Office Developers, Miami Beach Wants You — With Some Caveats

The Black Friday of yore was already in flux before the coronavirus pandemic. As consumers shifted to online shopping, the enticement to stand in a line in the wee morning hours for a $99 flat-screen waned. Why go through all that when you can just stay home and shop online?

But while online shopping gradually reshaped Black Friday over the years, the coronavirus has rapidly changed what’s perhaps the central element of the day. 

“Black Friday was always about getting as many people in the stores as possible, but now it’s almost the opposite,” said Michael Baker, a retail analyst with D.A. Davidson Cos.

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During his four years at the White House, Republican politico Ja'Ron Smith held a number of staff positions, including director of urban affairs, and was most recently deputy assistant to the president, before decamping for a think tank. For much of that time, he was the highest-ranking Black non-Cabinet official in a one-term administration that has been punctuated by racist statements and dog-whistling from both the president and his advisers, spates of social unrest surrounding social justice and a nation still deeply polarized by questions about race in America.

Just after 5 p.m. on the Friday after Election Day, Smith quietly enacted a long-anticipated move away from the White House to take a leadership position at the Center for Advancing Opportunity, a nonprofit supporting historically Black colleges and universities and other institutions in developing education, criminal justice and other economic policies. The group was born out of a partnership between the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and marquee-name conservative backers at the Charles Koch Foundation and Koch Industries.

Smith's stint in the executive branch also included serving as chief policy strategist for the opportunity zone program created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, a policy he says is working well but isn't without flaws, and which has faced withering criticism…

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The coronavirus pandemic has decimated retail and hospitality buildings’ cash flows and thus their owners’ ability to pay back their loans.

Commercial mortgage-backed securities backed by retail and hotel properties have gone delinquent and been sent to special servicing this year at a higher rate than ever before. Until the property owners either get some form of financial relief from the federal government or the economy returns to pre-pandemic conditions, the situation has little hope to improve.

Trying to wait out the market slowdown or fight through the difficulties for too long can actually worsen the problem. In some cases, CMBS bondholders will never recoup the losses they are incurring right now, and the pain in the market could affect the investment landscape for years. 

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

CBRE Executive Director and Head of Strategic Consulting Amanda Clack has had a passion for real estate since childhood — but for a while, a career in music rivalled one in real estate. 

The concert hall’s loss has been property’s gain in an advisory and businesses transformation specialist who now sits on the agency giant’s UK board, and who during her career has been a key adviser to the office of the UK prime minister and was only the second global president in the 135-year history of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.  

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