Rural New York has become a battleground between preservationists and luxury developers, and local officials have been siding with the builders.

As New Yorkers migrate from the city to secondary home markets upstate, developers have planned housing for them. In their corner have been local governments seeking broader tax bases, not to mention new blood to keep their towns going.

Historic preservation commissions, meanwhile, have been scrambling to slow down projects, but sometimes getting shut down themselves, according to the New York Times.

In Durham, for example, a development called Bosque is facing backlash. The project would convert an undeveloped area of Cornwallville, a historic hamlet, into a large-lot subdivision with a cul-de-sac and houses that start at about $1.6 million.

Sixty neighbors have gathered as the Cornwallville Residents for Rural Preservation, opposing the development. Among their concerns are that the project would damage the area’s ecosystem and that the developer lacks experience, the Times reported.

However, the Durham Town Board completed a mandatory preliminary environmental study, which led them to decide that Bosque would not have significant adverse impacts on the area. The group is now suing the developer and the board to force a reversal. Despite the lawsuit, in April the town voted unanimously to give Bosque preliminary approval to proceed.

Bosque’s developer, Preston Jones, told the newspaper that his development would take many precautions including using low-carbon building materials, relying on solar power, curbing greenhouse gas emissions and turning the felled trees — which make up 25 percent of the area’s forest — into biochar, a charcoal-like material that improves soil health.

“I mean, we spent a week digging holes to make sure there were no Native American artifacts there,” Jones told the paper. “Dealing with the historic preservation commission was not like dealing with a neutral body. They acted like the opposition.”

Some residents are in support. Claudia Zucker, the real estate broker who sold Jones the 95-acre site, called the project “a wonderful thing.”

“I am on the Board of Ed, and I want more families to come here, I want more tax base for the school,” Zucker told the publication.

Article: https://therealdeal.com/2022/05/15/preservationists-and-developers-duel-upstate-wanna-guess-whos-winning/

A supplier of industrial chemicals and minerals plans to expand in Great Neck instead of moving out of state, spending $10 million for a larger headquarters, executives said.

Wego Chemical Group wants to purchase and renovate a 27,170-square-foot office building at 277 Northern Blvd. The company would eventually occupy about 80% of the space, the executives said.

Last month, Wego won final approval for 20 years of tax breaks from the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency.

The aid package consists of a sales-tax exemption of up to $241,500 on the purchase of construction materials and equipment and up to $56,250 off the mortgage recording tax. Property taxes on the Northern Blvd. building are $216,280 and the tax rate will be frozen for four years followed by 2% increases in each of the following 16 years.

Without the tax incentives, family-owned Wego said it  couldn’t expand on Long Island. The company has outgrown its 12,885 square feet at 239 Great Neck Rd., which is less than one mile from the proposed new headquarters, according to president Bert Eshaghpour.

“We love where we are,” he told the IDA board in March, referring to Great Neck. “A lot of our competitors from the tristate area moved to Florida or North Carolina as they were growing … Our choice is to stay here, with your help.”

In return for the tax breaks, Wego has pledged to add 23 jobs to its work force of 77 people in Great Neck.

Besides its Great Neck headquarters, the 44-year-old company has more than 30 warehouses around the world and offices in Brazil, China, Mexico, the Netherlands and Turkey.

The chemicals that it sells are primarily made in Asia.

A subsidiary, Wego International Floors, also in Great Neck, specializes in wood flooring.

Daniel P. Deegan, the company’s real estate attorney, said it would gradually occupy the Northern Boulevard building as existing tenants’ leases expire.

IDA chairman Richard Kessel said “one of the missions [of the agency] is to keep companies here, to keep jobs here. We want to help this company to grow in Nassau County,” he said last month.

Article: https://www.newsday.com/business/wego-chemicals-great-neck-ida-tax-breaks-utxe2d8u

The Beechwood Organization is pitching a plan to build 385 townhomes on 55 acres of vacant land in Elwood. 

The company has applied to the Town of Huntington for a zoning change that would allow for the development of the proposed community called Country Pointe Elwood, which would be restricted to people age 55 and over. 

The property just east of Manor Road on Jericho Turnpike had been the site of a proposed mixed-use project from Great Neck-based developer Kris Torkan, who withdrew his application for a zoning change in 2018 after pushback from community groups. 

Torkan’s $100 million plan, called Elwood Orchard would have created a 470,000-square-foot retail and office complex on nearly half of the property owned by the Mediavilla family, much of which has operated as an orchard for more than half a century. The project would have replaced a small four-store strip center on the corner of the property and large sand hills that have been mostly used by dirt bikers and ATV riders. 

