Real Estate Daily News Buzz is designed to give news snippets to readers that our (yet to be award winning) editors thought you could use to start your day. They come from various business perspectives, real estate, government, the Fed, local news, and the stock markets to save you time. Here you will find the headlines and what the news buzz of the day will be.

Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 68.35 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 19,191.93. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 7.73 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 2,191.08. The Nasdaq composite tumbled 72.57 points, or 1.4 per cent, to 5,251.11.

Benchmark U.S. crude picked up $1.62, or 3.3 per cent, to close at $51.06 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the standard for pricing international oils, added $2.10, or 4.1 per cent, to $53.94 a barrel in London. In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline rose 6 cent to $1.55 a gallon. Heating oil added 7 cents to $1.65. Natural gas gained 15 cents to $3.51 per 1,000 cubic feet.

ELTON JOHN COMING TO TUCSON – Elton John and his band return to Tucson for one performance at the Tucson Arena on Tuesday, March 21, 2017 at 8 p.m. Tickets go on sale to the public next Monday at 10 a.m., but those eligible for the presale can buy tickets today. The performance is part of an 11-city concert tour that will feature iconic hits and classic album tracks from throughout his five-decade career, as well as selected tracks from his latest release, Wonderful Crazy Night. Sir Elton John is one of the top-selling solo artists of all time, with 38 gold records, 31 platinum albums, 29 consecutive Top 40 hits, and he has sold more than 250 million records worldwide. Ticketmaster: https://bit.ly/2gVBOzA

SANTA TO CALL TUCSON CHILDREN EARLY NEXT MONTH – Santa and his elves would like to add some sparkle to a child’s holiday season through the Santa’s Calling program, courtesy of Tucson Parks and Recreation. The special child(ren) in your life, between ages of 4 and 8, will have an opportunity to speak with Santa and listen to his elves hard at work. All calls will be made on Tuesday and Wednesday, Dec. 6-7. If the North Pole receives too many requests for two nights, Thursday, Dec. 8, also will be used. In order to receive a call, you’ll need to fill out a form (link below) and mail the request by this Friday or email forms to TPRD-SantaRosa@tucsonaz.gov by Sunday, Dec. 4.  Request form: https://bit.ly/2fCsSeM

HUNDREDS OF WILDLAND FIREFIGHTERS GATHER IN TUCSON FOR CONFERENCE – More than 300 firefighters from 21 states and five continents are at the Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson to debate fire suppression ideas and to learn more about managing fire for social, economic, and ecological benefits. The conference, which began Monday and runs through Friday, is hosted by the Association for Fire Ecology and the Southwest Fire Science Consortium. Held every two years, the conference discusses fire in a warming climate, using fire as a tool in forest management, and how to best manage fires with shrinking budgets. There also will be tours of the Tree Ring Research Lab at the University of Arizona and a hike into the Santa Catalina Mountains, the scene of the Bullock and Aspen large wildland fires.

SNOW ON MT. LEMMON – With winter in high gear now, Tucsonans are starting to head to Mt. Lemmon to enjoy the two to four inches of snow that fell over the area Sunday night. Tucson 12 went up the mountain during a previous snowstorm to capture some of the sights and sounds of people at play. Enjoy the video linked below. Watch the video:

WORK PROGRAM FOR HOMELESS TO BEGIN NEXT WEEK – The Tucson Homeless Work Program begins next Tuesday, Dec. 6. It will allow homeless people to join a day-labor crew to clean streets and medians in five-hour shifts for $10 an hour in cash. Those who take part in the one-year pilot program will get two meals, a shower, and other services provided by various agencies. Tucson City Council Member Richard Fimbres organized the effort, which other Council members support. The first year of the program, administered by Old Pueblo Community Services, will be funded with $25,000 from fees the City of Tucson already collects from waste haulers for projects that clean up city streets. Pima County will match the $25,000. After the pilot program is over, Fimbres hopes funding will come from business contributions and donations from the public to the Tucson Change Movement, a new effort that will allow people to use change or swipe a debit or credit card to donate at special replica parking meters.

