space,” Purpura said. “It was newer companies taking that space, and those companies grow quickly.”

The life sciences sector in New York City totaled 42 tenants at the start of 2020. That number grew to 59 at the end of the year, CBRE’s report found.

While the coronavirus pandemic decimated other industries — especially the retail and hospitality markets — it proved a shot in the arm for life sciences. The race for COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines erased a lot of government bureaucracy for the industry, with some hopeful it won’t come back. Meanwhile, investors have flocked to throw money around.

In New York City alone, funding from venture capital firms into life sciences totaled $907 million last year, its highest yearly amount ever, according to CBRE. And National Institutes of Health funding for companies in the city increased to $2.28 billion, the fifth year in a row that that number grew.

The life sciences market was growing pre-COVID — especially in places like San Francisco and Boston — but was held back in New York City due to a lack of available lab space, which hinders fast-growing companies who routinely need to upgrade to bigger digs, Purpura said.

“If you’re a newer company and you’re in a smaller lab, and you have some breakthrough that leads to some major influx of capital, you’re not going to want to wait 18 months for new lab space to be built,” Purpura said.

However, that started to change around the city, and it’s poised to continue with more life science projects in the works. The amount of New York City space that’s exclusively for labs stood at 1.68 million square feet by the end of 2020, and CBRE expects it to grow to 4.21 million square feet by 2025.

Projects in the works include Taconic Partners and Nuveen Real Estate’s 400,000-square-foot life sciences hub at 125 West End Avenue and Deerfield Management’s 300,000-square-foot biotech space at 345 Park Avenue South.

With more supply coming online and new life sciences firms cropping up daily, Purpura expects New York City to see even more leasing activity in 2021, especially as it becomes increasingly hard to find space in the Boston area.

“Boston suffers from a lack of supply and availability,” Purpura said. “We have incredible availability for the next 18 months.”

Even with New York City’s life sciences market booming, it’s still far behind the likes of Boston. Last year, firms absorbed 889,000 square feet of the life sciences space net in the Boston area, according to a report by Newmark. And, even if finding such space becomes tougher in Boston, the market still has 1.3 million square feet of life sciences under development.

Still, the increased demand, due in no small part to the pandemic, means that the sector is primed to move past the primary clusters like Boston, San Francisco and San Diego to secondary ones like New York, Raleigh-Durham and Austin — and even beyond. Purpura and others say companies are now starting to look to places like Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta and Pittsburgh for space.

While owners and landlords might want to rush to add life sciences for its portfolio, Purpura warned it’s not that easy. “I think everyone loves to hear and talk about life science,” he said. “It’s hard. It’s not for every building, it’s complicated infrastructure.”

Nuveen’s Nadir Settles, who’s in charge of the global asset manager’s New York City portfolio, previously told CO that owners need to understand what life sciences tenants look for in lab spaces and find the right buildings to be able to support them.

“You can’t just say this building is functionally obsolete, let me just take it, knock it down, and rebuild it as life science,” he said. “You have to be able to salvage some of the bones. For instance, the building at 125 West End used to be a Chrysler showroom, so you could understand how that was the right floor load, it had the right physical infrastructure.”

https://commercialobserver.com/2021/02/life-sciences-leasing-doubled-in-new-york-city-last-year/

Calif. city bans construction of new gas stations

 In the California city of Petaluma, which covers less than 15 square miles, there are currently 16 gas stations. But there will never be another one, even if one of the existing stations goes out of business. The ones that are left also can’t ever expand the number of fuel pumps, either, though they can add electric charging stations and hydrocarbon pumps. City officials recently approved a permanent ban on new gas stations in a move that climate activists say is national first, and a crucial step towards curbing our reliance on fossil fuels.

“It’s a really important sign of things to come where, because we haven’t seen sufficient action at a state or federal level, cities have an opportunity to do the right thing and make sure we are planning a transition from a carbon economy to a clean energy economy,” says Matt Krogh, an oil and gas campaign manager with the environmental nonprofit Stand.earth. “There’s no need to build new fossil fuel infrastructure of any sort. We have all the tools we need for a clean energy economy, and these wasted investments are things that are going to become polluting liabilities, and communities get left holding the bag.”

