www.REBusinessOnline.com August 2019 • Volume 16, Issue 12 MULTIFAMILY CONSTRUCTION IS A BALANCING ACT IN TODAY’S ECONOMY The multifamily market in the West has many pros — but it also has many cons as investors, lenders and contractors work to get projects done. By Nellie Day Tiffany and Co. used Valentine’s Day as the ideal time to launch its first pop-up at Caruso’s the Grove in Los Angeles. WHEN RETAIL IS YOUR ‘SPECIALTY’ The retail industry has seen an uptick in specialty leasing activity as tenants require new space, and previously online-only companies wade into brick-and-mortar. By Nellie Day Eden Housing and Alameda Point Partners are constructing the 60-unit Alameda Point Senior Apartments at Alameda Point, a creative reuse project just south of Oakland, Calif. T he success of today’s shopping centers lies in the experience. There is much focus nowadays on the in-line tenants, in addition to a center’s special events and social spaces. This leaves out what has be-come an increasingly large piece of the puzzle, however. Specialty leas-ing used to be confined to pretzel vendors and acne medication kiosks, but that is no more. Today, specialty leasing involves so much more as brands and shopping center owners have embraced the no-tion that consumers thrive on new, novel and, oftentimes, temporary. WREB spoke to three specialty leas-ing experts — a property manager, specialty leasing broker and a com-pany that brings temporary activa-tions to life — to get the latest on this ever-evolving category. see SPECIALTY RETAIL, page 36 T he world seems to work most ef-ficiently when balance and mod -eration are in effect. This strategy is particularly true of today’s mul-tifamily development pipeline out West. The current market is all about supply and demand, ensuring that resources aren’t spread too thin and weighing priorities, which tend to cre-ate an imbalance between the haves and the have nots. “Notwithstanding the pickup in activity we had in 2018 and notwith-standing the fact that Millennials are still looking at apartments as opposed to single-family homes, we view mul-tifamily housing as one of the more vulnerable parts of the construction industry right now,” said Robert Mur-ray, chief economist at Dodge Data & Analytics, during a presentation at Le Meridien Perimeter in Atlanta in June. The broad issues impacting the na-tion’s multifamily construction in-dustry include trade tensions with China, a tight labor market, economic uncertainty, a $1 trillion deficit that may limit government spending and the increasing costs of materials. The Producer Price Index for construction materials jumped 6.4 percent last year, see MULTIFAMILY, page 37 INSIDE THIS ISSUE Seattle’s Demographics, Economy Make it Attractive to Industrial Users page 26 Phoenix Market Highlight page 22 Coworking Makes a Big Impact on the West’s Office Landscape page 28 Population Growth Takes Planning, Patience page 35