Mayor urges New Yorkers to limit power usage as some areas see outages

 Mayor Bill de Blasio asked New Yorkers Wednesday to limit power usage as the intense heat wave continued.

“I'm asking every New Yorker to be a part of this, turn off anything you don't need to be on right now,” de Blasio said at a news conference with emergency response officials. “If you can wait until tomorrow to use certain appliances, wait. This is what we have to do."

The mayor said the city was seeing a number of localized outages across the five boroughs, including in Williamsburg, where 1,700 customers were without power Wednesday afternoon. Across the city, Con Edision reported 3,400 customers without electricity. 

"The most important message now is we don't want to see things go from bad to worse," de Blasio said.

Con Edison brought in crews to assist Williamsburg residents and supplied dry ice to help keep food cool, officials said. An air-conditioned MTA bus was also brought in to serve as a cooling center.

The mayor warned there could be more outages over the next few days if New Yorkers don’t limit their power usage.

"The most important message now is we don't want to see things go from bad to worse," said de Blasio.

Wednesday marked the fourth day of the heat wave. With readings near 100 degrees, it was the hottest day since September 2015. 

This June has had the most 90 degree days in 30 years.

"This is a really big strain being placed on our electric system by this level of heat for this many days," said de Blasio.

The mayor also reminded New Yorkers that if they do not have access to air conditioners, the city has opened cooling centers across the five boroughs. For more on how to access these services, call 311 or visit nyc.gov/beattheheat.

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/weather/2021/06/30/mayor-urges-new-yorkers-to-limit-power-usage-as-some-areas-see-outages

76% Of San Francisco Voters Want More Cops As Crime, Appalling Street Conditions Get 'More Brazen'

 A recent poll conducted by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce found that 76% of residents want more police in high-crime neighborhoods, at a moment people are fleeing the liberal, extremely high cost of living west coast city in droves, heading for places like Austin in Texas.

A seemingly endless amount of public funds have also been poured into "solving" the homelessness problem that has (along with sky high taxes) been plaguing San Francisco, adding to residents' desire to get out of the city.

Fox writes of the survey among 520 registered voters who reside in the city that "Roughly 80% of those polled said addressing homelessness is a top priority. About 76% of those polled want more cops in high-crime neighborhoods, the report said."

And here's some key conclusions from the new poll, according to one local prominent online magazine:

Well, somewhere around 40 or 50 percent of people living here — people living here who respond to polls, that is — say they plan to leave in the next few years. And many of these people have told pollsters that the city's biggest problems these days are crime, homelessness, and "street behavior."

Rapidly deteriorating "street conditions" - which includes everything from feces all over public sidewalks, to needles littering community areas, to vagrancy, theft, and the ever present threat of harassment - are further leading respondents to answer in the following ways, as detailed by SFist...

• This year's poll, like last year's, found 70% city residents saying that quality of life in the city has declined. 80% of residents polled said that addressing homelessness needs to be a high priority for the city, and 88% said that the problem had gotten worse in the past few years.
• 71% also said that "street behavior" has gotten worse. And 80% of San Franciscans support expanding conservatorship laws and making it easier to forcibly commit the mentally ill for treatment.
• Also, 76% of San Franciscans said that it should be a high priority for the city to increase the number of police officers in high-crime neighborhoods, and 60% supported prioritizing funding for police academy classes and recruiting new officers.

This also as The San Francisco Chronicle has noted that "tourists are back" after a long COVID lockdown in much of the city, but this has translated to thefts becoming "more brazen".

City data shows a whopping 753% jump in car break-ins for May 2021 when compared to figures from May 2020. This might account for the surprising rise of a "bring back the police" mentality in one of America's most progressive cities.

...Though we doubt that those polled would actually admit to "wanting more police" publicly, or in front of their friends and neighbors.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/76-san-francisco-voters-want-more-cops-crime-appalling-street-conditions-get-more-brazen

U.S. home prices rose in April at fastest pace in 15 years - S&P/Case-Shiller

 U.S. single-family home prices in 20 key urban markets rose in April from a year earlier by the most in over 15 years, a closely watched survey said on Tuesday.

The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas gained 14.9% through the 12 months ended in April, the largest annual price increase since December 2005. A Reuters poll of economists had forecast a 14.5% increase.

On month-to-month basis, the 20-city composite index rose 1.6% from March. Economists polled by Reuters had been expecting a 1.7% increase.