Across the country the number of gas stations has been steadily declining, as big businesses like Costo, Sam’s Club, and Safeway have been adding gas stations to their existing stores. This can run smaller gas stations out of business—but also creates large environmental repercussions. “If they go out of business, there’s no one to pay for the cleanup or to offer new services like transitioning to electric charging or hydrogen,” Krogh says.

Gas stations have underground storage tanks which can crack and leak, polluting the soil and groundwater. That land has to be completely remediated before the ocation can be used for anything else, a process which often costs millions of dollars. In the U.S., there are currently 450,000 “brownfield” sites—previously developed land that currently isn’t in use and may be contaminated—and the EPA estimates half of those sites are contaminated by petroleum from underground tanks at abandoned gas stations.

Fewer gas stations could also mean a quicker transition to electric vehicles. California will ban new gas car sales starting in 2035, but still, the more that gas stations are available before then, Krogh says, “the less people understand the need to start transitioning to electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.” Within the Stand.earth nonprofit is a movement called SAFE Cities, an acronym for “Stand Against Fossil Fuel Expansion,” which supports policies that oppose new fossil fuel infrastructure or transition away from fossil fuels. New gas station bans could soon be part of such policy packages nationwide, along with standards like no gas in new buildings and expanded EV charger access.

The fight against new gas stations in Petaluma, one of nine cities that make up Sonoma County, has been going on for nearly two years, since a local Safeway submitted a proposal to convert a corner section of its shopping center into a fueling station, right across from an elementary school, daycares, and a little league field, sparking public health concerns from the community. The city’s review process was limited in the amount of power it had to stop it, says Petaluma City Councilwoman D’Lynda Fischer.

“There was no way to deny the project, I thought, based on the merits,” Fischer says. So, instead she asked for a moratorium on new gas stations and a climate emergency ordinance to allow the council to reassess its rules on gas station construction. (Though the council voted unanimously on February 22 to approve the permanent ban, it has to approve it again at a second reading on March 1 before it takes effect.)

The ban won’t affect that Safeway station—that proposal is currently in the courts after local groups sued to stop its construction—but it’s a sign of the seriousness of the city’s plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2030, and could be a catalyst for more bans in the region. One activist group, the Coalition Opposing New Gas Stations (CONGAS), has been advocating for a Sonoma County-wide ban on new gas stations since late 2019, when it fought a proposal for a new gas station in a nearby unincorporated county.

After the group won, they discovered another new proposal, and another. “We realized we’ve got an ongoing issue here, where developers still want to build gas stations even though it’s [the 2020s],” says Woody Hastings of CONGAS. “We felt pretty strongly that we don’t want to have to keep stomping out fires. We want to change the permitting rule around gas stations.” He’s clear that the group doesn’t want to shut down existing gas stations, just prevent new ones from being built—and he says they’re actually doing these developers a favor, “because we do believe that the phase out of fossil fuel vehicles will come much more quickly than people think.”

Petaluma’s permanent gas station ban is a sign that this change is possible, even though the city hasn’t historically been a climate leader. “We’re actually behind when it comes to what needs to be done and what other communities are doing,” Fischer says. “We don’t have electric buses, we don’t have an electric fleet in our city, we just bought our first electric car. The city of Santa Monica started that 20 years ago, at least.” Now, though, Sonoma County residents hope others can look to Petaluma as an example to get other local governments to pass similar bans. “I hope everyone follows suit,” Fischer says.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90608706/this-california-city-banned-the-construction-of-any-new-gas-stations

Airbnb Tops Revenue Estimates, Analysts Bullish on 'Must-Own Recovery Stock'

 Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB) reported a loss of $3.89 billion for its fourth quarter. This translates into an $11.24 per share loss which is mostly driven by high IPO charges. The company went public in December.

ABNB generated a revenue of $859 million to top the $748 million expected from the market. It also reported 46.3 million nights and experiences booked, which is a decline of 39% compared to a year ago. The company generated $5.9 billion from gross booking value, representing a fall of 31% YoY.

