Rethinking Height: In The Age Of The Coronavirus, High-Rise Developments May Drop

[DCReid]

"Even before the coronavirus arrived and upended much of commercial real estate, some developers were questioning the need to build high-rise buildings in Los Angeles. The cost of building a high-rise residential and office project in Los Angeles was going up. There were power constraints and the high cost of building parking was also a major issue... For much of the decade, the construction and development of high-rise buildings were seen as a solution to meet a city's residential demand, add to a city's prestige and pack more density in an urban area. But the arrival of the coronavirus and high construction costs have some developers shying away from building skyscrapers in favor of low- or mid-rise developments, experts said.

Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/los-angeles/n...medium=Browser

[Crawford]

That makes zero sense. A low or midrise building has the same pandemic-related issues as a highrise building. Why would an elevator or HVAC system be safer in a 10-floor building as opposed to a 40-floor building?

Also, you don't build a building to meet the specific needs of a pandemic. The vaccine will arrive years before the building is even completed.

[LA21st]

There's been a good amount of high-rises announced/proposed for LA and Orange County since the pandemic started.
In fact, they seem to be getting taller than before.


I think this partly due to get TODs going for the new purple line, which will have three new stops by 2023 and to Westwood by 2025.

[Qubert]

Originally Posted by Crawford

That makes zero sense. A low or midrise building has the same pandemic-related issues as a highrise building. Why would an elevator or HVAC system be safer in a 10-floor building as opposed to a 40-floor building?

Also, you don't build a building to meet the specific needs of a pandemic. The vaccine will arrive years before the building is even completed.

While this post is accurate perhaps the author is thinking in terms of reverting back to the 4-6 story midrise style that has been pretty ubiquitous throughout the US.

[craigs]

If COVID-19 can be contained and is the only catastrophic pandemic this decade, then highrises will continue to pencil out. If our uber-globalized world produces more pandemics, however, then all bets are off.

[BillM]

I remember hearing about how the days of building skyscrapers were over in the months after 9/11/2001.

[bnk]

Originally Posted by BillM

I remember hearing about how the days of building skyscrapers were over in the months after 9/11/2001.

I was just going to say the same thing.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by BillM

I remember hearing about how the days of building skyscrapers were over in the months after 9/11/2001.

Agreed. I'm not predicting doom and gloom. After 9/11, the attacks on skyscrapers ended, so it was full steam ahead and we've all benefited from that progress. But novel viruses are not predictable. Something happened this time, something that facilitated the crossover into humanity--and we don't know exactly what that was, or how we can prevent it from happening again. You've made a good analogy to 9/11, but the problem here is we can't bomb or torture viruses into submission.

[mhays]

Highrises don't get built to add to a city's prestige. They get built because the investments and loans will likely pay off at least a certain target percentage. If people are willing to pay the necessary rents, highrises will be built.

In my city's case, a lot of developers seem to think apartments are the best type of development...lots being proposed, going through the process, and breaking ground in the Covid era. Of course we don't know whether there will be a multifamily or highrise correction...lots more shoes need to drop before that's clear.

[dc_denizen]

Demand for real estate is also being driven higher by the lack of alternative investments.

Interest rates are at record lows. The stock market is overvalued . Credit risk is rising

Real estate offers nice cash flow and appreciation with low risk

[10023]

I think any writer that uses the phrase “age of coronavirus” should be fired on the spot.

This isn’t an “age”. It’s a disease outbreak that will be over, one way or another, by this time next year (either we’ll have a vaccine or enough people will have convalescent antibodies).

It’s a lost year and “time out” but nothing will change unless people really want them to and other stakeholders agree. For example, a lot of people will want to work from home sometimes, and if their employers allow it they might. But there will be no big lasting transformation of society.

[sopas ej]

The source of this article is a commercial real estate website. That says it all.

It deals with an artificial construct called "market trends."

I'm pretty sure people who majored in "marketing," which is speculative in nature and never an absolute, never thought about the effects of a pandemic.

So, it's basically click-bait for people who care about this kind of stuff.

[mhays]

In commercial real estate, "market trends" has nothing do do with marketing. The highrise "market" (or markets) is/are about everything concerning highrise development and ownership.