Home prices have surged nationwide in large part due to limited supply.

Last week, the Commerce Department reported that sales of new U.S. single-family homes fell to one-year low in May as expensive raw materials such as lumber continue to increase prices of newly constructed houses. Also, the National Association of Realtors said sales of previously owned homes fell for a fourth consecutive month in May.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-home-prices-rose-april-132351593.html

Over 300 NYC Construction Sites Shut Down For Safety Violations

 

Unsplash/Josue Isai Ramos Figueroa

The sites were shut down as part of the city's "Zero Tolerance" safety sweep

A slew of stop work orders were handed down to New York City construction sites in the past few weeks as part of major safety crackdown from the Department of Buildings.

A total of 322 work sites were shut in June as part of the city’s “Zero Tolerance” safety sweep announced at the start of the month, ABC News reports, citing a new report released today by the DOB.

The department said when it announced the sweep it would be inspecting thousands of sites, and any contractors found to be breaking rules would face penalties of up to $25K. Inspectors were checking for adherence to safety regulations and site safety plans, and looking at the use of harnesses and fall arrest systems.

"Construction deaths are not acceptable. In order to prevent avoidable fatalities, we need better information about construction sites and we need to learn from our mistakes that put workers at risk. This new report does just that," Robert Cornegy Jr., a member of the City Council and chair of the Committee on Housing and Buildings, told ABC.

DOB Commissioner Melanie La Rocca earlier in the month said that the sweep was in response to what she described as a “spate” of worker deaths in the city. Back in April, the DOB announced five new construction safety bills were being introduced to the city council and a set of code revisions. The new laws will be debated next month, per ABC, and would require all general contractors to be licensed by the DOB.

In announcing the stop work order, the DOB said that construction injury numbers decreased in 2019 and 2020, with a total of eight deaths last year.

In May, a worker at a building site in the Queens neighborhood of Maspeth died when he fell from scaffolding. In April, the DOB fined Gotham New York $59K for safety violations at a condominium site in Williamsburg where a worker died, per The Real Deal.

It is not the first time La Rocca has run a blitz on construction safety. In early 2020, the DOB changed the Facade Inspection & Safety Program, known as Local Law 11, requiring landlords to inspect their building exteriors more intensely and have to display information about the safety of their buildings in their lobbies. The ramped-up rules were introduced after two people were killed by falling building facades in the city within a month.

https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/construction-development/nyc-closes-more-than-300-construction-sites-for-safety-violations-109374

NYC’s move to reduce building carbon emissions will destroy real estate, construction

 New York City’s new law mandating a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions coming from buildings leads to a split verdict.  The widely touted good news: New York City will be leading the nation and the world in forcing its building owners to comply with extremely ambitious carbon emissions criteria. 

The overlooked bad news is that New York City, which has the largest concentration of major buildings in any city in the world, is imposing draconian requirements which are both short sighted and highly destructive to not just the real estate industry in New York but every other major industry that currently forms the economic foundation of this great City. 

MICHAEL De CHIARA

This legislation is just the latest in a series of anti-business and anti-competitive actions, the cumulative effect of which is rapidly destroying the viability of New York City as a leading global economic center.

There is a real concern that between New York State’s and New York City’s taxing policies, and the anti-business actions taken at both the city and state level by their respective legislatures, New York City is in a serious tailspin which will be extremely difficult if not impossible, to reverse. 

Historically, New York City has had its ups and downs over the course of the last 50 years. Not that long ago, New York City was the industrial capital of the country, with industries ranging from machinery, manufactured products, garment manufacturing, commodities processing as well as being the major port for the United States and the headquarters to many of the Fortune 500 companies in the country.  That all changed and New York City went into a severe decline, hitting its rock bottom in the late 1970’s.

With great effort and intelligent and inspired leadership from the private sector, New York City though diminished, reemerged and has been able to sustain its position as America’s preeminent city.  This was accomplished, in significant part, by not over taxing those existing industries; by not creating a hostile environment between and among various businesses and industries and the city itself; and by politicians who finally realized that they had to have a welcoming environment for business.  Notwithstanding all of that, what really allowed New York City to remain relevant was not the most hospitable business environment but rather its ability to provide various white collar industries with an unmatched pool of talented young professionals. 