“Our performance in 2020 showed that Airbnb is resilient and inherently adaptable. Travel is coming back and we are laser-focused on preparing for the travel rebound,” Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky said.

On guidance, ABNB said it expects “to have limited visibility for growth trends in 2021 given the difficulty in determining the pace of vaccine roll-outs and the related impact on willingness to travel.”

“ABNB generally reported a solid quarter out of the gate and remains bullish on the long-term opportunity. We continue to see the travel recovery as bumpy and slow, but believe ABNB is a must-own name for the recovery, which should likely start to play out this year,” Susquehanna analyst Shyam Patil wrote in a note.

Patil has a “Positive” rating on ABNB with a price target of $225.00. He calls ABNB a “must-own recovery stock.”

Credit Suisse analyst Stephen Ju left the “Neutral” rating unchanged but raised the PT to $162.00 from $156.00 to reflect near-term estimates.

“Circumstances which could push us to take a more constructive stance on ABNB shares include the following: 1) faster than expected substitution effect from traditional hotels to alternative accommodations for the travel industry as a whole, 2) faster or meaningful share gains within the alternative accommodations category, 3) optionality from rising monetization through payments and/or advertising,” he said in a memo sent to clients.

https://www.streetinsider.com/Analyst+Comments/Airbnb+%28ABNB%29+Tops+Revenue+Estimates%2C+Analysts+Bullish+on+Must-Own+Recovery+Stock/18041867.html

Texas grid users failed to pay $2 billion in charges on Friday - official notice

 Troubled Texas power grid operator ERCOT on Friday said $2 billion in charges for power and services went unpaid, according to an official notice, signaling the financial fallout from high electricity rates is spreading to utilities.

It will cover $800 million of the shortfall by borrowing from internal accounts, and will draw an undisclosed amount from grid users with credit balances. A spokeswoman was unavailable for immediate comment.

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-weather-ercot-shortfall/texas-grid-users-failed-to-pay-2-bln-in-charges-on-friday-official-notice-idUSL1N2KX00Z

Where the Industrial Pipeline Is

 New supply levels for industrial space will reach historical highs this year, as an expected 261.6 million square feet comes online in 2021. 

New research from CommercialEdge shows that nearly 28 million square feet of industrial space has already been delivered so far this year, with another 337.8 million square feet under construction. An additional 361.3 million square feet are in the planning stages, and some experts predict it’ll take years for supply to catch up to demand.

Shipping hubs in the Midwest have the largest new supply pipelines in the US, with Memphis boasting 12.2 million square feet of industrial space under construction (5.1% of stock) and Indianapolis following with 10.3 million square feet under development and another 9.4 million square feet in planning. Together, those markets account for FedEx’s two biggest air shipping hubs in the world and benefit from cheaper land and access to FedEx air hubs, rail, and interstate highways.

Conversely, new supply is stagnating in pricey coastal markets like Orange County, Boston, and Los Angeles. If demand picks up in those markets, rents are likely to increase as vacancies tighten.

Overall, industrial rents have increased by 5.1% over the last year, according to Yardi Matrix Expert, and the average rental rate for leases signed in the last 12 months clocked in at $7.50 per square foot. The average vacancy rate was 6%, and demand skyrocketed over the course of the pandemic, driven mainly by the expansion of e-commerce in response to COVID-related shutdowns.

“We expect that demand will continue to increase even if e-commerce does not match its blistering 2020 growth rate,” CommercialEdge says in the report. “E-commerce has a continued role to play, and last year likely signaled a structural shift in consumer preferences more than temporary changes in behavior. Retail as we knew it has changed, and in its place warehousing and distribution have increased in importance.”

Yet even if e-commerce growth levels off, CommercialEdge predicts other sectors will fuel the demand for industrial space. Retailers are looking to replenish inventories, which fell substantially in the second quarter of 2020, and filling that demand will drive the need for space. That in turn will sustain rent growth, drive vacancies lower, and lead to a spike in sales volume and the price per square foot for traded assets

“Large institutions are looking to increase their exposure to industrial real estate or get into the sector for the first time,” the report says. “With the cost of capital at an all-time low and many commercial investors spurning office for the time being, we expect that industrial prices will continue to be bid up for the foreseeable future.”

