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real estate investment & climate change futures ・ the next dry neighborhood

If there’s anything more complicated than the global forces of thermal expansion, ice sheet melt and ocean circulation that contribute to worldwide sea-level rise, it might be the forces of real estate speculation.

Real estate investment may no longer be just about the next hot neighborhood, it may also now be about the next dry neighborhood.

“‘That’s it, it’s that simple. To be on the beach and to be on the water costs a lot more money, and the cheaper parts of town were furthest from the beach — but it just turns out that the cheapest parts of town farthest from the beach are the highest elevation, and now they’re worth a lot more than they used to be.'”

Jesse M. Keenan, Harvard Graduate School of Design

“‘The real issue is: Are people making real estate decisions based on climate change futures, rather than sort of normal speculation?'” observes Hugh Gladwin, an anthropologist at Florida International University in Miami. Gladwin’s specialty is using geographic information system mapping to understand large, diverse urban settings.

Jesse M. Keenan is a lawyer who teaches climate change adaptation at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Mr. Keenan formerly served as the co-founder and research director of Columbia University’s Center for Urban Real Estate (CURE). His family roots are in Miami and he owns a house and has an office and parking space in Miami. He thinks people are making real estate decisions based on climate change futures.

Using survey data, Mr. Keenan is beginning to see see evidence that middle-income people are leaving Miami Beach and other places with nuisance flooding. Such flooding makes  it difficult to get around at high tides or insure a car.

Mr. Keenan observes, “‘Everybody I know that is a small owner of real estate that isn’t within the billionaire class — average middle-class, upper-middle-class Miamians who have real estate on the beach — is in the process of selling their properties and moving to the mainland.'”

Sea-level rise is exacerbating the effects of coastal flooding in South Florida. A 2016 University of Miami study finds that coastal flooding is accelerating. The coastal flooding is coinciding with an accelerated rate of sea-level rise in South Florida. The average rate of sea-level rise jumped from an increase of 3 millimeters a year before 2006 to an increase of 9 millimeters a year on average after 2006. Over the course of one decade, from 2006 to 2016, that’s about 3.5 inches of sea-level rise.

Sam Purkis, a marine geologist at the University of Miami, observes,

“‘What will happen, more than likely, is that you’ll have one big hurricane, and you’ll get a big inundation into the city. And that will serve to rot out the infrastructure — the sewer lines, the electricity, the telecoms. Everything that’s under the road. That becomes very costly to keep replacing every time this happens.'”

“‘That’s it, it’s that simple,'” says Harvard’s Jesse Keenan.

“‘To be on the beach and to be on the water costs a lot more money, and the cheaper parts of town were furthest from the beach — but it just turns out that the cheapest parts of town farthest from the beach are the highest elevation, and now they’re worth a lot more than they used to be.'”

Local governments are considering  what sea-level rise means for all those mortgage holders who pay taxes.

Coral Gables released an analysis of how it would pay for infrastructure investment in the face of a shrinking tax base if people leave.

“We’re concerned about it, we’re planning for it, we’re spending money on vulnerability studies trying to know what our vulnerabilities are in terms of our essential infrastructure, and planning to build up and save our communities as long as we can,” Jim Cason, Mayor of Coral Gables, said.

See:

“High Ground Is Becoming Hot Property As Sea Level Rises” | Erika Bolstad, ClimateWire, 1 May 2017, re-printed from ClimateWire by Scientific American with permission from E&E News

Hugh Gladwin, Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, Florida International University

Jesse M. Keenan, Harvard University Graduate School of Design

Center for Urban Real Estate, Columbia University GSAPP

Sam Purkis, Professor & Chair, Department of Marine Geosciences, Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, University of Miami

#realestate #realestatedevelopment #realestatespeculation #art  #ArtBaselMiamiBeach #Miami #MiamiBeach #climatechange #sealevelrise #resilience #Harvard #Columbia #FloridaInternationalUniversity #UniversityofMiami

 

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climate change as opportunity・developing economic value through investments in resilience

From a Dutch mind-set, climate change is neither a hypothetical , nor a drag on the economy, nor an ideology. For the people of the Netherlands climate change is an opportunity – to let water in, where possible, to live with water rather than struggle to defeat it – with added economic value developed through investing in resilience.

