Editors' Choice: The Very Best Bisnow Stories Of 2021
Most people who clicked on this story will stop reading right here and skip down to the good stuff.
But those who scroll past this highfalutin message from the desk of the Editor-in-Chief will miss out on a few very important, self-indulgent bits of context.
For starters, while you know us as the largest commercial estate news publication around, you should also know that we’re quite small in terms of our team. Across the 40 different markets we cover, our team comprises only 27 reporters, editors and correspondents. They report, edit and publish about 50 stories a day — or about 13,000 stories a year. That’s a lot in my book.
You have likely read a few of those stories, but probably not all. After all, your name is not Tom Russo or Tim Carroll. They are Bisnow’s copy editors and our team could not do what they do so well if it were not for this dynamic pair.
Editing is trench warfare. It can be an ugly affair chock-full of self-doubt, pressure to deliver on deadline, and clawing through notebooks and paragraphs to achieve a wonderful feeling: it’s done. Then we do it all again the next day and the next day after that.
The news is a never-ending grind — the daily miracle, as they say. Some of the stories below were the talk of real estate on any given day. Others were largely ignored. What they have in common is this: They represent, according to our editors at least, the very best work we produced in 2021.
Enjoy,
Mark F. Bonner
Editor-in-Chief
mark.bonner@bisnow.com
Mark Bonner, Editor-In Chief |
SPECIAL REPORT: New Analysis Shows Uneven Progress Toward Diversity At CRE’s Biggest Firms
By Ethan Rothstein, Miriam Hall, Jon Banister, Dees Stribling and Bianca Barragán
The worldwide multitrillion-dollar commercial real estate industry touches us all. So, why does the industry that decides how all the modern world lives and works not reflect how the world looks — and why does that matter? In 2020, the Bisnow newsroom decided to find out and the results are a prolonged multi-year effort that has produced tens of thousands of words to make good on one promise: "to dig even deeper to hold this industry accountable to its collective desire to be a more diverse and equitable industry.” This is Part XI of our award-winning series. Here’s to the team that produced this story — and to the ones who will continue the reporting in the years ahead.
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Catie Dixon, Managing Editor |
‘The Bill Will Come Due’ — Can Texas Support Its Massive Growth?
By Kerri Panchuk, Dallas-Fort Worth Reporter, and Christie Moffat, Houston Reporter
For years, headline after headline has touted the “Texas miracle” — massive population growth and waves of corporate relocations over the last decade or so. Beyond a central location and warm weather, Texas’ draws have been low regulation, taxation and cost of living. This story took a critical eye at those factors, raising questions about if the growth is sustainable and if the same things that have brought people and businesses to Texas may eventually drive them back out. One example: The lack of regulation that companies love also worsened the power crisis during February’s winter storm, and to date, nothing really has been done to reassure residents something like that won’t happen again.
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Covid-19 Drove Women Out Of The Workforce. Can CRE Bring Them Back In?
By Kelsey Neubauer, New York City Reporter, and Matthew Rothstein, East Coast Reporter
This pandemic’s effect on jobs has been well-documented, but this story took a very narrow and unique angle about how shrinking staff and advances in proptech could cut out administrative job opportunities that traditionally have been a way for women to cut their teeth in commercial real estate. The personal stories from female CRE executives who came up this way help to underscore the importance of this pipeline, and data and analysis show how serious the erosion of this pipeline appears to be.
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Mike Phillips, UK Editor |
Office Politics: The Battle For The Future Of Work
By Miriam Hall, New York City Reporter, and Mike Phillips, UK Editor
This five-part podcast series investigated the impact that a shift to hybrid work will have not just on commercial real estate, but on society itself. It provided a nuanced, intelligent take on ideas that will have an impact on economies, cities, social equality, workplace diversity and the way human beings interact with each other.
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Is Real Estate's Obsession With Wellness Elitist And Killing The Planet?
By David Thame, UK Reporter
The concept of wellness is now ubiquitous in real estate, offices and residential in particular, and the concept has to a large degree gone unquestioned. So this piece offered a timely critique of how the idea of wellness has turned what should be a universal human right — a home or workplace that keeps you healthy — into an amenity to be sold by property owners, available only to the few, not the many. Adding to the complexity, wellness is often at odds with the principles of sustainability to which it tries to align itself.
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Jay Rickey, Director of Newsletters |
Steven Roth Offers To Resign From REIT Board After Losing Shareholder Vote
By Jon Banister, Deputy East Coast Editor
Why were there more than 90 million votes from investors like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and State Street to remove Vornado CEO Steven Roth from the Board at JBG Smith, a company he helped launch? For what it's worth, most of these same investors voted in favor of Roth remaining as chair at Vornado. This story created more questions than it answered, and I'm still curious what happened.
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Reparations Are Gaining Momentum Across The Country. Real Estate Is Front-And-Center
By Jarred Schenke, Atlanta Reporter
The headline on this story says it all: Cities across the country are working to address racial injustice, and many of the programs they’re creating are directly tied to real estate. And for good reason.
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Katharine Carlon, Central U.S. Editor |
Kenosha Is ‘Building The Heart Of A New City.’ But The Pressure Is On To Rebuild Equitably
By Brian Rogal, Chicago Reporter
Nearly a year after the shooting of Jacob Blake, which set the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, ablaze and put it at the stormy center of the nation’s protracted battle over racial justice, this story follows up on what had happened to the city’s once-bright economic development hopes and dreams, weaving together community and developer voices to chart the road ahead. The result is a mixed, but ultimately hopeful picture, now colored by recognition the future will have to address the past. Though some feared opportunity had slipped through the city’s fingers like a fistful of sand due to the unrest, others took the experience as motivation to build a new city that meets a new reality.