Beechwood’s zoning change application for the Elwood site comes on the heels of a statement released earlier this week from Huntington Supervisor Ed Smyth about curbing development in the town. 

“I campaigned for the supervisor’s office on many issues, including stopping the overdevelopment of Huntington. In 2020, I co-sponsored a measure limiting the expansion of multi-story apartment development in our downtown areas,” Smyth said in the statement. “The town cannot stop property owners from asking for a zoning change or a new use for their property, however the town has no obligation to advance any proposal.” 

However, Beechwood principal Steven Dubb said he doesn’t think Smyth’s statement was directed at his company’s plan. 

“He wants to stop overdevelopment. I don’t think our application falls into the bucket of overdevelopment,” Dubb told LIBN. “The existing zoning of the property is residential, and we are proposing a type of residential use that we think is better suited and more needed by town residents than the existing residential zoning.” 

Dubb continued that the Beechwood plan would be less intensive for the area than the project that Torkan had pitched. 

“It’s going to be, from a traffic perspective, far less traffic than the prior proposal,” Dubb said. “From a school tax point of view, the development would provide millions of dollars a year in school taxes to the school district without providing any additional burden to the school district with any additional children. By and large, I feel that this type of age-restricted housing is desperately needed on Long Island. I don’t think what we’re doing is overdevelopment, I think it’s smart development.” 

Dubb added that the company will be reaching out to the Elwood community on its proposal. 

“We’re going to have extensive meetings with the community and get their input and that will shape our application,” he said. “This isn’t done in a vacuum.” 

Article: https://libn.com/2022/05/06/beechwood-plans-multifamily-project-for-55-acres-in-elwood/

The owners and real estate brokers confirmed the sale Thursday of the Hampton Bays’ famed beer tavern, the Boardy Barn, casting doubt on its future and perhaps ending an era of more than 50 years of revelry on the East End.

The bar, which opened in 1970 and typically would be open Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day, closed last summer for what may have been its last party. Long Island’s other “ol’ barn” was put up for sale in October, and a sale closed for an undisclosed price Thursday.

“To our beloved family, employees, customers, partners and community: Mickey Shields and Tony Galgano first opened the barn doors on April 16, 1970. From that day forward, the Boardy Barn became better and more unique the moment each of you passed through those doors,” the former owners posted on their website and Facebook page Thursday. “We are deeply grateful for the memories we hold in our hearts. … We wish the new owners all the best as they work to determine what the property will become. … Don’t Stop Believin’ ”

Joe Lopresti, vice president of Jones Lang Lasalle’s Brokerage Service Group, said the sale closed Thursday with an unnamed buyer.

Brokers did not say how much the buyers paid for the 2.6-acre property at 270 W. Montauk Hwy.

Lopresti said he did not know the owners’ plans for the property or if the barn would continue in any form.

“The buyer believes in the future of the Hampton Bays and the future of the property,” Lopresti said. “I believe the family and everyone involved was happy with the transaction.”

Michael Galgano, the son of former owner Anthony Galgano, could not be reached for comment.

Anthony Galgano died in November at the age of 78. Family members did not give an update on plans for the property following his death, saying only “it was in God’s hands.”

The listing for the property did not include any asking sales price and said the property could be redeveloped or “remain as one of the East End’s premiere hospitality destinations.”

Article: https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/boardy-barn-sale-hampton-bays-osm5ocrr

Blackstone is handing back the keys to an outdated office building north of Times Square. In Chicago, Alliance HP walked away from the leasehold on a West Loop office. A loan on Jamison Properties’ Equitable Life Building in Los Angeles is on a watchlist of properties in danger of defaulting.

Office landlords across the nation, hammered by the work-from-home revolution, are coming to terms with the first signs of distress. While a number of buildings were struggling to make debt payments even before Covid, home offices and hybrid work schedules have accelerated their downfall. The busts may be an early sign of a larger problem concealed by slow sales activity: Many office buildings are losing value.

“I don’t think we’re ever going back to the same level of economic activity in the big cities we saw in 2019,” said Manus Clancy of Trepp, the largest commercially available database of securitized mortgages. “People have fallen in love with this three-days-in-the-office thing,” he added. “I think that’s here to stay.”

Even as masks come off and urbanites return to the cities they fled, pushing up rents, sparking bidding wars and filling nightclubs with such alacrity that Miami Beach imposed a rare spring break curfew, offices remain stubbornly lifeless. Just over 40 percent of office workers were back in buildings in 10 major cities at the end of April, according to Kastle Systems, which tracks keycard swipe data.