Albertsons in Exclusive Talks to Buy Price Chopper—Sources “U.S. supermarket chain Albertsons Companies Inc is in advanced talks to acquire closely held grocery store operator Price Chopper for around $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. A deal would underscore the wave of consolidation sweeping the U.S. grocery industry, as regional chains struggle to compete against online retailers such as Amazon.com Inc., big box stores such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and discount chains such as ALDI Inc. These challenges put pressure on the Golub family, which has owned Price Chopper for more than eight decades, to explore a sale.” (Reuters)

Blame wages and turtle doves: ’12 Days’ now costs $34,363 — Even “The Twelve Days of Christmas” are feeling the slow economic recovery. The price of nine of the other 12 gifts listed in the carol stayed the same price or became cheaper, including a partridge in a pear tree, according to the 33rd annual PNC Wealth Management Christmas Price Index released Thursday. As a result, the overall cost of the gifts listed in the song increased 0.7 per cent from last year to $34,363. PNC Financial Services Group releases the price index each year as a whimsical way of tracking inflation.

Construction Spending Rises 0.5% in October “Outlays for U.S. construction projects rose 0.5% in October, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch forecast a 0.7% gain. Spending in October was 3.4% higher than in October a year ago, and spending in the first 10 months of the year was 4.5% higher than the same period last year. Private residential construction spending rose 1.6% during the month, while private nonresidential construction was 2.1% lower.” (MarketWatch)

Requests for US jobless aid rose last week— More Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week. But claims are still at low levels that point to greater job security. The Labor Department said Thursday that applications for jobless aid rose by 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 268,000. The less-volatile four-week average ticked up 500 to 251,500. The overall number of people collecting unemployment checks was 2.08 million, down more than 5 per cent from a year earlier. Weekly claims are at historically low levels that suggest a stable environment for jobseekers. (WASHINGTON AP)

The Fed Confirmed Some of the Most Troubling Trends in Manhattan Real Estate “The Federal Reserve on Wednesday supported recent data showing some worrying trends in parts of Manhattan’s real-estate market. The Beige Book compiled anecdotes from contacts of the 12 regional banks, including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It is not a hard data release. There are too many luxury apartments in the city, with more developments still rising from the ground. A report from Douglas Elliman Real Estate released last month showed that new development inventory surged in the third quarter after four straight periods of declines.” (Business Insider)

We Need a Miracle on 34th Street “Forty four percent of consumers surveyed across the country said they had taken to the internet for their early Christmas purchases, while 40 percent shopped in stores, according to the National Retail Federation. Yet while brick-and-mortar retailers have come to play more of what Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst with the NPD Group, calls a ‘supporting role’ in the landscape of peak holiday season, a longing appears to persist for social dimensions of consuming and for something more fulfilling than a series of solitary scroll-and-click transactions on a hand-held device.” (The New York Times)

Chicago Worst of U.S.’s 100 Largest Real Estate Markets in 2017 “Chicago will have the coldest real estate market among the nation’s 100 largest metro areas next year, according to a forecast released yesterday. The double-barreled forecast of slim increases in both prices and the number of homes sold landed Chicago in last place in the ranking published by Realtor.com, the website of the National Association of Realtors. The forecast sees Chicago-area home prices rising by 1.95 percent in 2017 and the number of home sales growing by 2.27 percent. Neither figure is the lowest in its category, “but because the forecast for both was weak.” (Crain’s Chicago Business)

Millennial Shoppers Are Heading to J.C. Penney “From magic mirrors to selfie walls, retailers’ haphazard attempts to court millennial shoppers have not been short on gimmicks. Perhaps that’s what makes J.C. Penney’s approach refreshingly simple. Instead of throwing the latest trends and technologies in the face of these shoppers, Penney’s has honed in on one specific subset of the diverse generation: millennial moms. Numbering more than 14 million in the U.S., according to Pew Research, this group of women accounts for 45 percent of Penney’s revenue.” (CNBC)

Nike Swooshing Into New 60K-Plus SF Mega-Store on Fifth Avenue “Nike has sealed a 15-year deal for a store that exceeds 60,000 square feet and spans more than five stories at 650 Fifth Avenue near West 52nd Street, Commercial Observer has learned. The asking rent for the ground floor was $4,000 per square foot. It’s not clear if Nike is abandoning its Niketown space at Trump Tower at 6 East 57th Street at Fifth Avenue, but the company has been looking for space for a while.” (Commercial Observer)

KeyBank Lends a Helping Hand in Washington “AVS Communities, a real estate development company active in the greater Seattle and Puget Sound region, recently received $95.2 million in tax-exempt bond financing from KeyBank’s Community Development Lending & Investing (CDLI) group to create more affordable housing in the area. The California-based developer will use the financial help for the Villas at Auburn and the Reserve at Auburn, two multifamily projects that will bring on the market a combined 592 units of affordable housing for residents making 60 percent or less of the area median income.” (Commercial Property Executive)