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Property Has A Social Class Problem, And Middle Managers Have A Lot To Answer For
By Mike Phillips, UK Editor
Signet rings and a centuries-old aristocracy might be uniquely British markers of wealth and privilege, but economic barriers to success in the commercial real estate industry transcend borders, cut across race and gender lines, and, too often, make getting ahead inaccessible to those without the connections or means to begin climbing the ladder in the first place. Taking inspiration from Bridge Group’s first-of-its-kind survey of the socioeconomic backgrounds of workers in the property sector, this story spotlights an overlooked front in the battle to diversify the industry, underlining the need for the built world to hear from those living within it.
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Kate Murar, West Coast Editor |
Amazon Ramping Up Industrial Acquisitions In Pivot Away From Leasing, Sources Say
By Jon Banister, Deputy East Coast Editor, and Jarred Schenke, Atlanta Reporter
This story exemplifies what Bisnow does best — original reporting on a CRE move that has ripple effects for the industry. It educates industrial players and readers on a notable decision by the largest e-commerce company in the U.S., and backs up the notion with figures, anecdotes and deals. Partly in response to this article, landlords voiced concerns over entering new lease agreements with the company.
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Tim Carroll, News Editor |
The Great Golf Course Contraction Might Be Over
By Dees Stribling, National Reporter
It can be hard to go consecutive days without hearing that commercial real estate is an inherently optimistic business. But there hasn’t been much to be optimistic about for golf course operators and developers since Tiger Woods was winning two major championships a year — a feat he last accomplished in 2006, earning victories at The Open Championship and the PGA Championship. But the pandemic brought people back to the links, and this story, which coincided with the opening round of The Open Championship, used data to show that the correction to late 1990s overdevelopment of golf courses may be nearing its end — good news for golf course operators but bad news for the developers who for nearly two decades had been using golf course land for new subdivisions, warehouses and any other kind of property that didn’t involve a grooved club, a dimpled ball and a pair of tartan pants.
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Tom Russo, Chief Copy Editor |
'Wake-Up Call:' As The Climate Crisis Becomes More Dire, Many Landlords Need Help Making Their Buildings Resilient
By Kelsey Neubauer, New York City Reporter
Flooding and other damage in New York following Hurricane Ida in early September may well happen elsewhere in the United States at some point. This story outlines what landlords and others seek in order to help them battle a changing climate. (Perhaps this can serve as an object lesson for the next place that gets attacked by Mother Nature.) That list of what’s being sought includes money from the city, state and federal governments in order to rebuild and better prepare against future severe storms, which are expected to come, especially since the United Nations put out a report less than 30 days before the vicious storm that found climate change caused by humans has reached a point of no return. The industry got at least part of what it considers crucial when President Joe Biden declared the affected area a disaster and promised to send whatever aid was needed.
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Will There Be Any Takers For Carbon-Belching Buildings? 4 Key Takeaways From The COP26 Climate Conference
By Mike Phillips, UK Editor
If you ever thought limiting carbon emissions to minimize global warming was a problem unique to the U.S., the reporting here should quickly disabuse you of that notion. Coverage following the UN COP26 Climate Change Conference outlined the need for both government and investors to set standards. It also spoke to the difficulty of determining precisely how to limit carbon emissions, both during a building’s construction and after it is running. As one participant put it: “For the built environment at least, there was no overarching, clarifying, aha moment. … Many of us there were hoping for a set of clear, harmonised actions designed to keep the planetary temperature increase below its current 2.7 degree [Celsius] trajectory. This did not happen.” While COP26 did not specifically address carbon emissions in the U.S., other Bisnow reporting has. When taken together with the reporting here, it indicates this problem and the lack of real answers is a problem on this side of the pond as well.
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Julia Troy, Custom Content Editor |
Just Don’t Call It A Warehouse: Repurposing Unused Retail Spaces To Support E-Commerce
By John Krukowski, Studio B Writer
While the coronavirus pandemic shuttered thousands of restaurants and retail outlets, one asset class ended up thriving: industrial. Now, many landlords are toying with the idea of taking their vacant retail spaces and converting them into warehouses, but that can be easier said than done. In this piece, experts from JLL and law firm Goulston & Storrs spoke about some of the legal and logistical challenges of making these conversions in a custom content piece that was named one of the Eight Must Reads for the CRE Industry Today by Wealth Management.
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Jon Banister, Deputy East Coast Editor |
In The Battle For The Soul Of New York, Real Estate Is The Front Line
By Miriam Hall, New York City Reporter
This piece masterfully captured an important moment in time in New York City’s history. Amid a pandemic that led millions of New Yorkers to flee the city and raised existential questions about the future of the city’s real estate market, the June 2021 mayoral primary represented a crossroads between two competing visions for New York. As this piece illustrates, many of the biggest issues in the election centered around real estate, and the industry got involved in the race more than ever before. Real estate executives sharply criticized the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and favored more moderate candidates. They ultimately got their wish, as Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams won the primary and the November general election.
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‘Walls Were Crumbling’ At 12-Story Florida Condo Building Before Deadly Collapse
By Deirdra Funcheon, South Florida Reporter
While many of these editors’ picks have highlighted well-deserving enterprise pieces that took weeks to report, this story shows a top-notch example of breaking news reporting during one of the nation’s biggest disasters this year. In the hours after the Champlain Towers condo building in Surfside, Florida, collapsed, Bisnow spoke with an attorney representing one of the buildings’ residents, who described the disrepair in the building. The attorney also raised the issue of condo associations keeping low maintenance fees, a nationwide problem that this collapse has helped expose. In the coming weeks and months, Bisnow reported several follow-up stories on the Surfside collapse and the implications for the condo market.
