U.S. stocks inched higher Monday, with technology shares stabilizing after slumping at the end of last week.

The executive oversaw Wells Fargo’s retail banking, which was at the heart of the fake-accounts scandal.

Sears finalized the sale of its 197-acre Chicago-area headquarters for $194M to Compass Datacenters as the onetime retail industry titan continues to shrink its already-small footprint. 
The developer is expected to demolish the 2.4M SF existing campus of interconnected buildings at 3333 Beverly Road in Hoffman Estates and replace it with data centers to store cloud data, CoStar reports. Data center growth has accelerated rapidly in the Chicago area, with the main issue for projects being a lack of available land.

Sabey Data Centers has purchased 60 acres for a major new data center campus along Oregon’s Columbia River, an emerging submarket that has drawn the attention of Amazon and Google. 

The first attempt required a trip back to the drawing board. The second prompted a lawsuit. But now owners of Connecticut mall have returned with a third plan to add lots of homes to the retail property.

Austin-based Centennial Real Estate is set to present its latest proposal for the Connecticut Post Mall to Milford’s Planning and Zoning board meeting this week, the New Haven Register reported. The 50-acre mall site at 1201 Boston Post Road has been targeted for a conversion for years.

Centennial is seeking more housing units in its latest proposal, according to Patch, but with construction spread out, perhaps to lessen the immediate impact. The addition of up to 750 multifamily housing units would unfold in three phases, each capped at 250 units. At least 10 percent of the units would be affordable.

The first phase would include a plaza spanning at least 25,000 square feet, multifamily units, and be mixed-use. The next two phases could have housing units either in their own buildings or in mixed-use buildings.

This is the first Centennial proposal since Mayor Richard Smith assumed office in the spring. His initial response was positive: Smith’s chief of staff told the Register that the proposal has “a more integrated layout where folks who live in these apartments will take advantage of the local green space and utilize the shops.”

Centennial has been trying for years to add residences to the mall. Its first proposal, in 2020, called for 300 apartments on a four-acre chunk of the mall. Zoning officials rejected the request, arguing for more uses, including commercial space. The mall ranks at the top of the list of Milford’s annual taxpayers.

Localities outside of New York City often prefer commercial development because it contributes property taxes without adding children that swell school district budgets and, thus, property taxes.

Centennial’s second proposal, a year later, didn’t even get to a vote. At the end of the year, Centennial sued the city, Patch reported, claiming the city was acting “illegally, arbitrarily and in abuse of its discretion.”

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With a new plan and new city leadership, the three-year fight to revitalize the mall could finally be coming to a resolution.

Centennial has pursued mixed-use redevelopments well beyond Connecticut. Last week, the developer bought the Valencia Town Center in Santa Clarita, California, setting sights on adding homes, offices and more businesses to the 1-million-square-foot mall.

— Holden Walter-Warner

The post Developers hope to add 750 homes to struggling Milford mall appeared first on The Real Deal.

Unlike its current tenants — the A’s — the Oakland Coliseum site could be a real winner, officials say.

Oakland and Alameda County officials say the Coliseum could undergo a huge makeover and become a second downtown area in the city, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The proposal comes after the A’s, who currently own Major League Baseball’s worst record at a dismal 46-102, rejected an offer from local investors for their share of the property, signaling a shift in the site’s potential development as well as further attempts at a comeback for the city.

During a meeting of the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum Authority, Oakland Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan and Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley highlighted the site’s strategic location, emphasizing its accessibility by both transit and roadways.

Negotiations are underway between the city, financier Jim Reynolds and the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, which has proposed a $5 billion megaproject — including housing, restaurants and a new convention center — for the 155-acre site. 

The Coliseum was co-owned by the city and Alameda County until 2019 when the county sold its share to the A’s.

The A’s, who are primarily focused on building a new stadium in Las Vegas, recently declined AASEG’s offer to buy their share of the Coliseum site. 

However, as part of an exclusive negotiating agreement with the city, both the A’s and AASEG are required to enter into a cooperation agreement for any development to proceed. The city’s options for compelling the A’s to work with AASEG remain unclear.

At the meeting, Kaplan and Miley also discussed potential “public uses” for the site, including the creation of a “City Hall East” where residents could access essential city services. Miley further emphasized the potential of the area to become a significant downtown hub for Oakland. He suggested that any redevelopment could also serve as a form of reparations for Black residents and descendants of slaves.

To facilitate development at the Coliseum, Miley proposed the establishment of an enhanced infrastructure financing district, which could be a crucial element in financing the project. Kaplan instructed staff to prepare an informational report on the feasibility of such a tax structure for consideration at a future meeting. 

Both the city and county governments would need to separately vote to establish this enhanced infrastructure financing district, a mechanism previously considered for the A’s proposed Howard Terminal development, though with some county reservations.

The project would be a massive boost to the city, which has a downtown vacancy rate hovering near 30 percent, according to CBRE data.

— Ted Glanzer

The post Oakland Coliseum site could be transformed into city’s second downtown appeared first on The Real Deal.

The agency will overhaul how it scrutinizes returns that claim the earned-income tax credit, which is aimed at alleviating poverty.

Wages remain focal point, and investors already are sizing up the potential hits to the automakers’ bottom lines.

Mr. Maher said he changed his mind about resuming his weekly HBO show because negotiations in the screenwriters’ strike were set to continue this week.

Honoree Mike Mansfield contributes his financial expertise by serving on the board of several Pacific Northwest-based companies.