Pop-Up Serving as Band-Aids for Retail Landlords “Uncertainty continues to plague the city’s retail market. Asking rents have dipped across large parts of Manhattan, according to a recent retail report from the Real Estate Board of New York. Availability rates increased year-over-year in almost every retail submarket of the borough last quarter, according to an analysis by Cushman & Wakefield. Faced with a market in which tenants aren’t signing up for pricey long-term leases, landlords have had to adjust, and are more open to short-term leases.” (The Real Deal)

US consumers should feel muted impact from rising oil price — OPEC’s decision to cut production gave an immediate boost to oil prices, but the impact on consumers and the U.S. economy is likely to be more modest and gradual. The cartel agreed Wednesday to cut output by 1.2 million barrels a day, reversing a strategy that produced lower oil prices and pain for U.S. drillers but saved money for consumers. Even if OPEC members carry through on their promises, global oil production would only fall by about 1 per cent. (DALLAS AP)

Real Estate Daily News Buzz is designed to give news snippets to readers that our (yet to be award winning) editors thought you could use to start your day. They come from various business perspectives, real estate, government, the Fed, local news, and the stock markets to save you time. Here you will find the headlines and what the news buzz of the day will be.

Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.98 points, or 0.01 per cent, to 19,123.58. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 5.85 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 2,198.81. The Nasdaq composite fell 56.24 points, or 1.1 per cent, to 5,323.68.

U.S. crude surged $4.21, or 9.3 per cent, to close at $49.44 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the international benchmark, gained $4.09, or 8.8 per cent, to $50.47 a barrel in London. In other energy trading, heating oil rose 11 cents to $1.57 a gallon, wholesale gasoline rose 11 cents to $1.49 a gallon and natural gas rose 3 cents to $3.35 per 1,000 cubic feet.

US consumer spending, incomes rose in October — U.S. consumers boosted their spending again in October, while their incomes increased at the fastest clip in six months. A key gauge of inflation watched by the Federal Reserve posted the fastest 12-month gain in two years. Consumer spending increased 0.3 per cent in October after a revised 0.7 per cent jump in September, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Incomes increased 0.6 per cent, the best showing since April. An inflation gauge closely followed by the Federal Reserve increased 1.4 per cent compared to a year ago. That was the fastest 12-month advance since 2014. WASHINGTON (AP)

Economy Watch: Real GDP Surges in 3Q “According to the BEA, the acceleration in real GDP in the third quarter primarily reflected an upturn in private inventory investment, or business spending. There was also an acceleration in exports, an upturn in federal government spending, and smaller decreases in state and local government spending and residential fixed investment. These factors were partly offset by a drop in personal consumption expenditures (PCE, or people out spending), an acceleration in imports, and a deceleration in nonresidential fixed investment (which is partly commercial real estate).” (Commercial Property Executive)

Trump announces he will leave business ‘in total’ — leaving open how he will avoid conflicts of interest “President-elect Donald J. Trump tweeted Wednesday morning that he would soon leave his “great business in total” to focus on the presidency, a response to growing worries over the businessman-in-chief’s conflicts of interest around the globe. The announcement marks a turn from Trump’s months-long refusal to distance himself from his private business while holding the highest public office. But it remained unclear whether the new arrangement would include a full sale of Trump’s stake or, as he has offered before, a ceding of company management to his children, which ethics advisers have said would not resolve worries that the business could still influence his decisions in the Oval Office. ‘I will be holding a major news conference in New York City with my children on December 15 to discuss the fact that I will be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’ Trump tweeted.” (The Washington Post)

Kushner plans to lend $200M annually to developers “Jared Kushner’s Kushner Companies plans to lend $200 million annually to developers over the next five years, according to its president Laurent Morali. ‘We like the opportunity to deploy our capital in a different place in the capital stack,’ Morali said, according to the New York Post. The Real Deal first reported in May that Kushner Companies had quietly launched a lending arm, and bought the mezzanine debt on JDS Development and the Chetrit Group’s 9 DeKalb Avenue. According to an offering email reviewed by TRD at the time, the firm plans to issue preferred equity, mezzanine debt and senior debt ranging from $20 million to $500 million. On Monday, TRD reported that Kushner Credit Opportunity Fund is backing Toby Moskovits’ Bushwick mixed-use project 215 Moore Street with a $33 million loan.” (The Real Deal)