People in the Netherlands believe that the places with the most people and the most to lose economically should get the most protection.

To the Dutch, what’s truly incomprehensible is New York after Hurricane Sandy, where too little has been done to prepare for the next disaster.

The idea that a global economic hub like Lower Manhattan flooded during Hurricane Sandy, costing the public billions of dollars, yet still has so few protections, dumbfounds climate experts in the Netherlands.

See:

“The Dutch Have Solutions to Rising Seas. The World is Watching” | Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times, 15 June 2017

#climatechange #realestate #resilience #Rotterdam #investments #economicvalue

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Blackstone Real Estate is optimizing art as a targeted value-add initiative for its NY real estate portfolio

Blackstone Real Estate is optimizing art as a targeted value-add initiative for its real estate portfolio throughout New York City.

Blackstone is initiating a partnership Hunter College to recognize talented emerging artists while concomitantly giving visitors to its building portfolio throughout the city access to unique works of art.

Last week Jon Gray, Global Head of Real Estate at Blackstone, introduced a new exhibition featuring artwork by students currently enrolled in the Hunter College Master of Fine Arts program: Talia Levitt, Madhini Nirmal, Leonard Reibstein, and Andy Van Dinh.

These works of art, both paintings and large-scale works on paper, will be displayed for a year in the lobby of 5 Bryant Park.

Blackstone is the world’s largest real estate private equity firm with $102 billion of investor capital and $200 billion of gross assets under management.

Blackstone seeks to acquire high quality investments at discounts to replacement cost. The company improves the properties through hands-on management and targeted value-add initiatives.

The breadth of Blackstone’s real estate portfolio provides valuable real-time proprietary market data. Blackstone believes this information enables the company to identify mispriced and/or out-of-favor asset classes more rapidly than its competitors.

Blackstone real estate also operates one of the leading real estate finance platforms, including management of the publicly traded Blackstone Mortgage Trust (NYSE:BXMT).

See:

“Blackstone Partners with Hunter College for Student Art Exhibition at 5 Bryant Park” | Blackstone Blog, 12 June 2017

Blackstone Real Estate

#art #realestate #finance #risk #collectionsmanagement #portfoliomanagement #HunterCollege #HunterCollegeMFA #NewYork #Manhattan #Blackstone #privateequity #riskanalysis #risk management #collections

 

 

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New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art changes leadership structure

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced yesterday that Daniel H. Weiss, who has served as president and chief operating officer of the Met since 2015,  will now serve as president and chief executive.

This appointment, decided by the Board of Trustees, represents an organizational shift for the museum.  In prior years the director has served as chief executive.

As both president and chief executive, Dr. Weiss will lead the administrative operation of the museum and will have the “worry about day-to-day matters like security, restaurants and maintenance.”

The next director will oversee the museum’s “core mission functions” –  curatorial focus, acquisitions, exhibitions, publishing program, conservation efforts, and library – and will report to Dr. Weiss, the chief executive.

Both chief executive and director will serve on the Board of Trustees. They will establish the museum’s priorities together.

See:

“In an organizational shift, Met president Daniel Weiss takes over as chief executive” | Pac Pobric, The Art Newspaper, 13 June 2017

“Met Museum Changes Leadership Structure” | Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times, 13 June 2017

#MetropolitanMuseumofArt #theMet #art #museums #DanielHWeiss #collections #NewYork #realestate

 

 

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Andrew Goldstein on Great Art @ Art Basel

Andrew Goldstein, Editor-in-Chief of Artnet and formerly of Artspace, pronounces on “the ten best artworks at Art Basel 2017.”

