In Part One of this blog post, I discussed an article recently published by CRE – The Counselors of Real Estate entitled, “The Coronavirus, the End of the Cycle, and U.S. Commercial Property Markets: Early Thoughts.” In this Part Two, I will continue my discussion of the long-term issues facing the real estate sector as a result of the coronavirus. Bricks-and-mortar retail has spent the past 10 years experiencing a seismic shift toward e-commerce, eliminating…

CRE – The Counselors of Real Estate recently published an article entitled “The Coronavirus, the End of the Cycle, and U.S. Commercial Property Markets: Early Thoughts.” The article provides excellent insight into the current headwinds that the economy and more particularly, the real estate industry, are facing from the perspective of an economist. Below is a summary of the article, with my own commentary added. As the United States (and the world) hunker down for…

As of Monday, March 23, 2020, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky have issued executive orders for the purpose of limiting person-to-person contact to avoid the transmission of the COVID-19 virus. This article summarizes how each of these three states are defining “essential businesses” and “essential services.” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker issued Executive Order 2020-10 on March 20, 2020. Section 9 of the order includes in the definition of “Essential Infrastructure” in part the following activities that apply…

On March 20, 2020, the CRE Finance Council hosted a great conference call entitled, “The Impact of COVID-19 on the Commercial and Multifamily Real Estate Property & Finance Markets.” Like many of us in the commercial real estate world, I’m anxious to get my arms around what impact, both short and long term, the COVID-19 pandemic will have on our real estate markets, including real estate finance, a focus of my practice. Spoiler alert –…

I attended the recent ICSC Regional Law Conference in Columbus, Ohio. It was a great conference where I reconnected with many great colleagues – including my son Kendall who is only in his second year practicing law, but recently took advantage of his Dad in a lease negotiation where he represented an escape room tenant and his Dad represented the landlord. Richard Tranter’s presentation on the need for retail to be experiential was great. But…

University of Cincinnati Law Professor Sean Mangan does not hate many things, but ‘and/or’ has to be first on the list – along with whomever might be playing his Irish that weekend. I had the pleasure of taking multiple drafting classes with him several years ago, but I honestly never quite understood the depth of his anger towards the use of ‘and/or’ (along with “thereof”, “henceforth”, “hereto”, and the like). However, as it turns out,…