Real Estate Tech Companies VTS and Hightower to Merge in $300 Million Deal “Two technology startups that help commercial-real-estate owners and brokers manage their businesses are merging in a deal that will create one of the largest technology companies in the industry, valued at about $300 million. VTS and Hightower Inc., both based in New York, are merging in an all-stock transaction, executives at both firms said. The deal was expected to be announced to employees Tuesday. The merged firm, which will keep the name VTS and be led by VTS Chief Executive Nick Romito, will provide customer-management tools for owners of more than 5.5 billion square feet of commercial space in the U.S. and U.K. Investors in VTS include Blackstone Group LP and Boston-based venture-capital firm OpenView. Among Hightower’s major backers are Bessemer Venture Partners, Menlo Park, Calif., and Thrive Capital, a venture firm led by Joshua Kushner, whose brother, Jared Kushner, is married to Ivanka Trump, the president-elect’s daughter.” (The Wall Street Journal)

Weed Votes Are Already Boosting Warehouse Rents “It took Chris Abbott six stressful months to find a new space for his growing company. The 10,000-square-foot warehouse on the outskirts of Portland, Ore., was once used to store industrial-strength compressors. Now the gritty space, its cinder walls repainted white, resembles a cross between a high-end laboratory and an industrial bakery. It’s the home of Botanica, Abbott’s edible marijuana company.  The new lease, which will let Botanica expand its business from nearby Washington into the Beaver state, didn’t come cheap. In the Portland area, most companies can rent industrial space for about $5 a square foot annually. Cannabis companies, however, pay a premium ranging from $12 to $18 a square foot.  ‘We were willing to pay above market value to have a space there,’ Abbott said. ‘I see the biggest barrier to entry in Oregon as getting real estate.’ The short history of legalized marijuana in the U.S. is rife with tales of tight supply and above-market leases. Local rules on where cannabis businesses can operate, combined with restrictions that prevent them from using bank financing, have limited the property available to entrepreneurs such as Abbott. Warehouse owners, on the other hand, are cashing in.” (Bloomberg)

10 exciting developments fusing food and real estate “There’s no question that attitudes towards food and healthy living have evolved over the last few decades. Cuisine and food culture have undergone dramatic shifts, from the proliferation of celebrity chefs to ever-more sophisticated palettes; since 1994, the number of farmers markets in the country have increased fivefold. It only makes sense that developers, always on the lookout for the next standout residential and commercial development, would start factoring these trends into their new projects. In a new report, Cultivating Development, the Urban Land Institute examines how the real estate industry has begun to embrace culinary sophistication and foodie culture, positioning shared gardens and upscale food halls as must-have amenities and retail anchors. These additions not only fuel commerce and community, but can lead to more sustainable, equitable development that legitimately improves the health of residents. Here are 10 of the projects highlighted in the report, from healthy residential developments to indoor farming centers, that both help the bottom line and add value to the community.” (Curbed)

Home furnishings giant continues U.S. expansion “Ikea is hoping to build its fifth store in the state of Texas. The retailer is submitting plans to the City of Live Oak, Texas, for a San Antonio-area store. Pending approvals, construction could begin in spring 2018, with an opening in summer 2019. Located approximately 15 miles northeast of downtown San Antonio, the 289,000-sq.-ft. proposed Ikea would be built on 31 acres. Ikea said it would evaluate potential on-site power generation to complement its current U.S. renewable energy presence at nearly 90% of its U.S. locations.” (Chain Store Age)

What It Takes to Open a Bookstore “For more than 20 years, small bookstores have been vanishing, their business models under pressure from large competitors and internet retailers. In the last several years, though, there are signs that independent bookstores are making a comeback in New York and other cities, in part through innovative financing that gives neighborhoods a stake in the businesses. A case in point: Jessica Stockton Bagnulo and Rebecca Fitting, the owners of Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene, have just opened a new location in a second Brooklyn neighborhood, Prospect Lefferts Garden. I’m surely not the only bookworm who has fantasized about working in a bookstore: The quiet, convivial atmosphere; the rows of spines with titles you have always meant to read; the enthusiastic conversations about books.” (The New York Times)

