PNC BANK GROWING IN SOUTH FLORIDA

Look out TD Bank. There is another player in the banking business that is looking to grow and they are making serious progress. PNC Bank opened 10 branches last year, and plans 4 more branches this year. All of these locations are in Broward County, and PNC expects to have 81 branches in South Florida by the end of the year. As we have talked about in the past, many banks have chosen to expand by acquiring other banks, and PNC is no exception. They bought both RBC Bank and National City and are rumored to be looking at others. With 54 locations in Palm Beach County, they have more market share (6.3%) than SunTrust, TD Bank, BB & T, Citibank and Bank United. Unfortunately Dade County is the weakest link for PNC now, with only 2 branches but they are looking to change that. The problem is that they are hitting the market at a peak time, so we will see how this all works out for PNC. The problem is that those corner parcels that they seek for branch sites are in high demand in Dade right now, with interest from banks, restaurants and gas stations. Banks can and will pay the most for a site, so unless TD is bidding against them they might be OK. I think we will see more banks being acquired to pave the way for expansion than new branch development going forward. But expect to see a PNC opening on a corner near you, especially if you live in Broward or Dade Counties. There is another interesting nugget in here that is worth sharing: 80% of bank customers bank online, by phone or ATM. So why do banks need so many locations? The evolving answer is that they don’t, and we will see that play out in the years to come as the banking industry continues to change. Technology makes things more efficient, which means less people are needed, less jobs, real estate, etc. so it will also be interesting to see how everything else changes with it.

PNC Bank heating up with Florida economy

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-03-08/business/fl-pnc-broward-branches-opening-20140308_1_pnc-bank-national-city-branches

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

SPRING TRAINING BASEBALL UPDATE

Oh yes, we have a lot of info here to share with you. This past week the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros have been in discussions with Palm Beach County officials regarding a potential spring training baseball site. They have been discussing 10 potential sites in Palm Beach County and if the teams select one of them it will have a tremendously positive economic impact on the city and site they select. It was finally revealed where the 10 sites are. I was stunned (and exhilarated at the same time somehow) to see that one of those sites was just a few miles from my house in West Boca Raton. It is the site on Glades Rd. West of 441. Not surprisingly, this very important decision seems like it will come down to money, like most decisions. The problem with this whole deal is that there are hidden costs. If the Nationals and or Astros can’t make a deal for one of the sites there will only be 3 teams in South Florida. That triggers a termination option in all 3 of their leases allowing them to leave the area. So really this negotiation isn’t just about finding a home for one or two more teams, it is about retaining 3 and adding one or 2. And there would be a huge economic impact either way. I have been to 2 games so far and if you haven’t been to Roger Dean Stadium for one you really should go. If you do, you might be surprised by what you see there. When the St. Louis Cardinals play, who share the stadium with the Miami Marlins, virtually all the fans are from the Midwest. They are all wearing either hats, shirts or shorts (many time all or combinations of these) that are red in color. They patronize the hotels, bars and restaurants in large numbers. They come down here for the weekend, the week and some even come for the whole spring training season to see their beloved Cardinals. Ask the people in Jupiter how they would feel if spring training baseball went away. How would these businesses survive there? They wouldn’t and we would lose one of the best things about February and March in South Florida, spring training baseball. We will have an update on this very soon, as a decision must happen quickly if this deal is to happen at all. My fingers are crossed!  

New spring training plans in Palm Beach County face money hurdles

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/new-spring-training-plans-in-palm-beach-county-fac/nd7gr/

Baseball teams, county may seek more state help for stadium deal

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-03-07/news/fl-baseball-stadium-talks-20140307_1_stadium-deal-new-stadium-spring-training-stadium