Included are Francis Bacon’s painting “Study from the Human Body – Figure in Movement” (1982), offered by the Marlborough Gallery, New York, for $25 million and  Christopher Wool’s sculpture”Untitled” (2014), offered by Luhring Augustine, New York, for $2.2 million.

Mr. Goldstein observes that Bacon’s “Study from the Human Body – Figure in Movement,” obtained by the gallery directly from Francis Bacon just before he passed away,  features

“marquee elements of a major Bacon—the spooky transparent box (evoked memorably in the new “Twin Peaks”), vigorous coloration, and mutant figure in apparent agony—the painting advances Bacon’s interest in the body in movement, a subject he often painted from photos in sporting magazines.”

Of Christopher Wool’s “Untitled,” Mr. Goldstein recounts the inspiration that led the artist towards “a new way to translate his painterly aesthetics into sculpture”:

“some years back, the artist Christopher Wool was walking the wide streets of Marfa, Texas, when he came across an unusual tumbleweed that had formed in the desert out of barbed wire. Looping and gnarly, it reminded him of his abstract paintings …”

See:

“The Best 10 Artworks at Art Basel 2017” | Andrew Goldstein, Editor-in-Chief, Artnet, 14 June 2017

#art #contemporaryart  #artcollections #artmarket #FrancisBacon #ChristopherWool #MarlboroughGallery #LuhringAugustine #Artnet #Artspace #collections #collecting #realestate #ArtBasel

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Market Solutions for Environmental Challenges

Goldman Sachs today signed a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC.

The agreement will enable the investment and development of a new 68 megawatt wind project in Pennsylvania. The wind project is expected to facilitate up to 150 construction jobs and, once operational, result in the reduction of more than 200,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year.

Goldman Sachs reiterates its commitment to market solutions for environmental challenges.

 “We are committed to being a leader in the development of renewable energy. By enabling this new wind project to come online, the agreement will help grow the renewable grid and contribute to the momentum behind a lower carbon economy.”

Lloyd C. Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs

The PPA with NextEra Energy Resources is a collaborative effort between Goldman Sachs’ commodities trading group (J. Aron) and its Corporate Services and Real Estate department.

Goldman Sachs has achieved its carbon neutrality commitment. The company is working towards achieving its goal of 100 percent power for its global electricity needs by the year 2020.

Goldman Sachs is a member of the RE100 initiative, “the world’s most influential companies, committed to 100% renewable power.”

See:

“Goldman Sachs Signs Long-Term Power Purchase Agreement to Spur Renewable Energy Growth and Jobs” | Press Release, 12 June 2017

“Our Operational Impact” | Goldman Sachs Environmental Stewardship

RE100

#realestate #resilience #cleanpower #renewableenergy #windenergy #PPA #GoldmanSachs #tech #greenhousegasemissions #climatechange #market #marketsolutions

 

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Downtown San Diego | early morning vistas

Early morning vistas.

San Diego is, indeed, beautiful and has what is widely acknowledged as one of the best, if not the best, micro-climate in the United States. Very Mediterranean.

Why “tech”, that I appear to mention so often and that is taking root in the downtown San Diego economic eco-system?

“Tech,” in my mind, is no more than information gathering, processing, analyzing, reporting, and using, with certain questions asked (by people), the questions usually having to do with certain industries (art, finance, transport, design, building and construction, chemistry, physics, aerospace engineering, entertainment, etc.).

Sort of like groups of individual Marines gathering, processing and using information, on steroids.

Why pay attention to tech in downtown San Diego? Some of these companies have just appeared downtown, willy nilly, not according to the city plan. People in the tech industry generally speaking make more money than those working in the hospitality industry (housekeeping, serving tables, etc.). It is money generated here rather than earned elsewhere and brought here by visitors, tourists, and buyers of second or third homes.

 

#SanDiego #downtownSanDiego #realestate #resilience #art #tech #technology #finance #urbanliving #urbanluxury