The fourth quarter of 2020 rang in the highest sales volume of any quarter since CommercialEdge began collecting industrial data, with $11.9 billion in deals at an average price per square foot of $100. That’s an 18.2% increase year-over-year.

https://www.globest.com/2021/02/26/where-the-industrial-pipeline-is/

Most Companies Failing To Adapt Workspaces to Post-COVID Reality

 For all office landlords’ fears of a realigned workplace that incorporates WFH and other post-pandemic strategies, it does not appear that most companies are adapting corporate workspaces to meet these future trends, at least according to new research from occupancy and analytics provider Locatee shows. 

The firm based its findings on interviews with corporate real estate managers across the US and says that most companies are being held back by “outdated” real estate strategies. Firms are conservatively upgrading workspaces, the report says, and companies are typically sticking with their existing configurations of assigned desks over hot desks, coworking, or shared spaces. Around 62% of CRE managers are planning to continue to use assigned workspaces, compared with 4% who plan to use activity-based spaces.  

Despite this opportunity to reimagine their working environments, firms are conservatively upgrading their workspaces and largely sticking with their existing configurations, the report states.  In turn, “very few firms will succeed in delivering on the very factors for which their workspaces are being changed.”

The report also shows that while CREMs have been historically viewed in a support role within large firms, they’ve gained strategic influence over the course of the pandemic. Two-fifths of those surveyed think that new level of influence will persist post-COVID, but despite that increased prominence, only 46% of CREMs have final budgetary sign-off. 

“CREMs still lack the decision-making authority to match their level of responsibility, and 62% of those interviewed stated that lack of stakeholder buy-in was a significant or very significant challenge, making it hard for them to convert their knowledge into tangible actions,” the report says. “This lack of budgetary control, despite elevated strategic influence, means CREMs face a significant barrier when implementing ground-breaking action around real estate strategies….This focus on business efficiency, both in the short and long term, is at the expense of emerging initiatives such as collaboration, employee satisfaction, digitization and talent attraction and retention.”

Nearly two-thirds of the CREMs surveyed by Locatee say physical offices will be the “focal point” for most occupiers over the next five years, though they also believe assigned workspaces will no longer be effective in achieving business goals. And nearly 90% say space efficiency will focus more on employees’ comfort than on density. 

“Despite the realization that change is needed, these business initiatives are not being prioritized accordingly,” the report says. “With their increasing influence, CREMs are the individuals best positioned to make budgetary decisions around workspace and real estate. Organizations must provide CREMs with the opportunity and authority to implement the long-term vision needed to change offices for the better.”

https://www.globest.com/2021/02/26/most-companies-failing-to-adapt-workspaces-to-post-covid-reality/

Fed Judge Finds CDC’s Eviction Moratorium Unconstitutional

 US District Judge John Barker in Texas has ruled that an eviction moratorium put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year and then extended until March is unconstitutional. The ruling does not affect states’ eviction moratoriums.

The judge did not issue a preliminary injunction.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit argued that the federal government does not have the authority to order property owners not to evict specific tenants; rather the decision whether to enact an eviction moratorium rests with a given state.

Congress does not have the authority to grant CDC this power, Barker found, who also said the moratorium could encroach on landlords’ rights under state law. 

“Although the COVID-19 pandemic persists, so does the Constitution,” he wrote.

The Hill, which first reported the news, said that legal experts expect the case to be appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

The Southeastern Legal Foundation, one of the groups that represented the plaintiffs in the CDC case, expects the ruling to be upheld. 

“We are preparing cases across the constitutional spectrum to defend against unrestrained government action,” said Kimberly Hermann, a lawyer with Southeastern Legal Foundation.

Southeastern Legal Foundation and Texas Public Policy Foundation jointly represented a coalition of residential landlords and property managers in the case.

https://www.globest.com/2021/02/26/federal-judge-finds-cdcs-eviction-moratorium-unconstitutional/

Texas Data Centers Stayed Online During Statewide Power Loss

 Texas' infrastructure was shown to be woefully unprepared this week when a historic winter storm forced the state energy grid to shed capacity, leaving millions of Texans without power for days. But one real estate segment was left largely untouched by the disaster.

