Amwins is building a 15-story, 250,000-square-foot office tower at the former Sharon Station site, located at 4415 Sharon Road. It plans to use the site as its headquarters.

The Charlotte Business Journal reports the tower will house nine office floors atop six parking levels as well as a lobby and about 7,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. The new offices will replace six structures currently on the site. They are expected to be demolished next week.

Delivery is expected in 2.5 years. Amwins plans to begin moving its more than 500 employees into the space during the fourth quarter of 2028.

The Keith Corp., is developing the site. Brasfield & Gorrie is lead contractor and LS3P Associates and Redline Design Group will be the architects. Thrift Commercial Real Estate Services is handling retail leasing for the project.

Amwins acquired the site from local developer Childress Klein in December 2024 for $16.8 million,.

The multifamily construction pipeline has taken a nosedive to numbers that haven’t been seen in a decade and a half, according to Apartments.com and CoStar. 

Roughly 55,000 units broke ground across the U.S. during the first quarter, the lowest quarterly volume since 2011, as higher development and financing costs and a slowdown in rent growth have limited new construction. 

Only about 579,000 units were underway at the end of the quarter, a 50% decline from the 2023 peak and also back to levels last seen in the mid-2010s.

The free fall in starts comes despite a record wave of office-to-residential conversions sparked by a looming wall of $213B in office loans maturing this year. There are 90,300 units underway via these types of conversions, a 28% increase over a record 2024.

Cities with the most apartment units under construction as of Q1 are New York City, with 43,000 units on the way, followed by 31,000 in Dallas-Fort Worth, which is line with the previous quarter. The cities with the highest development totals compared to the size of their markets, however, are Miami, Charlotte and Tampa, showing Sun Belt development is still alive and well despite years of oversupply.

Southern and Mountain states have the highest amount of new construction in relation to total inventory, with each region’s pipeline topping 3% of supply. They are followed by the Northeast’s 2.7% and the Midwest’s 2.4%. In the Pacific, less than 2% of total supply consists of new builds. 

Many metros are still working through oversupply from the last build cycle. There were 585,200 units delivered in 2024, a multidecade high. Residents are plentiful, though. Up to 300,000 apartments are expected to be absorbed this year.

Multifamily landlords might finally get a chance to breathe with deliveries slowing and lease renewals growing, as many residents are still priced out of buying a home.

Executives at MAA, AvalonBay and Camden Property Trust cited rent-to-income ratios improving on full-year earnings calls for 2025. That is the silver lining in what is expected to be a costly year for multifamily REITs, many of which kicked off 2026 by signaling lower net operating incomes in the year ahead.

That is on top of declines last year. MAA reported NOI fell 1.4% in 2025, and Equity Residential’s fell 0.9%. AvalonBay saw 1.9% growth, but it was below the 2.4% expectation. 

Executives cited a worsening job market and increased economic uncertainty as a drag on profit this year.

The first three months of 2026 were the most active period for office landlords since before the pandemic.

Office tenants signed roughly 120M SF in new leases in the first quarter of the year, a 25% increase compared to the first quarter of 2025 and the highest quarterly total since 2018, according to a CoStar report.

The surge was largely driven by a higher volume of smaller leases — a trend that emerged after the pandemic. The number of leases signed hit its highest point going back a decade.

“While the quarterly figure signifies continued momentum for national office recovery, the composition of leasing activity reflects an intensification of patterns that have emerged in the leasing office market since the pandemic began,” CoStar National Director of Office Analytics Phil Mobley wrote in the analysis.

Since the beginning of 2023, new lease sizes remained about 15% below pre-pandemic averages, due in part to restricted hiring and the lack of larger space in newer buildings, according to the report.

Smaller leases also tend to be more fluid with shorter terms, promoting more leasing activity.

Amid the surge, almost half of the nation’s largest office markets have had leasing return within 10% of their pre-pandemic averages — primarily led by Charlotte, New York City, Miami and San Francisco, which are above their 2015 to 2019 averages.

Courtesy of CoStar Group

The demand from banks and financial institutions, which have maintained a higher in-office attendance record, has uplifted leasing recovery. That trend is particularly strong in Charlotte, where Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. have all announced significant expansions.

But there are still a handful of metropolitan areas — including Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver, Seattle, San Diego and Philadelphia — that are still below 20% of their pre-pandemic average of office leasing activity.

Looking forward, the first quarter’s momentum may not be sustainable through 2026 amid economic and uncertainty pressures, Mobley wrote.

“On the demand side, the return-to-office movement is reaching its apogee, and job growth remains tepid,” he wrote. “Rising energy costs associated with the conflict with Iran also present a headwind to economic growth and, in turn, to demand for office space.”

Highland Resources broke ground on the infrastructure for Magnolia Landing, a planned mixed-use community located along the Ashley River in Charleston. Spanning 192 acres, the community will offer a blend of parks, marinas, residential and hospitality offerings, office space, retail shops, restaurants, waterfront docks and a variety of entertainment options, all set against more than a mile of river frontage.

Magnolia Landing’s first phase includes a high-rise waterfront community and a mid-rise community, both developed by Woodfield Development, offering 600 rental residences. Additionally, the community will include 158 luxury townhomes delivered by a prominent national developer during this first phase.

The first phase will also feature a waterfront office building, offering 100,000 square feet of Class-A office space in addition to 75,000 square feet of street-level retail, gourmet restaurants and other commercial space. And finally, the first phase will include a 125-key hotel, a marina and four restaurants.

Magnolia Landing expects to welcome its first residents in 2027.

