Around the Bay: Local News Bites
This post first appeared in the June edition of: Cirios Trends: In Search of Real Estate Opportunities.
Toyota Gets Long Electric Cars
(San Francisco Chronicle)
Toyota Corp. is plunking down $50 million to help Tesla Motors restart the recently shuttered Nummi auto plant in Fremont. Tesla is hiring 50 staff per month to get the plant churning out its electric cars and expects to manufacture 20,000 vehicles per year. Nummi has a storied past, having been closed and reopened two times prior to its most recent resuscitation. For Toyota, while the strategic investment could end up paying off, the company is also working to repair its tattered image. In a separate release, the company issued its profuse thanks to British Petroleum, which, in a most benevolent display of corporate camaraderie, supplanted Toyota as the most hated foreign company in America.
(Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/ciriostrendsjune1)
Wells Unloading Commercial Loans
(Bloomberg Business Week)
Wells Fargo, the biggest commercial real estate lender in the US, is looking to sell around $1 billion in distressed commercial real estate loans and assets. The majority of the loans Wells has on the block were inherited from Wachovia, the Charlotte-based bank Wells swallowed up in October 2008. Buyers of such things are getting more aggressive on pricing, as a consensus is building that while not out of the woods by any stretch, downside risk for commercial real estate is limited. That, or investors are feeling the pressure to put money to work and rationalizing away the latent risks which remain in a market that is anything but healed: Foresight Analytics estimates that US financial firms hold $185 billion in distressed loans.
(Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/ciriostrendsjune2)
San Francisco Courts Builders
(San Francisco Business Times)
In a move aimed at jumpstarting new construction in San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom is allowing developers to defer impact fees regularly paid when construction begins. Under the new legislation, up to 80% of the impact fees can be paid just prior to completion, which the city hopes will encourage builders to start projects otherwise tabled or delayed. Newsom estimates that the change could generate 4,800 construction-related jobs and spur almost $900 million in spending.
(Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/ciriostrendsjune3)
Brisbane Boomtown? Bullocks.
(San Francisco Business Times)
The sleepy town of Brisbane, best known for being the most enigmatic city in the Bay Area, could soon become a hotbed of development. The city wants to redevelop a 660-acre swath of capped landfill and rotting train yards, known as the Baylands. Universal Paragon, a San Francisco-based developer, is proposing a project consisting of 4,500 homes, 6 million square feet of office space and 25 acres of solar arrays. If approved, the plan would triple Brisbane’s population over the next 30 years and transform the town into, well, something.
(Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/ciriostrendsjune4 )
Tags: BP, brisbane real estate development, Nummi auto plant, san francisco real estate development, tesla roadster, Toyota, universal paragon real estate development, Wells Fargo, wells fargo distressed loans