Peebles Files $585M Lawsuit Over Overtown Project That Slipped Away

The rent is due today.

For the tenants and property owners tied to trillions of dollars of commercial real estate properties in the U.S., what happens on April 1 is no joke this year.

Retailers have been closed or their businesses are deeply battered. Companies across sectors have been forced to carry out layoffs or furlough staff, while others have been directly impacted by a virus that has afflicted more than 170,000 Americans to date. 

Millions of Americans are already jobless, worried about paying the rent today. And the virus is weeks away from its peak, health experts warn.

Coronavirus is the common, existential threat to tenants, property managers and owners alike at this moment — and all parties are asking the same question today: What happens now?

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Office spaces have to be a whole lot more than just desks and conference rooms. They have to be an extension of company culture, conveying with physical space what their occupants stand for. Especially with labor markets so tight, offices also have to be a recruiting and retention tool, both eye-catching…

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In Case You Missed It...

One of the South's most prominent grocers, Lakeland, Florida-based Publix, is offering rent relief to tenants in the 282 shopping plazas that it owns of its 1,243 locations across seven states."Rent relief assistance is being offered as we understand that these are unprecedented times, and smaller businesses, who are tenants…

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This series aims to capture a moment in time, talking to men and women in commercial real estate about how their lives and businesses are being transformed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Pinnacle Structural Engineers President and co-founder Adam Cryer used to have a short commute to the office. That commute has shortened even further, now that he is working from home.

Cryer founded Pinnacle Structural Engineers in March 2005 with his business partner, Donald Greive, while still enrolled as a postgraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. Since then, he has served as engineer of record on over 400 projects, including healthcare facilities, churches, schools, financial institutions, retail centers and office buildings.

Cryer is adapting to the new normal of working from home, though he still occasionally stops by the otherwise-empty office.

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As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, disrupting daily life and causing major economic damage, design leaders are pivoting to focus on how building design can combat infectious diseases and improve public health outcomes.

The coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, has led to more than 40,000 deaths globally in the last three months. Over 3,000 deaths have occurred in the U.S. as of Tuesday afternoon.

There are still many unknowns surrounding COVID-19, including a viable vaccine and whether it will reoccur seasonally. With this in mind, building design could start to change quickly, as the industry seeks to make workplaces and public spaces safer.

“I think we're on the cusp of actually seeing it impact current work underway,” Gensler Managing Principal Kevin Heinly said.

“There are real design measures our clients could institute in our buildings to help safeguard against the worsening of that spike in the future.”

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