Category Archives: Commercial property

The US could be facing a 2008-style financial crisis. Why does Sunak want to copy it?

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The PM’s admiration for Washington’s economic model may backfire amid looming US banking and stock market disasters

One of the consistent themes of the Conservative economic narrative is an admiration for the US and its ability to grow quickly. The way it has bounced back from the pandemic and how it has ridden out the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should serve as a blueprint.

A neoliberal Conservative analysis puts the emphasis on tech, innovation and a myth-like entrepreneurial spirit that the UK would do well to emulate. What it ignores is the way the US economy zips ahead on fantastical stock market valuations and off-balance-sheet accounting reminiscent of the years before the 2008 financial crisis. And how both these habits could bite back in a big way, much as they did in 2008, and pretty soon.

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Marks & Spencer refused permission to demolish and rebuild Oxford Street store

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M&S says ‘short-sighted act of self-sabotage’ leaves no choice but to review position on UK’s premier shopping street

Marks & Spencer has been refused permission to demolish and rebuild its main store on Oxford Street in the West End of London in a win for campaigners concerned about the carbon footprint of redevelopment.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities confirmed that Michael Gove, the secretary of state, disagreed with the recommendation from inspectors to approve the plans and had “decided to refuse permission”.

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Westfield mall firm gives up San Francisco center as Nordstrom closes

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City will lose one of its largest shopping centers which saw a decline in economic activity, occupancy and foot traffic

Westfield is ceding control of its San Francisco mall, the latest business to leave the city as it struggles to recover its pre-pandemic commerce levels.

The mall, located at 865 Market St, is among the city’s largest shopping centres. In a statement, to the San Francisco Chronicle, which was the first to report news of the planned closure, the company cited “challenging operating conditions” in the city’s downtown area as the reason for its departure. It has seen a decline in sales, occupancy and foot traffic, the company added.

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Housebuilders cut back on construction as UK mortgage rate rises spook buyers

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Work on residential building sites slips in May to weakest level since 2009

Britain’s housebuilders are cutting back on the construction of new homes amid signs that potential buyers are being spooked by the prospect of increases in mortgage rates over the coming months.

The latest report on the construction sector found that work on residential building sites slipped in May to the weakest level since 2009, apart from when sites were locked down during the Covid pandemic.

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Staff work in central London offices for 2.3 days a week, study finds

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Thinktank warns against wholesale switch to working from home and raises fears over lost productivity in capital

Office workers in central London are spending on average 2.3 days a week in the workplace, according to a report that warns against a wholesale switch to working from home.

The thinktank Centre for Cities carried out polling of office workers in the capital and found they were spending 59% of the time in their workplace compared with pre-Covid levels.

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Duke of Westminster’s property firm pays £50m dividend despite profits drop

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Boss of Grosvenor, which owns swathes of Mayfair and Belgravia, warns of ‘more pain’ for commercial property market

The Duke of Westminster’s property company, which owns swathes of London’s exclusive Mayfair and Belgravia districts, has paid out a £50m dividend despite falling profits.

The boss of Grosvenor, the duke’s £11.5bn property empire, warned of a period of stagflation and that UK interest rates and inflation could stay high for longer than expected, resulting in “more pain” for the commercial property market.

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Loss of nearly 15,000 UK retail jobs a ‘brutal start to 2023’, report says

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Majority of job losses are at large retailers such as Tesco and Asda, according to Centre for Retail Research

Nearly 15,000 British retail jobs have already been cut since January in a “brutal start to the year” for the high street.

A total of 14,874 retail job losses have been announced by companies so far, according to analysis from the Centre for Retail Research (CRR).

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How the pandemic transformed the world of work in 2021

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There were winners and losers as work patterns continued changing, with repercussions for city centres and society as a whole

Of all the predictions on your 2021 bingo card, who had employees being fined for going into the office? Workers in Wales now face that threat since the tightening of Covid regulations amid the spread of the Omicron variant, with a possible £60 penalty for failing to work from home.

That is just one of many examples of how the pandemic has transformed the world of work this year – and perhaps for ever – for city centre employers, their staff and the service industry that depends on them for trade.