High Street Residential (HSR), the residential subsidiary of Trammell Crow Company, has broken ground on the Residences at Perimeter Summit. The seven-story, 350-unit mid-rise multifamily community is located in Brookhaven, Georgia. HSR paid $11.5 million for the property at 1251 Perimeter Summit Pkwy. The project is part of Perimeter Summit, a mixed-use community consisting of 1.7 million square feet of office and retail space across four buildings, a 182-room hotel, and a condo building.

The Residences at Perimeter Summit will include units from 900 square feet to mid-1,400 square feet. Unit amenities will include private balconies in select units. The project will also boast amenities such as an elevated pool, three spacious courtyards, a 1,200-square-foot speakeasy lounge, a fitness center, a clubroom, a coworking center, private conference and study rooms, a tasting room, a pet spa, and a golf simulator.
 
Cooper Carry is leading the design of the project, and New South Construction is providing construction services for the development

Ryan Companies has formed a joint venture with Namdar Realty Group and Mason Asset Management, which announced the financial land closing and start of construction of a 160,000-square-foot speculative industrial facility at Pullman Crossings.

This project comes just five months after the groundbreaking of another 170,000-square-foot speculative industrial facility and marks the final phase of Pullman Crossings, a 50-acre industrial park within Pullman Park, a 180-acre, mixed-use development being developed by Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives (CNI).

“The final phase of Pullman Crossings represents an exciting next step in the continued growth of the South Side,” said Kyle Schott, vice president of real estate development at Ryan Companies. The 10-acre site for the new facility is located in the historic Pullman neighborhood at 10800 S Doty.

Ryan is developing and building the facility with construction financing provided by Bankers Trust. The final phase of Pullman Crossings is expected to be completed by August 2025.

GTIS Partners and Collett Industrial have broken ground on Stateline 85, a three-building, 933,120-square-foot industrial development in Cherokee County. The project will be developed in two phases, the first of which is underway and currently expected to deliver two buildings by Summer 2025. 

Teddy Hull, with Collett Industrial said, “We specifically designed this project to accommodate user flexibility, with expansion opportunities, additional storage areas, and a pad-ready development site.” 

The joint venture has also retained Cushman & Wakefield to oversee leasing efforts. Drew Coholan, Matt Treble and Fermin Deoca of the commercial real estate services firm will lease the entire project. 

Stateline 85 will be located at 212 Tribal Rd. and near the North and South Carolina border between exits 106 and 104 on I-85. The project’s first phase includes the completion of Buildings 1 and 2, spanning 198,720 and 224,640 square feet, respectively. The second phase will support build-to-suit opportunities up to +/—500,000 square feet.

The Mayo Clinic is building out its $432 million Phase 3 tower expansion, adding five stories with 250,000 square feet of space to be added.

The Robins & Morton Group will construct a shell building for the tower expansion above the existing eight-story building. The project, which anticipates adding 121 beds, is expected to be completed in 2026.

The Jacksonville Business Journal reports the Mayo Clinic has had a busy 2023, with several projects getting the go-ahead. The hospital broke ground on its 252-room Hilton Hotel in June and acquired a $49.5 million permit to start construction in August. It earned a $74.2 permit for its integrated oncology building.

Earlier in the year, the hospital also received Jacksonville City Council approval to add 210 acres to the 4500 San Pablo Road Campus.

In September, Mayo Clinic opened its downtown office at the Ed Ball building.

Bisnow/Ethan Rothstein

Alicia Glen, former New York deputy mayor for housing and economic development, at the 2016 REBNY gala.

The former New York deputy mayor for housing and economic development is taking on the real estate world beyond New York.

Alicia Glen, who is also a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, has launched the real estate development and investment firm MSquared, which aims to invest and develop housing for a variety of income levels.

After spending her over 20-year career in New York City, she plans to venture outside the bounds of the Big Apple, with her eyes set on midsized cities where economic growth has outpaced affordable housing, Glen said in an interview with Bisnow on Friday. 

“For right now, I feel the need to do work outside of New York,” she said. “Maybe it’s because I spent my whole life in New York, I am going to have to take a little road trip.” 

The company will work at the juncture of the private and public sectors in order to create mixed-use spaces that Glen believes will help kick-start economies and build up the middle class in these communities. While MSquared hasn’t identified a list of target markets, cities like Charlotte, Nashville and Austin fit the model it has identified.

“One of the things the pandemic has taught us is how interdependent we all are on the various sectors of the economy,” she said. “A city is not a city if you don’t have teachers, nurses, restaurateurs, and that doesn’t happen anymore without a deliberate intervention.” 

The projects that MSquared plans to invest in and develop will include market-rate housing, low-income affordable housing and housing for those that fall in between the two, the company said in its launch announcement.

Through investing and developing mixed-use space, the company will also meet a new need to live and work closely together without reliance on mass transit, a necessity that has arisen amid the pandemic, Glen said. 

MSquared is now part of the 14% of real estate companies led by women nationally. Carolee Fink, Glen’s former chief of staff, will also be a principal. 

“I’d be silly not to mention this is a feminist issue as well,” she said. “Who is making decisions? How do we look at cities? How do we look at investments?” 

Glen served as deputy mayor for five years under Mayor Bill de Blasio, helming the administration’s affordable housing initiative, as well as plans for Sunnyside Yards and Governor’s Island, before leaving the post in March 2019.

Last week, she critiqued her former boss’s decision to ax $2.3B of capital funds from the city’s budget amid the pandemic. 

“If we had a housing crisis before this, we’re going to continue to have an incredible housing crisis after this,” she told Bisnow. “It is just sort of saying, ‘We don’t care about you.’” 

Glen said her interest in markets other than New York is not based on how she feels about the city’s future but rather where the most dire need is for the type of housing stock the firm plans to produce.