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

STAPLES TO CLOSE 10% OF US STORES

Talk about the power of the internet. We just blogged last week about how one of the largest real estate firms in the world shorted their name because of it. Today the market leader in office products announced that they would be closing 10% of their North American stores because of it. They are doing very well, leading their market and soundly beating rival Office Depot/Office Max, who is struggling to integrate after their merger. No, the reason for these store closures is because about half of their sales are online now! They just don’t need that many stores anymore. Wow that is really efficient, but there is some fallout. Less stores means less employees, means less jobs and less retail occupancy. So the company saves money and becomes leaner with a human expense, which is almost always how technology works. When you see something happen this big you can’t help but wonder who and what is next. If you could predict that you could profit from it handsomely I am sure. We already wrote here about how Walmart and Target were getting smaller store formats, and growing them rapidly. This is the way of the world now, less is more. What will the internet downsize next? How much power does it really have and for who? We will keep an eye on this going forward. You can almost be sure that Office Depot will be following suit at some point, probably in a year or 2. Want to bet? As always thanks for reading and have a great day.   

Staples to close 10 percent of North American stores

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2014/03/06/staples-to-close-10-percent-of-north.html?ana=e_du_nat&s=article_du&ed=2014-03-06

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

JONES LANG LASALLE CHANGES NAME TO JLL

Why is this news and why do we care? For many reasons. First some background. Jones Lang LaSalle is one of the largest global real estate services firm in the world. They are an international firm, and have been growing rapidly. It has been around since the 1960’s so changing the name is no small matter. Other competitors, CB Richard Ellis and Cushman & Wakefield had their own name abbreviations with CBRE and C & W but they have not changed their names. So what gives?? In no small part this was a result of technology. 4 reasons were given for the change, social media, the internet and international expansion. One of the driving factors was the fact that so many customers are accessing real estate information on their mobile devices and the shorter name makes it easier for people to find them. The fourth was that they also had a problem in China, where Mandarin speakers couldn’t come up with characters for the company name. Like their competitors, the abbreviated name was already widely used by people in the industry so it wasn’t a real stretch to change it. Still, this is the first large international real estate firm to make a change like this due to technology and Chinese influence. That speaks volumes as to what is going on now and where the industry is heading. Will other companies follow suit? I dare say it made me think of my own long company name, but since I am a local expert with no international aspirations I think it should be OK. Plus my web site is able to be viewed on mobile devices, something that my web developer stressed would be critical now and in the future. It is all going mobile these days so you better get with the program. And maybe change your company name.

Mobile Devices Spurred JLL Name Change

http://www.globest.com/news/12_809/chicago/other/Mobile-Devices-Helped-Spur-JLL-Name-Change-343499.html?ET=globest:e42258:4990a:&st=email&s=&cmp=gst:National_AM_20140306:editorial

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

FLOOD INSURANCE REFORM?? HERE WE GO AGAIN?

I promised to keep an eye on this one and here is a serious update. This time the House has approved a bill, by a huge margin, to reform flood insurance. Since the last time this effort failed it was the House that killed the measure that had been approved in the Senate, there is hope that it will finally succeed this time. Rates will not be able to increase by more than 18% on primary homes if it passes. In a clever move to avoid the deficit from being further raised, fees of $25 for homes and $250 for businesses would be imposed to pay for it. Could this finally be the end of this issue?? How many hours, dollars and foreclosures did it take to get here, assuming we are there? How could an issue like this take so long to figure out? It seems like there are so many other issues out there that deserve more attention, this one should have been easy. A great example of politics at work, but at least they may have finally figured out this nagging and important issue that affects so many Floridians. As soon as there is another update here rest assured you will see it here in short order. As always thanks for reading and have a great day.

U.S. House passes flood insurance bill

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/blog/morning-edition/2014/03/us-house-passes-flood-insurance-bill.html?ana=e_sflo_rdup&s=newsletter&ed=2014-03-05

PALM BEACH COUNTY FLOOD MAPS REDONE IN A YEAR?? MAYBE LONGER??

