Real Estate

Bernard Frieden and Lynne Sagalyn provide an in-depth analysis of public-private partnerships that have resulted in several large downtown retail redevelopment projects. These projects were dependent in part on an improvement in underlying factors such as the revitalization of the downtown office market. But, more important, these projects owe their existence to innovative entrepreneurial urban policy. This essay shows how current city policies evolved from the experience gained from redevelopment efforts launched under federal auspices.

A shopping mall, new office towers, a convention center, an atrium hotel, a restored historic neighborhood. These are the civic agenda for downtown development in the last third of the twentieth century, a trophy collection that mayors want. Add a domed stadium, aquarium, or cleaned-up waterfront to suit the circumstances, and you have the essential equipment for a first-class American city.

This article explores the profit-sharing aspects of codevelopment agreements and focuses specifically on the nature of the city's financial involvement. Cities are increasingly using a vast array of financial mechanisms, including loan paybacks, participatory leases, and equity participations, to give them a more direct financial stake in projects. Sagalyn examines the financial structures of several codevelopment projects throughout the country.

Federal cutbacks in urban aid in the 1970s forced cities to finance redevelopment projects with their own resources. Freed from federal rules and regulations, cities responded with invention, devising new financial strategies that proved to be powerful alternatives to direct federal aid. The process that fostered the solutions—public-private dealmaking—transformed the nature of city development practice, raising with it troublesome issues of accountability. This article describes these financial strategies and the nature of public subsidies in the deals.

This study reports on the ex-post performance of survivor REITs and RECs over a 14.5-year period covering several business cycles. The results show that the systematic risk and risk-adjusted returns of REITs and RECs are quite different, especially during periods of low growth in real GNP. Relative to the overall stock market, survivor REITs, in particular, equity REITs, exhibited less volatility and higher returns than previous studies revealed.

Our cities are on the move again. Pioneering observers of the urban landscape Bernard Frieden and Lynn Sagalyn delve into the inner workings of the new public entrepreneurship and public private partnerships that have revitalized the downtowns of such cities as Boston, San Diego, Seattle, St. Paul, and Pasadena. They bring a unique combination of political and economic expertise to their analysis of this hot new marketplace, depicting a generation of mayors and administrators who differ in style from their predecessors and who have a more informed relationship with developers.

The financial payback to the City of Boston from the development of Faneuil Hall Marketplace provides a starting point for analyzing the benefits of public-private downtown project development deals.

Bernard Frieden and Lynne Sagalyn provide an in-depth analysis of several public-private partnerships that have resulted in several large downtown retail redevelopment projects. These projects were dependent in part on an improvement in underlying factors such as the revitalization of the downtown office market. But, more important, these projects owe their existence to innovative entrepreneurial urban policy. This essay shows how current city policies evolved from the experience gained from redevelopment efforts launched under federal auspices, including Great Society programs.