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China’s indebted property sector highlights a fading economic revival

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Xi Jinping’s mission is not only to control the housing bubble, but rein in untethered industries and foreign capital

China’s economy has become heavily dependent on property development over the last decade. High-rise apartments have mushroomed across hundreds of cities to house a growing white-collar workforce, while glass and steel office blocks are dominating city centres, mimicking Shanghai’s glittering skyline.

Valued at more than $50tn after 20 years of rapid growth, Chinese real estate is worth twice as much as the US property market and four times China’s annual income.

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Joe & the Juice bids for growth despite the Covid squeeze

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The Nordic cafe chain is planning ambitious expansion in the UK and perhaps an IPO – if it can find the staff

Founded by a Danish karate champion, the smoothie chain Joe & the Juice has blitzed its way on to British high streets, where its pastel-pink outlets and drinks with names such as Sex Me Up have cut a distinctive dash.

Having grown from one juice bar in Copenhagen in 2002 to 300 outlets around the world, the chain is planning to double in size in the next few years, and is rumoured to be plotting a stock market listing.

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Disinfection robots and thermal body cameras: welcome to the Covid-free office

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A workplace in Bucharest filled with anti-virus innovations could become the new normal in office design, its creators hope

Not so long ago it may have seemed more like a futuristic vision of the workplace – or a hospital.

But the hands-free door handles, self-cleaning surfaces, antimicrobial paint, air-monitoring display tools, UV light disinfection robots, and 135 other measures at an office block in Bucharest are here to stay, say the creators behind what they are touting as one of the world’s most virus-resilient workplaces, which they hope will become the new normal in office design.

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Meals by wheels: UK drive-through booms as brands invest in new sites

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Social distancing is feeding an appetite for a new generation of US-style drive-through restaurants

Drive-through restaurants used to be a US-inspired novelty but a big increase in custom during the pandemic means money is pouring into new UK sites, with even upmarket names looking to serve food through car windows for the first time.

New property research suggests that demand for drive-throughs has increased by 25% post-Covid with restaurant chains looking to open a total of 200 sites a year. The clamour comes as established names such as McDonald’s and Burger King face competition from North American brands such as Tim Hortons, famous for its coffee and doughnuts, and burger chain Wendy’s.

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A year of Covid crisis: a glimmer of economic hope at the end of the tunnel

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Twelve months after the pandemic struck the Guardian’s economic tracker reveals real risk of lasting damage

When Boris Johnson announced the first stay-at-home order, effectively shutting down whole sections of the economy, it was hoped the tide could be turned within 12 weeks. As many months later, lockdown measures are being relaxed for a third time and Britain still faces a lengthy road to recovery from the worst recession for 300 years.

As restrictions ease, the chief economist at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, warned that despite the reopening of the economy, the risk of a “jobs equivalent of long Covid” remains for workers across the country.

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Revealed: Sheikh Khalifa’s £5bn London property empire

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Documents reveal UAE president owns multibillion-pound property portfolio spanning London’s most expensive neighbourhoods

The row of 1960s-built houses with untidy gardens on a quiet cul-de-sac near Richmond upon Thames appears to have little in common with Ecuador’s red-brick embassy in Knightsbridge, where Julian Assange spent seven years in hiding, just across the road from Harrods.

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Office pods may be the answer to working safely post-Covid-19

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Entrepreneur Xu Weiping is risking a fortune to build 2,000 3-metre square workspaces in east London

Welcome to cube city. Xu Weiping, a Chinese multimillionaire, has a vision for the future of office work in the post-Covid-19 pandemic world: thousands of office pods where each person works in their own self-contained 3m x 3m cube.

Xu reckons the coronavirus pandemic will have such a fundamental impact on the way people work that he is converting 20 newly constructed office buildings in east London into 2,000 of the individual cube offices.

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Donald Trump ‘lost $1bn in a month’ from coronavirus lockdown

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Stock market crash strips billionaire status from 267 of world’s richest people in the annual list

Donald Trump lost an estimated $1bn of his paper fortune in the past month as the coronavirus lockdown forced the closure of offices, shopping centres, hotels and golf courses he owns.

The US president’s fortune has fallen from an estimated $3.1bn (£2.5bn) on 1 March to $2.1bn on 18 March (at the height of stock market panic caused by the coronavirus pandemic) according to Forbes magazine’s annual billionaires list.

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