Case Studies Real Estate Development

Ah, the cubicle. John Gioioso knows the model well: A square measuring a few feet by a few feet. Just enough room for a desk a computer and files. No natural light to speak of and identical row after identical row. Corporate America is made of these. But the future isn’t, at least not for […]

It’s no statue, but it does have a connection to the past. The 86,000-square-foot, six-story brick structure was built in the 1890s and has been used as a grocery store, biscuit factory, wool exporter and warehouse. And there’s the most recent use: Nothing at all. For years, the structure stood vacant. Then, in 2015, the […]

According to a 2015 Iowa State University study, 56 percent of all Iowa farmland is owned by those 65 and older. Though the numbers don’t exactly pop off the page, the implications are significant: With upwards of 85 percent of our foodstuffs sourced from within the United States, how—and by whom—will our future farms be […]

The clubhouse at “The Warwick” was like a ‘70s dream and a 21st-century nightmare: a round room, sunken floors, gaudy furnishings and wall-to-wall, out-of-date décor. In fact, the room in the garden-style Oklahoma City apartment complex had long been shuttered and turned into storage, hidden away from the residents occupying The Warwick’s 423 units—many of […]

In the mid-1800s, seeing a mill in New England was about as common as spotting a Red Sox or Patriots cap is today. There were thousands of mills scattered across the region, and towns depended on these local factories not just for the items produced, but even more so for the jobs. Southern Maine’s cities […]

Adam Hergenrother respects the privacy of his clients and doesn’t boast about the prominent people who have bought some of the high-end houses that BlackRock Construction, the company he and his brother Tom co-founded in 2012, has built in beautiful, bucolic Vermont and upstate New York. Nevertheless, word gets around, and a couple of years […]

“Never start a home that you can’t afford to finish,” John Grubb told his brother Jerry in 1957, when the latter returned from the Korean War and decided to found Jerry’s Homes, a one-man development and homebuilding company. John was likely talking financials when he extended the advice, but Jerry didn’t solely see the company […]

If, just a little over three years ago, you had taken a walk to 300 Second Street SE in Minneapolis, Minnesota, you would have been struck by an eyesore not unlike many that pockmark former mill cities. A two-story building of smudged, light-colored brick, drooping on one side with widespread mold and rust, windows boarded […]

There’s more than a smattering of early 1970s idealism that’s sustained in Pennsylvania’s capital city of Harrisburg, and it’s a mindset that can cut across all political, ethnic and demographic lines. After all, most any constituency would favor an already desirable downtown becoming an even more livable and exciting place. And that has been the […]

Housing authorities do a lot of good in low-income communities by providing affordable apartment options for locals—but these same agencies often catch flak from tenants and the media for neglecting older, deteriorating properties. It’s not necessarily the housing authority’s fault; when tax dollars are limited, they simply can’t handle some of the larger, more complex […]