OK if you are a Palm Beach County resident and have high blood pressure, heart issues and live in a flood zone you might want to skip this posting. You see we are so far behind Broward County on this issue that we are not even sure when this will be done. Broward on the other hand, has completed their revamping of the flood insurance maps and the changes will take place this August! Now this is misleading, because this decision and process has no input or direction from the counties in question. It is completely run and on the time table of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). They finished the preliminary Broward maps in 2011 but didn’t get the final approval on them until last month. So when will Palm Beach Counties maps be done? That is the million dollar question, and there is only a vague answer that it could take up to a year. Or it could even take longer than that. FEMA started the process later in Palm Beach County than Broward for some unknown reason, and now we have a grossly inequitable situation on our hands. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some suing happy person trying to get compensated for this somehow in a lawsuit. Sure makes you feel like a 2^nd class citizen living in Palm Beach County on this one. You can be sure that this one will be updated when there is more news on it. As always thanks for reading and have a great day.

Palm Beach County may wait a year or more on flood zones

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-03-04/business/fl-palm-beach-county-flood-maps-20140303_1_flood-insurance-flood-zones-fema

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

HONDA CLASSIC SETS ATTENDANCE RECORD

It is not that surprising is it? Florida is setting all kids of tourism records this year so I don’t think so. And much like our previous blog about the boat show, this event had a serious financial impact. There are also further parallels to that article in that I have no interest in golf, either playing or watching it, but I am looking at this strictly from an economic standpoint. The attendance to the event has almost doubled since 2010 when there were 101,200 visitors to the 193,052 this year. That is over 14% higher than the year before and it is the largest event in the county. It is estimated that the tournament generates $40 million in revenues, based on hotel stays and money spent by visitors. Maybe most important is the fact the people from around the world were watching sunny South Florida, which will further inflate tourism revenues going forward. Even charities are reaping the rewards from the event, having set a record last year with $2.13 million collected for 125 charities. That number is expected to be broken this year, although the numbers are not yet in to confirm that. With top golfers, perfect weather, and the rest of the country freezing to death what could be better than the Honda Classic this year? Other than the Miami Boat Show, not much!

Honda Classic hits attendance record

http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/sports/golf/honda-classic-hits-attendance-record/nd49M/?icmp=pbp_internallink_invitationbox_apr2013_pbpstubtomypbp_launch

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

Rosenefeld Restaurant Review!

Fat Tuesday... of course we are going to talk restaurants, but not NOLA, this time we take a trip to Italy, by way of Broward County Florida.

KITCHENETTA TRATTORIA TIPICA ITALIANA

Now say that 5 times fast! Most people just refer to this place as Kitchenetta, but I have to give you the whole mouthful for the official record. You will see more reviews of these good Broward restaurants here in the future as I am regularly meeting up with my cousin who lives in Plantation. We get together for dinner once a month and I am trying to try as many good places in Broward as possible.

I find out about most restaurants from 3 places. The Palm Beach Post, The Sun Sentinel, or Zagat restaurant guide. I started using Zagat years ago in New York and find it to be very reliable. Kitchenetta was rated a 27 there, which is the 2^nd highest rated place in the county so I figured it had to be good. The place is very 1950’s looking from the outside, but has been renovated inside. We sat outside, which was very nice but uncovered. My cousin noted that they could lose their entire outside seating area in the event of rain, but fortunately it was clear skies last night. There are lots of waiters and busboys running around here and they have a large special board that they bring to every table. We went with a mushroom pizza and escarole, beans and red peppers first. They were both excellent, especially the pizza. For entrees I went with a special, the chicken marsala. It was a whole chicken cut up into pieces (with the bones) and in a dark soupy sauce that had lots of mushrooms and roasted potatoes. It was very tender and I probably surprised people with how much I ate of it. My cousin had the special ravioli stuffed with osso buco. Both were great. Desert, was a little surprising. I went with the bread pudding which I ordinarily love. This was the only one I really didn’t and I only ate a few bites. My cousin had the ricotta cheese cake, and it was good. We switched midway through each and were happy. They had some solid wines by the glass, I enjoyed some tasty Sangiovese which was great. For desert they only had one port option and I went with it, a Sandemans 10 year tawny. We were able to wear shorts, and the atmosphere was very casual. Also gave very large portions, except for the pizza which was small. I would strongly recommend this place to others, and was very surprised by how reasonably priced it was. I would love to hear about your favorite restaurant or one you have just discovered. Thanks for reading as always and have a great day.

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com