On top of that, about $1.1 trillion of office buildings — some 30 percent of the national inventory — are in danger of becoming obsolete due to changes in work patterns, according to an analysis by commercial real estate economist Randall Zisler, cited by Bloomberg.

One big caveat: Any change in building values hasn’t yet been reflected in data. Properties that have sold so far have mostly held their value. Concessions are showing signs of decreasing, and some leases in big cities appear to be recovering to pre-pandemic levels. One Vanderbilt, SL Green’s brand-new Midtown office tower, leased its uppermost office space for more than $300 a foot last month, a probable New York City record, people familiar with the deal told TRD.

Yet a recovery in sales and leasing has mostly been for higher-end assets, which are more likely to be insulated from valuation shifts. Struggling properties aren’t coming to market now and smaller tenants aren’t signing new leases, masking those changes.

“It appears that smaller-size deals are still lacking as a percentage of leasing activity,” real estate database CompStak wrote in a recent analysis. “Since smaller floor plate spaces tend to be cheaper than premier space, the recovery indicated by the average rent calculation is more of a reflection on the higher end of the market.”

Put another way, much of the market is hard to value because of a dearth of deal activity. So far, the shift is anecdotal, not based on viable data points.

“We’re still in discovery mode, and everyone is starving for more information and facts and data to really help them understand what the implied changes to value are,” said Erik Hanson of JLL’s capital markets team in San Francisco. 

Widespread challenges

Midtown Manhattan’s second- and third-tier office buildings faced competition from newer properties even before the pandemic. As in other markets, these properties have been the first to show distress.

At 1740 Broadway, for example, L Brands relocated to 55 Water Street in the Financial District, signing its lease in January 2020 — meaning Blackstone’s largest tenant in the 26-story Midtown building decided to move out before the pandemic.

The asset manager paid just over $600 million in 2014 to buy the now-70-year-old building from Vornado Realty Trust, which had renovated it seven years earlier. 

Blackstone is reportedly handing over the property to the special servicer on its $308 million CMBS loan.

Trepp’s Clancy said the buildings that are getting into trouble are the older ones in less desirable locations that were already facing a tough road before Covid sent most office tenants home.

“Those buildings would need a fortune to be retrofitted to attract higher-paying companies,” he said.

In Chicago, a lender took control of Brookfield’s 22-story building at 175 West Jackson Boulevard in March, while the most likely outcome for AmTrust Realty’s 1.3 million–square-foot 135 South LaSalle Street is a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, Trepp reported on March 21. The two owners had struggled to keep the properties sufficiently occupied to make loan payments before the pandemic, and were prevented from recovering as the virus raged.

New York-based AmTrust bought the South LaSalle Street property for $330 million in 2015, but longtime anchor tenant Bank of America exited its 830,000-square-foot space last year to head to its new namesake, a 57-story tower on Wacker Drive. A recent appraisal slashed the building’s value to $130 million. 

“If you ever land an anchor tenant in your building, you should sell it the next day,” said Andy DeMoss, a landlord rep for Chicago-based brokerage Bradford Allen. “You’re so vulnerable to be picked off when their lease rolls.”

As occupancy declined at Jamison’s Equitable Life building in Downtown Los Angeles, the rating agency KBRA gave the 42-story Class A office tower a value of $89 million last April, when its outstanding CMBS debt sat above $92 million.

The 50-year-old building’s occupancy fell to 66 percent last June from 82 percent in late 2020, according to DBRS Morningstar, and it remains on a special servicer’s watchlist since being placed there last October. KBRA appraised the building at $150 million in 2014, when Jameson refinanced and took out $95 million in loan proceeds. The building began facing issues as early as 2018, when its largest two tenants decided to vacate. 

San Francisco has probably been the slowest of the nation’s major office markets to rebound from the pandemic in terms of occupancy, said JLL’s Hanson.

About 22 percent of its office space was vacant at the end of last year, an almost fourfold increase from 2019, JLL data show. Direct asking rents, meanwhile, have decreased to about $80 a square foot a year after hitting $90 a square foot in 2019, according to JLL.

One such building downtown — steps away from Union Square, the city’s retail center — is testing the city’s office market. The 51,000-square-foot structure at 166 Geary Street consists of two levels of retail and 14 floors of offices, with the latter backing a $19 million CMBS loan that Concord Capital Partners took out from JPMorgan Chase in 2019. 