Everyone else may have something to learn from data centers, and these facilities could even be tapped to help with any future capacity issues. 

Unsplash/NASA

During the systemwide disruption, data centers watched millions of dollars of investment pay off as backup generators and protocols established before the storm kicked in across Texas.

“We invest $10M per megawatt specifically for these days,” DataBank CEO Raul Martynek said of the eight facilities he has across Texas. “The rest of the year when it's not being used, it can seem like a real waste of money, but ultimately that's why we are doing this because of these one or two events.”

All three major Texas data center operators Bisnow spoke to — DataBank, Evoque and Skybox Datacenters — reported no data center failures in Texas this week, largely because they were prepared with redundancies even if they were taken off the statewide grid. 

Data centers have a type of backup battery that kicks in when utility energy is cut off, and this system keeps everything going until the generators take over, Skybox Datacenters Chief Development Officer Haynes Strader said. 

As long as backup generators have an ongoing supply of fuel, they can carry a data center's energy load without the help of utility power, Strader said. 

“That's why you spend an exorbitant amount of money building these data centers with all of these redundancies, so you can survive something you didn't plan for,” Strader added.

While Strader and Martynek saw all of their systems succeed and have heard mostly positive stories across the Texas data center space, at least two Texas data centers did go down for some time. An unnamed Dallas-based data center that supports health insurance provider Medi-Cal went offline during the inclement weather, causing frustration in California. And in Austin, the city data center reportedly lost power. 

But with data centers mostly self-sufficient during the storm, operators found themselves more stressed about infrastructure issues well beyond their control. Some Texas operators fretted about whether icy, untreated roadways would hinder employees' ability to make safe passage to the data centers to refuel their backup generators. 

“It would be great if the roads were a little clearer,” Martynek said. “It is a bit of a challenge for our employees. I'm at DFW1, which is our downtown data center, and the roads are to where it looks like Alaska here. You can't see the roads. You are driving on snow and half the street lights don't work.”

Martynek and Strader steered away from discussing what state or local officials should do to safeguard critical infrastructure during severe weather events, but roadway conditions are an area of top concern for big data.

“The challenge with an event like this week is that we've had bad road conditions and ongoing power outages for a long period of time, so those generators need to be refueled,” Strader said. “Many data centers have good fuel contracts where they are able to get fuel trucks in there, but if you have only one point of ingress and egress, and there are challenges on the roads, it can be hard to get trucks in.”

Wikimedia Commons

Data centers could be tapped to help in future winter storms or power crises, especially via agreements in which data centers agree to move capacity loads to generators during emergencies, allowing energy output to be transferred back to the public grid.

Evoque Data Center Solution told Bisnow it did just that, helping the Texas power grid reclaim a little bit of energy during the mass outages by voluntarily using its own backup generators. 

“[As] a commitment to the communities we serve, we chose to power our Allen data center by generator for 15 hours, returning multiple megawatts of power back to the grid. Our clients saw no interruption in uptime during that time,” Evoque said in an email.

The process is called power shedding, Martynek explained. And he's already seen successful agreements created in the U.S. where data centers agree to rely on their own generators during emergency situations in exchange for better rates. One such method is a state program called Load Demand Response, in which data center providers can take a lower power rate in exchange for going to generator power when there are emergencies.

“There are some of those programs today, but I think they could be bolstered and expanded,” Strader said.

In addition to power shedding agreements, Strader sees room for state and local leaders to craft incentive deals that allow data centers to better utilize their own facilities and tools to help municipalities. 

“The same thing could apply ... whether that's having a snowplow on-site that is available for city use in emergencies, or whether that's having salt storage [for salt trucks],” he said. “I think there are creative ways we can make it a win-win situation between the state of Texas and the companies investing in the state for their own use.”

https://www.bisnow.com/dallas-ft-worth/news/data-center/despite-arctic-inspired-panic-texas-data-centers-are-doing-alright-107802

Walmart closes 415 stores, Amazon shuts delivery stations as businesses face tough weather

 Walmart closed 415 stores and Sam’s Clubs and put together an interactive map to help Texas shoppers determine if their neighborhood location was open or not.

