Projects Around Stadiums Have Security Blanket Through Pandemic Uncertainty

Franklin Street Properties Corp. has sold off a chunk of its Atlanta office portfolio.

Crocker Partners has purchased One and Two Ravinia Drive in Central Perimeter and One Overton Park in the Cumberland/Galleria submarket for $219.5M from the REIT, according to a regulatory filing by Franklin Street. The sale leaves Massachusetts-based FSP with a smaller Atlanta-area portfolio that still includes 700 Satellite Place…

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The developers of a downtown Duluth apartment project are preparing a new multifamily community down the street. The Residential Group, in a partnership with PointOne Holdings, plans to break ground on a 256-unit, luxury garden-style apartment project at 3256 Buford Highway, next door to the City of Duluth Public Safety Center.…

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One year ago, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic, and office workers across the United States and United Kingdom went exiled to home offices. Now, as vaccines get distributed and cases begin to decline, three states — Texas, Mississippi and Wyoming — are fully reopening and dropping mask mandates. It is…

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The push for greener, more sustainable buildings and cities has been around for years, but that enthusiasm does not appear to have made a dent in global carbon emissions.

Energy agencies agree that residential and commercial real estate account for about 40% of global energy consumption and emissions. Advocates of digital twin technology say that by increasing the efficiency of the built environment through real-time, comprehensive monitoring, that number could come down.

New flagship office towers and corporate HQs are more likely to take advantage of the efficiencies that could be achieved using a digital twin. But the greater challenge is posed by the sheer volume of aging building stock, which requires significant and costly repositioning to be able to achieve the same efficiencies.

“If you're doing it with an older building, this could be a far more costly undertaking," Massachusetts Institute of Technology Real Estate Innovation Lab Lead Researcher James Scott told Bisnow. 

“That's why the rollout of this isn't going to happen as quickly as people would hope for.”

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This series delves into the myriad ways people enter the commercial real estate industry and what contributes to their success.

Eduardo Padilla is an immigrant success story, but with a twist. He came from Cuba with his family when he was 6 years old in the 1960s, as so many others did at the time. In the following years, Padilla's family made a new life for themselves a bit farther from Cuba than many of their fellow immigrants: St. Paul, Minnesota.

Padilla said his father was very much an inspiration to him as he grew up in a St. Paul garden apartment.

"My father, who had been a lawyer in Cuba, basically went through different jobs as he learned to speak English, dishwasher and all kinds of stuff," Padilla said. "He ultimately got a job at 3M helping translate legal documents, and did well enough in English to pass the bar exam in Minnesota. He ended up in the legal department of 3M."

The younger Padilla pursued his education all the way through law school and eventually found himself on a career track in commercial real estate. In 2000, he became CEO of NorthMarq Cos., the Pohlad Cos.' commercial real estate services holding company, a position he held until last year. He is still executive chair of the company.

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