Things were looking rosy for Concord, owner of the 115-year-old property’s office space, when it said in March 2019 that WeWork had signed a 10-year lease for 12,500 square feet. The deal, valued at over $10 million, made the flex-office company 166 Geary’s largest tenant and left the building more than 95 percent occupied. 

Three years later, the outlook has become murkier. WeWork exited the building seven years ahead of schedule after defaulting on its lease, special servicer LNR disclosed in December. Concord began falling behind on its loan payments in April 2020 but emerged from delinquency in February after pumping more equity into the building’s offices, whose appraised value has dropped by 17 percent, to $21.5 million, since 2019, according to DBRS. 

Almost 11,000 square feet of the building’s office space — the 12,700-square-foot retail condo portion of the property is owned separately by The Jackson Group — was available for lease as of April 28, according to its LoopNet listing. Concord is offering $10,000 to any tenant rep broker that gets their client to sign a full-floor lease by the end of the year, the listing said. Other San Francisco office landlords are handing out perks including higher commissions and a vacation in Cabo to avoid cutting rents in a stubbornly soft market. 

Bargain buys

The data from Kastle Systems underlines the uneven pace of various office markets’ recovery. 

New York- and San Francisco-area office properties tracked by the firm were 33 percent occupied in late April, trailing eight other major markets, including Chicago’s 37 percent, Los Angeles’ 39 percent and Austin’s 59 percent.

Averaged across all 10 major markets, occupancy has recovered to its pre-Omicron peak of just above 40 percent, but has generally flatlined there. Now, more than two years into the pandemic, Kastle’s index has yet to cross the 50 percent threshold.

One way to assess the impact on office building values is through capitalization rates, which aim to show how much an investor pays for a property relative to the income it generates.

While cap rates vary by market, they’ve generally stayed even or compressed slightly since the end of last year, suggesting investors haven’t yet been scared off, according to CBRE.

“In the markets that have been impacted, there’s still some uncertainty, but they’ve remained relatively stable,” said Darin Mellott, a researcher at CBRE. “A lot of this has to do with the success of the policies responding to the pandemic. Trillions of dollars in fiscal policy did a good job of maintaining asset values.”

Cap rates for trophy office buildings in Los Angeles have moved up to 4 percent from about 3.5 percent, but New York has had some compression. Mellott said secondary markets like Atlanta, Dallas and Denver have led the recovery.

Mellott noted that very few buildings have been selling. Those trading are typically well-leased properties that can attract strong pricing, so it’s difficult to assess the impact hybrid work has had on their values.

In Chicago, DeMoss said that if lenders get more aggressive in prying older properties back from struggling owners whose rent rolls were diminished by both the pandemic and the Windy City’s appetite for new development, it could propel the market upward.

“The 135 LaSalle and 175 Jackson seizures aren’t going to be the last,” he said. “There are multiple buildings that are probably in a very similar situation. If lenders take them back, that creates chances for fresh blood to come in and get it at a low basis. That’s good for the market. Some of that will flush out over a longer time horizon than we would want. I’m thinking two to three years before we’re fully out of this.”

For now, investors seem confident that markets will largely recover and that the busts will be contained, even though offices have been through a number of false starts as planned returns have been derailed by Covid spikes.

CBRE’s Mellott said a strong economy and job creation are stirring hope among investors that they will blunt the impact of companies cutting back space due to hybrid work. He said they generally say it will take three years.

“They’re clear-eyed about the changes in work patterns,” Mellot said. “The market clearly understands there are timing issues and uncertainty to be sorted through.” 

Article: https://therealdeal.com/2022/05/05/empty-boxes-as-remote-work-endures-some-office-buildings-are-losing-value/

A Lake Grove mall will house one of Long Island’s first arenas for the global $1 billion esports industry, according to documents filed with the Smithtown Planning Department.

Manhattan-based Belong Gaming’s floor plan for Smith Haven Mall shows at least 72 gaming stations, and a lawyer for the company said at a March 24 town board hearing the space would feature bleachers for spectators and large-screen televisions to show gamers’ exploits in real time.

“It is not an arcade,” William Bonesso, a lawyer for the company, told the town board at the hearing. Quarter-sucking, refrigerator-sized consoles went obsolete before the advent of esports, a catchall term for organized, competitive gaming that can draw millions of viewers. Each Belong gaming station will afford access to “every game available” on PC and the PlayStation and Xbox platforms, Bonesso said, with locals forming six-player teams for league and tournament competition against players from the rest of the world.

