1. Saudi Arabia: Pace of giga-projects slows
The pace of investment in developing vast swaths of Saudi Arabia as part of its Vision 2030 ambitions has slowed in 2025, years after Saudi officials and the country's sovereign wealth Public Investment Fund unveiled a massive development plan to build more cities and tourist areas across Saudi Arabia.
With the investment, officials hope Saudi Arabia can grow its economy beyond its dependency on oil. The development of these giga-projects are also meant to produce sustainable, near carbon-neutral urban cities with innovations in infrastructure and real estate design, though rollouts have stalled as costs grow and the price of oil remains low.
2. Office tenants move past ‘peak amenity’ focus
Since the pandemic hit occupancy, office developers have pledged an ever-more dizzying array of amenity and wellness provisions. But landlords and tenants are beginning to question if they need to introduce quite as many bells and whistles, particularly with sustainability in mind and with a view to the most important requirements for tenants in the surrounding area.
When asked what justifies the term "super prime," respondents to a BCO survey carried out with JLL first said "location", while superior tenant amenities came second.
3. France: Luxury furniture retailer opens on famed Paris boulevard
American luxury furniture house RH, formerly known as Restoration Hardware, inaugurated its French flagship at 23 avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris. Located a stone's throw from Avenue Montaigne, the world's epicenter of fashion and luxury, the gallery is housed in a seven-story building owned by Immobilière Dassault, where design, architecture and gastronomy are known to meet.
The address combines exhibition and social spaces. It houses two restaurants — one with a panoramic rooftop — a bar, a design studio and a library. It is built around a central atrium with floating staircases and a glass elevator giving direct access to the rooftop.
4. Germany: Property prices attract institutional buyers
Asking prices on the German real estate market are becoming increasingly attractive for institutional investors, according to Universal Investment's annual survey of pension funds, insurance companies, banks, and corporations in Germany with total assets under management of €69 billion.
The survey found 38% of respondents consider prices in Germany to be low or fair, up from the prior year's 18%. For the rest of Europe, 50% of participants rate prices as low or fair, up from 29%. Only 14% of respondents consider prices in Germany to be unacceptable because they are too high, and none of the survey participants consider prices in Europe to be unacceptable.
5. Canada: Seller in Quebec’s biggest land deal seeks repurchase
Developer Luc Poirier says he wants to buy back the property he sold to the Quebec government for the same price of $240 million that he sold it for in what was described at the time as the largest-ever Quebec land sale. Plans to build a major battery production facility at the site fell apart.
The real estate investor purchased the vacant land spread out over the municipalities of McMasterville and Saint Basile le Grand south of Montreal for $20 million in 2015. The empty fields once contained an explosives factory operated by Canadian Industries Limited that employed 600 workers before it closed in the 1980s. Poirier aimed to build housing on the space.
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6. US: Phoenix draws another major mixed-use project
New retail development across the United States is in the midst of a dramatic slowdown, but fast-growing Phoenix continues to see activity with a multibillion-dollar project about to get off the ground.
Developer Vestar unveiled plans for Legacy Park, a roughly 9.4 million-square-foot mixed-use complex slated for a vacant 200-acre site in Mesa, in the East Valley area of the greater Phoenix market. The first phase, estimated to cost more than $1 billion, would include a 300,000-square-foot shopping complex for upscale retailers and chef-driven restaurants and roughly 700 residential units above the retail. The size and design would be comparable to Scottsdale Quarter, another mixed-use development where Vestar is a partner, according to the Phoenix-based company.
This report was compiled from CoStar’s news publications in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany.