'You Need To Be Tracking Those Yesterday': Planning More Critical Than Ever For New Chicago Projects

Time flies when you’re having fun — and it flies even faster when you’re not.

Up against projections that just 3 in 10 announced Chicago projects will go forward in the next two years, developers need to get their ducks in a row and keep them waddling along to succeed amid a tough mix of rising interest rates, declining access to capital, slow permitting and a new city government still feeling its way.

That starts with figuring out where the money is going to come from. But it extends through planning and permitting, and keeping even closer tabs than usual on timelines, panelists said at Bisnow’s Chicago Major Projects Update event, held last month at the Hyatt Centric Chicago Magnificent Mile.

“The development pipeline that's currently in the works, the announced projects, I've heard that probably only 30% of [them] will go forward in the next two years and that's because of several factors that lead to the headwinds, primarily interest rates,” Structured Development founding principal J.…

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Daily Floods, Disappearing Beaches: Projections Show Miami's Worst-Case Climate Scenario Isn't Far Off

Americans looking for a sunny, low-tax environment have flocked to Florida in droves — roughly 1 million people have moved to the state since the start of the pandemic. For the masses for whom 2023 is their first summer in the state, the 100-degree ocean temperatures, skyrocketing property insurance costs and historic flash floods present a stark reminder that their new home state is the nation's most vulnerable to climate change.

Powerful hurricanes and extreme heat present near-term challenges, but South Florida faces a greater long-term threat from rising sea levels that threaten to leave much of Miami-Dade, the state's most-populous county, inundated and underwater.

“I think we're right at the point where anybody buying a house now and expecting to get 30 years out of it, especially in the lower areas and the oceanfront condos, are going to be in for a horrible shock,” said Harold Wanless, a geologist and professor at the University of Miami.

Miami’s risk of damage from coastal flooding and storms is among the highest in the world, and climate change is only increasing the threat. Developers are adapting — in part because of runaway insurance costs — with strategies like building ground floors higher off the…

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