Plans submitted to the town show a 243-person capacity with space for retail and a private party room. In April, the town board granted Belong a special exception to operate its game center in the portion of the mall that is within Smithtown’s borders and zoned for shopping center business.

Planner Matthew Calado said Belong would take over a space previously occupied by collectibles market LaLa Farfalla, which is moving elsewhere in the mall.

Belong’s arrival would shake up the traditional mall tenant mix of anchor, apparel, restaurants and electronics stores, something Stephanie Cegielski, vice president for trade group ICSC, said was happening across the country. “Mall property owners are finding ways to repurpose and diversify their mall tenant mix by securing a wider variety of new tenants who have closer ties and purpose” to the communities they serve, she wrote in an email.

Belong and Simon Properties, the mall’s owner, did not comment.

“What we’re really dealing with here is the esports industry,” which “has been outpacing traditional entertainment markets in recent years,” Bonesso said at the hearing. “The mall has always been an entertainment venue in addition to retail and food, so it fits right in.”

Belong, in a 2020 news release, said parent company Vindex would spend $300 million to open 500 gaming centers across the United States in the next five years.

The company envisioned each venue serving as “home field” for amateur teams ranging in skill from recreational to elite, with seasons lasting three to 10 weeks. Locations have opened in Houston and Chicago areas, according to news reports.

Paul Verna, principal analyst at research firm Insider Intelligence, said Belong was taking a novel approach in the U.S. esports market, where a number of large, high profile events are held but where most streaming takes place in people’s homes.

Intelligence predicts 29.6 million monthly U.S. esports viewers this year, but “you don’t often think of companies building physical environments,” he said. The “community aspect” of Belong’s plan could be a selling point, along with its equipment, if it’s better technology than what gamers might have in their own homes.

With Smith Haven occupancy last year at 91.7%, Simon appeared to be taking a measured risk with an unusual tenant, said Kevin Brown, an equity analyst for Morningstar.

The company wants its malls “to be an experience you can’t replicate online,” as reflected by its 2019 purchase of a minority stake in a bowling company, he said. “It’s an experiment that Simon is big enough to run.”

Article: https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/esport-gaming-belong-smith-haven-mall-l0d1k85n

Retail space got costlier in most Brooklyn commercial corridors in the past 12 months.

Of 17 major retail corridors in the borough, 10 had average asking rent per square foot grow from last winter to the one that just ended, according to a report by the Real Estate Board of New York.

Still, the average rent is below its pre-pandemic peak in 16 of the 17 corridors — in some cases, well below: On Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn, it is 45 percent south of its peak of $359 in winter 2018, for instance.

However the increases are a promising sign for retail landlords. Last summer asking rents fell in 11 of the 17 corridors tracked by the report.

In Brooklyn, retail mostly hinges on the activity of local residents, rather than that of office workers and tourists, as it does in Manhattan. And Kings County appears to be growing: More than 14,000 residential units have been completed there since 2020 and nearly four times as many are proposed or in the planning process.

“Brooklyn’s expanding residential base has been an essential steadying force for its retail sector during the ups and downs of the pandemic,” Keith DeCoster, director of market data and policy at REBNY, said in a statement.

Average asking rent on Franklin Street in Williamsburg, which got a major scare a few years ago when the neighborhood’s subway tunnel to Manhattan was targeted for a long shutdown, jumped to $88 per square foot in the last six months — just below its recent peak of $89 a year ago. Williamsburg’s North 6th Street registered the highest average asking rents in the borough at $225 per square foot.

In Downtown Brooklyn, where retail is more dependent on government workers and lawyers, Court Street also hit a new all-time high of $175, up from $166 three years ago and 56 percent higher than the all-time low of $112 last winter.

Brooklyn welcomed a variety of bars, restaurants and fitness centers during the winter. Among them are Ciao Ciao, a bar in Williamsburg, Six Point Brewery in Downtown Brooklyn and VITAL Climbing Gym in Williamsburg.

“The appetite for space from tenants this spring feels like it’s greater than even before the pandemic in more established sub-markets like Williamsburg, Dumbo and Downtown Brooklyn,” founder and CEO of Tri State Commercial Realty Group Shlomi Bagdadi said in a statement.

Article: https://therealdeal.com/2022/05/02/brooklyn-retail-rents-on-the-rise/

Bethpage-based Steel Equities plans to purchase and renovate the Slant/Fin property in Greenvale, after the heating supplier closes the facility later this year. 