City of Hawthorne OKs demolition of long-abandoned mall “Since it closed in 1999, the Hawthorne Plaza Mall has been a derelict wasteland, popular with vagrants, urban explorers, and film crews (most recently, it’s appeared in HBO’s Westworld). Now, after numerous false starts, the Hawthorne City Council has unanimously approved a plan paving the way for the mall to be demolished and replaced with an enormous mixed use outdoor shopping complex. As the Daily Breeze reports, mall owner Charles Company previously proposed three other designs for the mall, but each proposal was eventually rejected by the city. This time, officials liked the design for the project and even agreed to throw in some financial support for construction. The $500 million development will replace the old-fashioned indoor mall into a Grove-like open-air retail space with offices and residences. When complete, the massive project will include 500,000 square-feet of commercial space, 800,000 square-feet of offices, 600 residential units, and enough parking for nearly 6,000 vehicles.” (Los Angeles Curbed)

Magic City, a tech innovation district, coming to Little Haiti “The Magic City will get a namesake innovation district with art, entertainment, technology and sustainability at its core, if the vision of a group of real estate developers, investors and entrepreneurs comes to fruition. In Brickell? Downtown? Wynwood? Nope. Little Haiti. Bob Zangrillo, a Silicon Valley investor and CEO of Dragon Global, and Tony Cho, a Miami real estate developer and CEO of Metro 1, will announce plans Wednesday for Magic City, a 15-acre mixed-use development focused on creating an innovation district in the historic Miami neighborhood once known as Lemon City…The first phase of Magic City will bring art and entertainment to the emerging district and will include a sculpture garden, the 30,000-square foot-Magic City Studios and the 15,000-square-foot Factory, both of which will initially be used for events, an innovation center and an amphitheater, with the aim of creating a walkable campus-like neighborhood.” (Miami Herald)

Real Estate Daily News Buzz is designed to give news snippets to readers that our (yet to be award winning) editors thought you could use to start your day. They come from various business perspectives, real estate, government, the Fed, local news, and the stock markets to save you time. Here you will find the headlines and what the news buzz of the day will be.

Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 23.70 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 19,121.60. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 2.94 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 2,204.66. The Nasdaq composite rose 11.11 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 5,379.92.

Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.85, or 3.9 per cent, to close at $45.23 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, tumbled $1.86, or 3.9 per cent, to close at $46.38 a barrel in London. In other energy commodities, heating oil fell 5 cents to $1.46 a gallon, wholesale gasoline fell 4 cents to $1.38 a gallon and natural gas was mostly unchanged at $3.32 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Sign project continues on Tohono O’odham routes west of Tucson The Arizona Department of Transportation is continuing sign-replacement work on various local routes on the Tohono O’odham Nation this week. Motorists traveling on Federal Route 34 and Federal Route 15 may encounter delays while crews continue putting in sign foundations and signs on those routes. The work on Route 34 will include brief delays as a moving operation slows traffic through the work areas, while the work on Route 15 will require lane closures and a flagging operation to direct traffic through the work area between mileposts 30 and 50. On Route 15, drivers should expect delays of 15 minutes. Work hours for this project are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Crews continue work on Federal Route 19 using shoulder closures and no delays for motorists. Drivers should proceed through the work zone with caution, slow down and watch for construction equipment and personnel. For more information about this project, please call C.T. Revere, ADOT senior community relations officer, at 1.520.705.3574 or email at crevere@azdot.gov.

First Data: Thanksgiving, Black Friday sales up 9 per cent — Shoppers put in a strong showing on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Holiday spending rose 9 per cent Thursday and Friday combined, compared with the same two-day period last year, according to First Data. The bump was fueled by shoppers turning to online deals. E-commerce sales rose 10.8 per cent for the two-day period, while sales at physical stores grew 8.6 per cent, according to First Data, which analyzed online and in-store payments across different forms of payment cards from nearly one million merchants Thanksgiving and Friday. The data captures about 40 per cent of all card transactions in the U.S. but excludes cash. (NEW YORK AP)

Consumer Confidence Soars to Highest level in Nine Years “Consumer confidence soared in November to a post-recession high, according to the Conference Board’s monthly report published on Tuesday. The confidence index rose to 107.1, the highest level since July 2007. Economists had forecast that the index rose to 101.5 from 98.6. This was the first full report from the Conference Board since the US election. However, only a few responses were received after the election.” (Business Insider)

U.S. Home Prices Have Set a New Record, Says S&P Case-Shiller “Home prices continued to climb in September, setting a new all-time record and surpassing the highs from before the financial crisis. On a national basis, single-family home prices increased by 5.5%, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions. That’s up sharply from 5.1% the month before. Home prices have risen particularly fast out West, with the highest year-over-year price increases in Seattle (11%), Portland (10.9%) and Denver (8.7%).” (Forbes)