However, increasingly that demographic is being drawn to other parts of the countryThe best and the brightest young professionals are no longer looking at New York City as the most desirable place to start their careers, due to a combination of poor government, over regulation and over taxation.  Rather, areas like North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas are now magnets for this demographic because of the advantages they offer in tax relief, low cost housing and potential jobs with burgeoning new businesses that don’t particularly need to be located in New York City.  It would have been unthinkable even a decade ago that New York City would lose out on a major employer like Amazon to Nashville, Tennessee. 

Exacerbating this trend, as the businesses flee New York City, the tax base is being eroded and there will be less economic resources available to support social programs and the public museums, parks and other activities that have historically drawn young people to New York City. 

It is in this context that legislation like Local Law 97, as laudable as its goals may be, must be examined.  There are several key industries that currently sustain New York City.  Among them are the financial industry, which no longer has any particular need to be in New York City; the real estate industry, which is wholly dependent on the economic viability of New York City and which will be severely and negatively affected by Local Law 97; the healthcare industries which likewise will be severely adversely affected by Local Law 97; the burgeoning high tech industries, which will only be sustainable if the pool of bright young professionals can be convinced to stay in New York City; and the institutions of higher learning which will also be adversely affected by Local Law 97.  With Local Law 97 imposing draconian penalties on major real estate holdings in New York City the net effect will likely be to accelerate New York City’s economic decline. 

Those of us who lived through the decline of New York City in the 1960’s and 1970’s will recall that New York City “came back” through a combination of inspired private sector leadership and lack of alternatives for our financially oriented businesses to relocate elsewhere.  We do not have those factors to rescue New York City this time around.  Instead, we have a government at the state and local levels which is comprised mainly of individuals who believe that they can continue to over tax and overregulate both businesses and individuals and that no matter what they do, New York City will miraculously bounce back.  Similarly, we do not have the Felix Rohatyn’s, John Zuccotti’s, John Whitehead’s and David Rockefeller’s who were all committed New Yorkers and who along with many others, went above and beyond to rescue New York City.

I sincerely hope that my perspective on this situation is incorrect but, unfortunately for the City that I truly love, unless serious and significant changes happen now, this City will quickly and dramatically be permanently diminished and become a mere shadow of its former self.

Michael K. De Chiara is a senior partner at Zetlin & De Chiara LLP, a law firm focused on Construction Law

https://rew-online.com/how-nycs-move-to-reduce-building-carbon-emissions-will-destroy-real-estate-construction-industries/

Not Just Covid Causing Materials Woes, So Don't Expect Relief Soon

 Englewood Construction is all set to build a hotel in suburban Joliet, but as with so many construction projects these days, there’s a hitch. Before it can get to work, the company needs an elevator for what will be a four-story building, and the supplier has said it will be a long wait. Instead of the normal 12-to-14-week delivery schedule, it is going to take between 26 and 28 weeks.

All builders are dealing with escalating construction costs, but it is the lack of an elevator and the accompanying materials that is going to delay the entire project for months and push back the hotel’s planned opening, according to Chuck Taylor, director of operations for the Lemont, Illinois-based contractor.

“That’s why what hurts us almost as much as the costs is the lead time for materials,” he said.   

Courtesy of Englewood Construction

A Take 5 Oil Change under construction by Englewood Construction earlier this month in suburban Oak Lawn

Troubled material supply chains have had contractors and owners in every commercial real estate sector scrambling throughout the year to secure construction materials, as well as deal with price increases. And with so many critical supplies, including steel, HVAC equipment and elevator cables, running short, it’s imperative to make sure the materials are available before breaking ground on something new. That is forcing many to make tough decisions, such as which projects can be tackled now and which go on the backburner or even need to be canceled.

“It doesn’t make sense for us to start a project which we’ll eventually have to stop and wait for the elevator equipment,” he said.

And it seems likely that the industry’s troubles will last for some time.

“So far, we’re not hearing anything about supply shortages being mitigated,” Colliers International Executive Vice President Michael Lirtzman said. “A lot of material vendors are struggling to fulfill orders that were placed months ago.”

Colliers recently published a study of construction materials price increases based on an analysis from Power Construction Co. and found the price of drywall increased between 20% and 50% since February. Other critical supplies such as wood materials saw increases of 56%, while plumbing copper prices went up 30% and HVAC sheet metal increased 40%.