The developer will buy the 192,648-square-foot building on 10 acres at 100 Forest Drive for $33 million and plans extensive renovations to attract a yet-to-be-determined tenant to lease the property. 

Slant/Fin recently announced it would lay off most of its remaining 182 employees in advance of shutting its Greenvale facility later this year, according to a notice from the New York State Department of Labor. The company already shed 68 workers last month, according to a DOL notice.  

Steel Equities is seeking economic incentives from the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency to assist in the $38.55 million project. The company has requested a 20-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement, as well as sales and mortgage tax exemptions, according to its IDA application. 

The developer is in contract to buy the Greenvale property, which is located within the Village of East Hills, and expects to close on the acquisition around the end of September. The company plans to begin construction on the renovations in the fourth quarter of this year with completion of the project six to nine months later. 

Founded in 1949 as the American Slant Fin Radiator Corp., the company later moved its operations from Brooklyn to Long Island. The Greenvale facility was built in 1965. Last year, Slant/Fin sold its baseboard heating business to Westfield, Mass.-based Mestek Inc., which still markets the products under the Slant/Fin brand. 

Article:https://libn.com/2022/04/28/li-firm-to-buy-slant-fin-property-in-greenvale-for-33m/

CoStar Group shares rebounded in early trading Wednesday after the company reported higher profits and revenue in what CEO Andy Florance called its “best sales quarter ever.”

The stock fell more than 4 percent Tuesday amid a market selloff, but had notched a nearly 7 percent gain by mid-morning.

Net income for the quarter came to $0.23 per share, a 21 percent increase compared to $0.19 in the first quarter of 2021. Adjusted net income was $0.31 per share, up from $0.27 a year ago and beating consensus estimates by $0.04.

Revenue totaled $516 million, a 13 percent increase from $458 million last year, as net sales bookings climbed to an all-time high of $68 million, a 31 percent gain compared to the first quarter of 2021.

The real estate data giant raised its earnings expectations for the year to a range of $0.98 to $1.03 per share, up slightly from the prior range of $0.95 to $1.02. A lackluster earnings outlook for 2022, alongside $300 million or more of planned new investment in residential products, contributed to the stock’s steep decline earlier this year.

Those residential initiatives, which according to Florance are meant to foster transparency and collaboration between homebuyers and agents, appear to be paying off. Unique visitors to the company’s residential sites more than doubled year-over-year in the first quarter to 14 million, and revenue was up 63 percent to $18 million.

“It’s a small number, but you have to start somewhere and we see growth in the future,” Florence said.

Sales for the company’s online multifamily marketplace Apartments.com, which had taken a hit last year as record-low apartment vacancy dried up demand for advertising on the site, also improved; they were up 36 percent compared to the fourth quarter.

“There are clear indications in the outlook for the apartment market that you’re going to see this ultra-low vacancy rate moderating,” the CEO said. “I would be surprised if that’s not what happened.”

CoStar shares are down around 20 percent this year, outpacing a broader market selloff that has attended rising interest rates and the war in Ukraine. The S&P 500 has declined roughly 12 percent so far in 2022.

Article:https://therealdeal.com/2022/04/27/costar-shares-rebound-on-higher-q1-profits-revenue/

A project to develop a logistics complex in Mitchel Field will get some help from the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency. 

Brookfield Asset Management received preliminary approval from the Hempstead IDA for economic incentives to assist in its plan to build a 102,600-square-foot distribution center on 6.5 acres at 107 Charles Lindbergh Blvd. 

The $33.79 million project will create at least 50 new permanent jobs and 130 construction jobs, according to an IDA statement. 

Brookfield purchased the property for $13.2 million in July 2021 and has since demolished the 89,464-square-foot office building that’s been on the site since 1984. The building, once occupied by the IRS, had been vacant for the last 10 years. The site also has an underlying ground lease with Nassau County. 

Annual taxes on the property, which were $597,880, would rise to $739,9091 at the end of a proposed 10-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement. 

The IDA gave preliminary approval to an incentives package for Brookfield a year ago, but the size of the proposed complex was reduced from 114,000 square feet. The developer, which has yet to secure a tenant for the facility, expects to complete the project next year. 

“The IDA’s preliminary approval of this project comes with the hope for new jobs and economic benefits to the town and the local community,” Hempstead IDA CEO Fred Parola said in the statement. “Moreover, the project will replace a vacant, unproductive, blighted property with one that will contribute to our local economy.” 

Article:https://libn.com/2022/04/25/33-8m-mitchel-field-industrial-project-gets-ida-assist/