Real Estate Prices Should Trend Up, Says REIT Startup CEO “Up until recent years, REITs were pretty much the only option for investors who wanted to invest in real estate, but lacked a strong professional background in the industry. The economic crisis, low interest rates and the rise of algo-trading, led Millions of investors to search for real estate investment opportunities, and as a result, dozens of crowdfunding and other platforms were founded, in order to serve this growing market. One of the fastest growing and fascinating startups is an Oakland based RoofStock.” (Forbes)

Indian-American Real Estate Executive May Join Trump Administration “Sandeep Mathrani, 54, the Chief Executive Officer of General Growth Properties, met the President-elect at the Trump Towers in New York on Monday. The presidential transition team, except for announcing the scheduled meeting, did not issue a read-out of the meeting Trump had with Mathrani, real estate executive from Chicago, the hometown of outgoing President Barack Obama. Local media reports speculated that Mathrani could join the Trump administration.” (The Tribune)

US bank earnings up nearly 13 per cent in 3Q — U.S. banks’ earnings in the July-September period jumped nearly 13 per cent from a year earlier as continued growth in lending fueled interest income. The data issued Tuesday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. showed strength in the banking industry more than eight years after the financial crisis struck. However, the impact of low oil prices on energy companies led banks to continue to post bigger losses on commercial and industrial loans. Some energy companies have struggled to repay loans, causing distress for banks in oil and gas producing regions. (WASHINGTON AP)

China Tightening Capital Controls Bodes Ill for Real Estate “Over the short term the yuan is under pressure, so investors should expect capital outflows to be curtailed even more. The most sensitive areas are the U.K., and especially London, property markets; in London, the housing market has been slowing post-Brexit vote but housing is still unaffordable, with the average price around 14x average earnings, so Chinese buyers were important to prevent prices from falling. Other property hot spots are New York, Sydney and Vancouver, although a tax on foreign property buying has cooled down speculation in the Canadian city.” (The Street)

In the Future, You Might Work in an Inflatable Office “Taking second place was a proposal by designer Jie Zhang that allows workers to truly become digital nomads, with inflatable offices that can be set up practically anywhere. These collapsible structures are insulated, both thermally and acoustically, and offer a futuristic view of how people might work someday. One of Zhang’s submitted diagrams shows a person carrying the inflatable in a shoulder bag. The directions: ‘arrive,’ ‘unroll’ and ‘inflate.’” (MarketWatch)

Ex-Best Buy CEO Urges Big-Box Chains to Make Amazon-Type Changes or Die “The likes of traditionally brick-and-mortar-centric Best Buy and Wal-Mart have made great strides to compete more effectively online, but they need to continue to evolve in order to close the gap with e-commerce powerhouse Amazon, said former Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson. Appearing on CNBC’s ‘Squawk on the Street’ on Cyber Monday, he said Amazon is an ‘incredible company,’ built for innovation in the digital age. ‘In its core culture, [Amazon is] constantly making changes, adapting, making mistakes, using the bottom of the organization as well as the top of the organization.’” (CNBC)

US economy grew at 3.2 per cent in third quarter — The U.S. economy in the third quarter grew at the fastest pace in two years, with a revised report showing stronger consumer spending than first estimated. The gross domestic product, the country’s total output of goods and services, expanded at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent in the July-September period, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. The 3.2 per cent increase was expected to be the best showing for the year. Economists believe growth has slowed to around 2 per cent in the current quarter. At the moment, they forecast growth of around 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent for 2017. (WASHINGTON AP)

Air Rights on the High Line Are Selling at Huge Prices “It might be a last gasp of a vanishing market, but a chunk of precious High Line district air rights has sold for a whopping $800 per buildable square foot. Highcap Group’s managing principal Josh Goldflam and Senior Director Michael Ferrara brokered the sale of 4,900 square feet of High Line Transfer Corridor air rights from 509-511 W. 27th St., owned by a local partnership, to development company Six Sigma for $3.92 million.” (New York Post)

Home Depot Could Be the Surprise Winner of the Holiday Shopping Season “Forget the sweaters and socks. Home Depot Inc. is popping up as an analyst choice for holiday season sales amid elevated promotions for the category and strong appliance sales in the recently reported third quarter. Home Depot is the top holiday pick for analysts at BTIG due to a number of factors, including the home retailer’s low earnings-per-share exposure in the fourth quarter and positive tailwinds. Coming out of its third-quarter earnings announcement, Home Depot identified appliances as a standout category, reporting a double-digit same-store sales increase for the quarter.” (MarketWatch)