Here are the news stories you might find interesting today regarding commercial real estate and business:
Tempe lands Mini Cooper dealership
Mini Cooper fans in Arizona soon will have a new place to shop. The state’s second Mini dealership is scheduled to open in Tempe on March 26 and provide some competition for Mini North Scottsdale, which has owned the market since it brought the iconic vehicles to Arizona in 2002. View article…
Cafe Valley Bakery reveals plans for new Phoenix plant
Caf Valley Bakery has announced plans for a new $40 million plant in Phoenix that will create 200 jobs and enable the 28-year-old business to more than triple its production and sales. The commercial bakery sells croissants, cakes, puff pastries, muffins and cinnamon rolls to membership clubs, grocery chains, fast-food restaurants and convenience stores across the country. View article…
Failed real-estate venture turns investors into accidental landlords
Throughout the 1990s, Phoenix-based Right Place Properties had a solid reputation as a boutique developer and real-estate brokerage. It bought low-rent apartment buildings – about one a year – and renovated them with funds from a small pool of private investors. The units were then sold as condominiums for a healthy profit. View article…
Downtown Chandler parking garage hits roadblock
The sour economy is threatening a 540-car parking garage that had been planned west of Arizona Avenue in downtown Chandler. Before the economy tanked, Chandler had committed $7.7 million to help pay for a garage as part of San Marcos Commons, developer Niels Kreipke’s mixed-use project. The garage was to have been for both public and private use. Plans for San Marcos Commons, being built by Kreipke’s company, Desert Viking, call for the garage as well as townhomes and 150,000 square feet of restaurants, retail and offices. View article…
Domino’s opens 9,000th store
Domino’s Pizza celebrated hitting the 9,000-store milestone with the openings of two units on opposite sides of the world. Franchisee Jubilant FoodWorks opened its 300th unit, and Domino’s 8,999th, in New Delhi, India, and then RPM Pizza opened its 135th unit, Domino’s 9,000th, in a New Orleans neighborhood that had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. View article…
Concerns build over Glendale development
Concerns are mounting that plans for a massive commercial project around Glendale’s spring-training facility are unraveling. Developers of the project, called Main Street Glendale, have not secured funding. The company that the developers used to launch the project is being sued for defaulting on a loan. And nothing has been built, with no clear answer when anything would get started. View article…
Glendale wins round 1 in casino battle
The city of Glendale won a round in its battle with the Tohono O’odham Nation tribe over a proposed $500 million casino and resort west of Phoenix. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Mangum ruled Thursday that a 2001 annexation by Glendale of some of the land slated for the casino was done properly and is still effective. View article…
Joan Jordan heads Sanford Rose Phoenix office
Executive search firm Sanford Rose Associates opened a Phoenix office Wednesday as part of an expansion over the past few months. Joan Jordan will be managing director of the one-person office at 3707 E. Southern Ave. in Mesa. Jordan called it a virtual office with access to private meeting space, conference space and video transmission. View article…
Arizona tourism officials cautiously optimistic about industry’s future
With discussions continuing in the state Legislature over funding for the Arizona Office of Tourism and a move by MLB team owners to drop a proposed ticket tax on Cactus League spring training games to pay for a new stadium for the Chicago Cubs, tourism officials gathered Thursday night to celebrate their own. View article…
AZ forecloses drop 21% Jan. to Feb.
While foreclosures in the U.S. were down 2 percent in February from January, Arizona posted a drop of nearly 21 percent. Still, Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac puts the state in the No. 2 spot national behind only Nevada for homes in the foreclosure process. That includes default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions. View article…
Sydnor publishes ‘Scottsdale Architecture’
Scottsdale architect Doug Sydnor has released Scottsdale Architecture, a visual survey of architecture in what has been called the “West’s most western town.” The 127-page book was published by Arcadia Publishing as part of its Images of America series. This is Sydnor’s first book, which he started in January 2009 and completed in August 2009. “Forty percent of the book covers architecture prior to World War II. There’s a lot of history in it,” Sydnor said. View article…
Bruce Halle, Bennett Dorrance top AZ billionaire contingent
Discount Tire chief Bruce Halle and Campbell Soup heir Bennett Dorrance lead the list of five Arizonans on Forbes’ annual list of the world’s billionaires. They join the mix at No. 488 tied with 48 others – including Donald Trump who Forbes also called the “most overexposed billionaire” – each with an estimated net worth of $2 billion. View article…
Slowly, Americans are regaining their lost wealth
Americans are recovering their shrunken wealth – gradually. Household net worth rose last quarter, mainly because the healing economy boosted stock portfolios. But the gain was slight. And it was less than in the previous two quarters. The Federal Reserve said Thursday that net worth rose 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter to $54.2 trillion. It marked the third straight quarter of gains. But economists say consumers would need a stronger and more prolonged increase in their wealth to persuade them to ratchet up spending. View article…
Rising Delinquency Rates Show Troubles Deepen for CMBS
Delinquency rates for commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) rose to 5.69% at the close of the fourth quarter, the highest year-end rate in at least 13 years, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, based in Washington, D.C. The delinquency report shows that not only are mortgage investments not out of the woods yet, in terms of an economic recovery, but their situation has worsened. View article…
Non-GSE Lenders Start Gaining Traction
An interesting trend was buried toward the end of the Mortgage Bankers Association fourth quarter origination report. The volume of GSE deals dropped 15 percent from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the MBA. Yet, overall multifamily originations were up 4 percent in that time-span. So, where is that nearly 20 percent gap coming from? View article…
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