The almost complete absence of Western travelers to Russia is having a marked effect on the Russian hotel industry, and analysts said the current lack of demand is just as devastating as it was at the height of the pandemic.
Domestic business from Russian residents is keeping the country’s hotel industry afloat, after the European Union imposed restrictions on Russians traveling to Europe following Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. European countries such as Finland, Poland and the Czech Republic imposed outright bans on their citizens going to Russia.
Investor and developer M&G Real Estate is counting on a slew of upscale features to help fill its “Gotham City” tower nearing completion as one of London’s largest office buildings.
The U.K.-based company decided in the midst of the pandemic to invest additional capital into the project to help make it competitive, and the building is now 70% preleased. Developers emphasized amenities including hotel-level finishing, green spaces and large facilities geared to bicyclists, as property owners and corporate tenants look to woo workers back to offices.
After a sluggish first half of the year, the slowdown in French commercial property investment market dropped to a new low during the third quarter.
“You have to go back to 2009, at the height of the international financial crisis, to find such a weak quarterly result,” said Antoine Grignon, head of brokerage Knight Frank’s French investment department, in a study obtained by Business Immo. Brokers said just under €1.8 billion was invested in France in the third quarter, down 43% from the prior quarter and almost five times less than the same period a year earlier. The total number of deals has fallen sharply, with the market for large transactions hit particularly hard in the current pricing and financing environment.
Germany’s commercial real estate transaction volume totaled between €16 billion and €17 billion for the first three quarters of 2023, about two-thirds below the year-earlier time frame and 55% below the 10-year average, according to the latest brokerage tallies.
Data from firms including BNP Paribas Real Estate, CBRE, Colliers, Cushman & Wakefield, JLL and Savills showed third-quarter deal volume of €6.5 billion actually beating the prior quarter, due particularly to a large number of portfolio deals in the retail and logistics categories. But brokerages do not expect the overall market to pick up until 2024, with full-year transaction forecasts for 2023 ranging from about €22 billion to €25 billion.
Sweden-based Northvolt, an electric vehicle battery manufacturer co-founded by former Tesla employees, is planning to build its first plant outside of Europe in Quebec as part of an investment representing $7 billion Canadian currency or $5 billion in the U.S., after a review of 70 potential sites.
Federal and provincial governments are offering up to $4.6 billion in Canadian subsidies for the plant, which is expected to generate economic benefits equal to the value of production incentives within five to nine years, according to a statement from Quebec government officials. The plant is slated to be built on a vacant plot of riverside land in McMasterville, about 45 minutes southeast of Montreal, and it represents the largest private investment in Quebec’s history, Northvolt said in a statement.
An international light-based artist is coming to New York City to transform what may be Manhattan’s biggest undeveloped lot into a 6-acre, fiber-optic “flower box,” an immersive work to go on display this winter.
Bruce Munro, whose “Field of Light” art installations have appeared from the English countryside to the Australian desert, is looking to plant 17,000 fiber-optic stemmed glass spheres in his largest urban showcase, called “Field of Light at Freedom Plaza.” It’s one of the few times his outdoor work will be displayed to the public for free, with the project expected to stay open for a year.
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This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.
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