Propmodo

Structural columns buckled on the 21st floor of a Manhattan office-to-residential conversion Tuesday, causing evacuations and road closures around the former Pfizer headquarters at East 42nd Street. Two columns failed, floors sagged, and cracks formed in the 1.3-million-square-foot project being developed by Metro Loft with 235 GC as general contractor and Gensler as architect. Fire and Buildings Department officials called the building unstable and are monitoring it with drones.

The office market’s post-pandemic bifurcation has created a situation that would have seemed implausible a decade ago. Trophy and Tier 1 buildings in major cities are posting record rents and strong absorption. The buildings below them, older, lower-floor, poorly amenitized, and uninspiring, are sitting empty. At the same time, housing shortages in nearly every major American city have created demand for residential units that new development alone cannot meet fast enough.

A federal judge in Northern Illinois denied Zillow’s request for communications between Midwest Real Estate Data and Compass, calling the demand “unduly burdensome” given the case’s expedited discovery schedule. Zillow had sought records of all discussions, messages and phone calls between MRED, its board members and member brokerages during the period when MRED rule changes and Zillow’s data feed agreements were under discussion. Judge John J.

Kelley Blue Book launched a home valuation platform that will connect homeowners with real estate agents starting August 1. The service offers free valuations to consumers based on submitted property details and photos, promising accuracy within 3% of final sale price within 24 hours. Agents pay a monthly subscription fee tied to ZIP code access rather than a commission split, a departure from models like Zillow’s lead generation service that can charge up to 40% of commission on closed deals.

Blackstone-owned Indurent has begun preliminary meetings with real estate investors ahead of a potential London listing or sale in roughly 18 months, according to people familiar with the discussions. The UK warehouse operator, formed in February 2024 from the merger of Industrials REIT and St Modwen Logistics, could fetch approximately £6 billion ($8 billion) in a transaction. No timeline has been set for an exit, and the firm is conducting early-stage investor engagement.

The adaptive reuse housing boom is real and accelerating across multiple property types. Schools are being converted at record rates, with nearly 2,000 apartments built in former schools in 2024 alone, quadruple the number from the year before.

Boston Global Investors completed 10 World Trade in the Seaport without a single tenant, a 570,000-square-foot building with curved glass and a 17th-floor running track. The developer began construction in 2022 when lab vacancy in the Boston area hovered around 1 percent and speculative construction seemed like a safe bet. Lab vacancy now stands at 32.7 percent.

The Property Condition Assessment or PCA has served as the commercial real estate industry’s primary risk-management tool for decades. The methodology governing these assessments, specifically the ASTM E2018 standard, was last substantially revised in 2015. At that time, the protocols were calibrated to what a qualified professional could observe from ground level, a roof hatch, or the top of an extension ladder.

Starwood Capital Group closed a $10.2 billion opportunistic fund that will allocate up to 35% of capital to data centers, nearly double the share from its prior fund. Chairman Barry Sternlicht said the firm raised money from more than 300 investors, almost half based in the U.S., and has already committed over $3 billion to 20 investments.

Commercial real estate companies hold an enormous amount of sensitive data. Client financial records, tenant personal information, transaction histories, lease agreements, and the personal details of hundreds of thousands of individuals flow through the systems of large brokerage and property management firms every day. The industry has historically treated cybersecurity as a back-office concern, something to be managed by IT rather than understood at the business level.