And if you didn’t see Amazon delivery trucks in your neighborhood Monday, the online retailing giant closed its delivery stations in Dallas-Fort Worth to protect its drivers from navigating treacherous roadways.

Businesses faced with unprecedented nasty weather across Texas, and elsewhere around the southern U.S., had to decide Monday if worker safety outweighed expectations that they’d be open for customers needing food and other essentials.

“We assess the status of our facilities and will continue to operate as long as it is safe to do so,” Walmart said in a statement. Its closings spanned 10 states, including Texas.

Walmart recommended customers check an interactive map it’s continuing to update before venturing out. Some closed stores continued to operate curbside pickup and delivery.

The prospects of a second snowstorm makes decisions trickier during what’s shaping up to be a week of sub-freezing temperatures.

“The safety and well-being of our employees, customers and the drivers who deliver packages are our No. 1 priority,” said Amazon spokesman Daniel Martin.

Amazon will continue monitoring the storm’s effects in Texas, and directed customers to check order status on its app or amazon.com. Martin said Amazon will continue to take orders, but the delivery promise date may be delayed depending on the item and location.

Grocery stores, one of the main stops for people riding out the storm, were open Monday but planned to close early.

Kroger, which usually keeps stores open until 1 a.m., was closing its doors at 8 p.m. Central Market’s Dallas-Fort Worth stores were shutting down at 6 p.m. Kroger will reopen stores at 8 a.m. Tuesday, two hours later than usual.

Empty shelves and freezer cases, reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic, are temporarily back at grocery stores.

Deliveries from the warehouse to stores took place Monday at a much slower pace, said April Martin, spokeswoman for Kroger. Most big chains have their own truck fleets but supplement with third-party drivers and vehicles.

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Kroger’s backup generators also weren’t working in many locations due to the rolling blackouts, Martin said.

Tom Thumb and Albertsons stores were closing at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, said spokeswoman Christy Lara. The plan is for stores to open at 8 a.m. Tuesday, “if it’s safe for associates and customers,” she said. Some Tom Thumb and Albertsons stores weren’t able to open on Monday due to power outages.

Target closed 20 stores across Texas on Monday and closed early at about 20 other locations in Texas, Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi. Stores will reopen “as soon as it’s safe,” the retailer said in an email. It’s updating hours on Target.com.

Dallas’ two main malls were closed Monday. NorthPark Center did not open. Galleria Dallas initially told shoppers to call individual stores before the mall shut down around noon.

Golden Triangle Mall in Denton also closed, along with Stonebriar Centre in Frisco and Firewheel Town Center in Garland.

It wasn’t just retail feeling the storm’s impact.

Bell closed its Fort Worth-area facilities, beginning with its 11 p.m. shift Sunday, and they’ll remain closed until 11 p.m. Tuesday. Bell designs and makes helicopters and autonomous delivery pods and works with Lockheed Martin on the V-280 Valor, a tiltrotor aircraft built for the U.S. Army.

Downtown Dallas Inc. CEO Kourtny Garrett said many of the central business district’s hotels, including The National and the Omni, were open and at least a couple restaurants were operating. The Flying Horse Café and the Crafty Irishman put their employees up in hotels.

Hotels also were helping to house first responders. Dallas Police Department staff were staying at the Lorenzo Hotel. And Garrett said most of the calls from downtown’s 12,000 residents were to report homeless people without shelter.

As far as electricity, Garrett said downtown towers were asked to turn off their lights. Reunion Tower confirmed that its signature skytop ball of lights would go dark Monday night. AT&T and its new Discovery District will also go dark, a spokesperson confirmed.

It’s not clear how much energy savings the city’s skyscrapers can generate, she said, but Downtown Dallas Inc. asked for nonessential lights to be turned off to assist the state’s stretched power grid.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/retail/2021/02/15/dallas-area-businesses-make-tough-weather-calls/