Supply chain problems weren’t caused solely by the coronavirus, so it will take more than the spread of vaccinations to return to normal, according to Sandya Dandamudi, president of GI Stone, a Chicago-based firm that sources, fabricates and installs custom stone for clients nationwide. 

“A perfect storm of Covid shutdowns, container shortages and a tight labor market has significantly increased our material costs,” Dandamudi said in an email. “For instance, India processes stone from all over the world, and they’re having a problem getting the raw materials because of Covid-related quarry shutdowns and tariff issues. At the same time, there is an increased world demand as everyone wants to remodel their homes.”

Courtesy of GI Stone

GI Stone at 1420 West Hubbard St. in Chicago

A surge in online shopping greatly increased demand for containers, she added, pushing up container space pricing by between 60% and 70%. Congested ports and labor shortages have also led to longer processing times.

“All of these issues have happened, but not all at the same time as it is now,” Dandamudi said. “I had two containers sit in a railroad in Chicago for 10 days because there’s not enough people to examine the containers and unload them. That is unheard of.”

Taylor said recent storms in Texas have added more burdens to the industry by further delaying the deliveries of critical materials already clogged up by the many supply chain issues.

“These are not just supply delays caused by Covid or a global slowdown,” he said.

Large landlords may have an advantage in overcoming both the shortages and the elevated prices, Lirtzman said. He advises them to take advantage of their scale and place bulk orders of the critical materials they will need such as drywall, even if they don’t plan to immediately start the construction projects and even if it means having to store supplies on-site. It may not be easy, as so many companies are fighting to secure materials, but suppliers may focus more attention on big players.

“They will work hard to satisfy their biggest customers,” Lirtzman said.

Taylor said he recently saw the first signs that conditions may improve.

“We’re hearing anecdotally from the industry that the prices and lead times are going to stabilize by Q4 2020,” Taylor said.

“But that may not be enough,” he added.

Englewood, which builds senior living communities, restaurants, cannabis outlets and in other sectors, has as healthy a backlog of potential projects as it ever had. If other builders are in similar positions, even if the supply logjam breaks and prices moderate, there will be so many projects getting underway that it may still be impossible to smooth out construction schedules.

“The delayed projects are just going to cause the same effects we’re seeing now at the end of Q4,” Taylor said. “We’ll be going through the same cycle all over again.”

https://www.bisnow.com/chicago/news/construction-development/clogged-supply-chains-and-high-construction-prices-may-last-for-a-long-time-109354

U.S. Needs Another 330M SF Of Warehouse Space By 2025: CBRE

 E-commerce growth is driving the demand for warehouse space so strongly that the U.S. will need 330M SF of new space by 2025 just to keep up with online retail, according to a new CBRE report. The brokerage predicts there will need to be 1.5B SF of new warehouse space globally over the next four years.

Romlogstics/Wikimedia

The challenge for the industry will be to keep up with that demand, which is expected to grow regardless of the future course of the coronavirus pandemic, which is still raging in many places. CBRE predicts continued higher e-commerce penetration in many markets worldwide, including the U.S., with each additional $1B in online sales requiring 1M SF of new distribution space to support it.

“While there is a sizable construction pipeline in the U.S., much of that new space already is leased to meet the demand of the past few years,” James Breeze, global head of industrial and logistics research for CBRE, told Supply & Demand Chain Executive. “Moving forward, the challenge in many U.S. and global markets will be to produce enough new facilities to meet this rapidly expanding market.”

The coronavirus pandemic has helped push e-commerce sales to new highs but isn’t the only reason online retail is growing, CBRE says in its Global E-Commerce Outlook.

Rather, e-commerce has been on a growth trajectory worldwide over the last five years, up from 8% of total global retail sales in 2015 ($1 trillion) to 18% in 2020 ($2.4 trillion) as consumers have familiarized themselves with the new tech.

The report predicts that e-commerce sales in the U.S. will increase to 26% of retail transactions by 2025, up from around 21% in 2020. 

Key factors in pushing e-commerce growth include high population density and growth in urban areas, increasing digital skills among populations worldwide, higher credit and debit card usage, and better transport infrastructure, CBRE notes.

Though the U.S. and China are the largest e-commerce markets in the world, accounting for 57% of all internet-based sales as of 2020, other nations have much higher e-commerce penetration rates. More than 35% of all retail sales in South Korea, for example, are now online, up from about 16% in 2015.

