Also . . . I just got back from ICSC's 2019 RECon Conference where I had the fortunate experience of running into representatives from some firms like McCaffery and Bucksbaum Retail.
As for Lincoln Commons, I wasn't able to find out too much new info since the project is pretty much done, but it sounds like things are going very well for the developers. The apartments are just over half leased (they expect to be full around the fall), I forgot what the figure was for the independent living structure but apparently that's doing super well too, they have 80 people on an email list for the 32 condos, and just one floor of office space and some retail spots left to lease.
I also met a guy on the Harper Court project who said they hope to start construction on the next phase in a years time, and from what I saw he was drawing a decent amount of interest from what I assume were tenant reps visiting the booth. He mentioned that they're really hoping the area grows into a research/incubator environment akin to the Research Triangle and that they have super preliminary plans for more lab space in the area if their hopes come to fruition and the project does well.
Lastly, I got the chance to hear John Bucksbaum talk about his projects (Addison & Clark, New City, IMD Gateway). The guy has a huge hard-on for developing retail property and has spent most of it doing so in suburban settings (he notably spent 10 years as CEO of GGP which was the largest owner of suburban shopping centers before being bought out by Brookfield). His real passion is retail and the only reason he got in the business of mixed-use was because he recognized that that's the only setting it really has a future in. Just hearing him talk made it sound pretty obvious as to how New City and Clark & Addison ended up so 'suburban' as they did. Anyways, Clark & Addison seems to have gotten a pretty slow start to leasing (60% so far) and a surprising amount of them are actually bringing their cars with them since the parking spots have been going like hotcakes. Also this may be dated information, but Bucksbaum was under the impression that a CVS was to replace that auto body shop being torn down next to his building. Apparently, there were once plans for them to go in the space that Harley Davidson currently occupies but it didn't happen (because Harley Davidson is admittedly a cooler sounding tenant).
Anyways, was a pretty fun time. Only wish I got the chance to talk with some people from Thor Equities and Hines since they had booths too but their receptionists were pretty adamant about my needing an appointment to talk with anybody there. I'm thinking next year I'll just pretend to be Amazon's tenant rep or something lol.
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