E-commerce sales in China are now over 25% of the total, and the U.K. is over 20%, just ahead of Indonesia, the U.S. and the Netherlands by that metric.

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/industrial/us-needs-330m-sf-more-warehouse-space-by-25-cbre-reports-109359

Multifamily Asset Prices Now Growing Faster Than Industrial

 Multifamily real estate has seemingly regained its luster as an investment as concerns about the coronavirus pandemic's effect on demographic changes wane.

Apartment buildings rose in price by 1.2% from April to May, which amounted to 10.1% higher than their average price last May, according to Real Capital Analytics' monthly Commercial Property Price Index, released Thursday. The year-over-year change was the largest of any asset class tracked by RCA, outpacing industrial's year-over-year growth of 9.5%.

May was also the first month in which multifamily real estate saw double-digit year-over-year price growth since March 2020.

Part of the pricing surge for multifamily, especially when compared to industrial, could be chalked up to a one-month blip, RCA Senior Vice President Jim Costello told Bisnow. But key fundamentals have undoubtedly driven confidence higher; multifamily analytics platform RealPage found that "new lease trade-out" — its term for the change in rents for the same unit when one lease ends and a new resident moves in — was nearing record levels as of mid-June.

“Underwriting in multifamily has been accounting for relatively stable yields recently, but throw some good rent growth on top, and it likely makes for increasing values,” Costello said.

The only asset class that has declined in price since May of last year was that of office buildings in central business districts, RCA reported. Urban office has declined in price by 5.5% year-over-year and by 0.4% from April to May. Despite widespread efforts to either entice or require employees to return to offices, the slow recovery of occupancy has weighed down outlooks in the sector.

Overall, the highest-density markets in the U.S. have lagged behind all other metro areas in terms of commercial real estate price growth, RCA reports. Taken together, commercial assets in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington, D.C., have grown in price by 3.6% over the past year, while all other markets RCA tracks have grown by 10.3%.

Still, industry sentiment is more positive for commercial real estate investing overall than it had been before the pandemic. Trade group CRE Finance Council's Board of Governors Sentiment Index held largely steady from the first to second quarter of this year at 118, its highest number since the index established its baseline of 100 in Q1 2017, CREFC announced.

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/capital-markets/multifamily-price-growth-faster-than-industrial-109346

51 People Unaccounted For In Massive Miami Condo Building Collapse

Update (1035ET): Bad news is beginning to trickle out from this morning's condo building collapse in Surfside. Earlier, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said, "brace for some bad news." 

Now Miami-Dade County Commissioner Sally Heyman told CNN that at least 50 people are unaccounted for in the building collapse. 

Axios reports 51 people are unaccounted for. Still, the numbers remain loose. 

* * * 

Update (1010 ET):  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has told the press to "brace for some bad news" following the condo building collapse in Surfside early Thursday morning. 

* * * 

Update (0950 ET): Absolutely stunning video of the condo collapse in Surfside, Florida, has been posted on Twitter via "Andy Slater." 

Here's a GIF of the video, just in case the post is taken down. 

* * * 

Update (0810ET): Mayor of Surfside, Florida, the location of the condo collapse, spoke with CBS News, he said: 

"We're all just scratching our heads trying to imagine what in the world could have happened... It looks like an earthquake."

Twitter user "John Cardillo," says he spoke with "one of the first responders at the building collapse on Miami Beach/Surfside and initial working theory is a sinkhole."

Cardillo added: "Having lived down here 17 years I've heard more than a few architects and engineers express concern about this exact thing."

* * * 

Update (0714ET): An update on the beachfront condo tower collapse in the Miami-area town of Surfside via AP News says there is no word on "casualties or details of how many people lived in the building."

Authorities have said, "the entire backside of the building has collapsed." 

 

* * * 

A shocking report from Miami, Florida, early Thursday, of a condo building collapse, where at least nine people were taken to various local hospitals, according to CBS Miami. 

Miami-Dade Rescue Fire tweeted that an 80 unit condo building in a 12-story tower in the town of Surfside, part of Champlain Towers, experienced a "partial collapse." 

Reasons for the building's collapse are not yet known. 

 

Here's a skycam footage of the collapse. 

Scenes on the ground are stunning. 

Here's the video from within the building. 

... and this all plays into aging private and public buildings and infrastructure across the country are in need of serious repair. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/i-heard-screams-massive-search-underway-after-miami-condo-building-collapse