Mark Anderson

U.S. Steel Tower in Pittsburgh $160M of securitized debt, $40M in unsecuritized subordinate debt and $45M in mezzanine debt, is set to mature in June. Servicer commentary points to a growing concern about the borrower’s ability to refinance in the current lending environment. The leases for the tower’s two main tenants, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and namesake U.S. Steel, are set to expire within the next two years. In 2018 Jamestown Properties acquired a 40% stake in the property. The deal valued the building at about $340M. 601W Cos. paid $250M for the structure in 2011. 2.3M SF Built 1971 -TheRealDeal #commercialrealestate

Very exciting news on permitting reform! Check out the full press release here: pittsburghpa.gov/News-articles/…

@MarkHertling @BulwarkOnline I appreciate your insights. Thoughtful as usual. Is there a third alternative where the Kurds are only asked (or desire) to move on Iranian Kurdistan, with no intention of making a move on Tehran? Is it conceivable that Azerbaijan could simultaneously make a move on Tabriz?

Lots of discussion in the last few days about the Iranian Kurds as a "tool" for regime change in Iran. Some may want to reconsider that option. My latest in @BulwarkOnline open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark…

Most schools stopped teaching kids to memorize multiplication tables. They called it “old fashioned.” 🙄 It’s actually one of the most damaging things they did to math education. Without automatic recall, kids hit a wall in fractions, algebra, and everything after. At Alpha School, we’re fixing it - and kids are loving it. 🚀👾

On Mondays during the school year, teenagers commit suicide at almost double the rate they do during summer vacation. This pattern has been documented repeatedly. Back to school season is literally back to suicide season. I see this as a public health catastrophe as significant as drunk driving was in the 1970s. Mothers Against Drunk Driving managed to change the entire culture around drinking and driving. They made it socially unacceptable. We need the same kind of movement for what school is doing to kids. The body count demands it.

@_robyn_smith Nantucket is better IMHO. I would vote just stay on the Cape.

If I’m spending a week in Cape Cod, is it worth the extra money to stay on Martha’s Vineyard or is it fine to stay on the Cape?

It makes no sense that CRE Brokers have to complete 14 hours of continuing education about REALTORS, single family homes, etc, but barely anything about CRE

'Buyers of last resort': Experts weigh in on Namdar's Macy's purchase triblive.com/local/valley-n…

Trader Joe’s held prices flat on a basket of 12 grocery staples ($82.45 → $82.03) while Whole Foods raised them 14% ($100.23 → $114.47) and Safeway raised them 1%. Same items, same year. That price gap is a direct readout of business model. Trader Joe’s runs 80% private label, buys direct from manufacturers, stocks 4,000 SKUs instead of 40,000, and pays no slotting fees. Every middleman they’ve cut is a price increase they can absorb without touching the register. National brand retailers run the opposite playbook: 80% branded products, distributor markups, and slotting fees that get baked into shelf price. When commodity costs rise, they pass them through. Trader Joe’s eats them. The math on this compounds fast. If you’re a family shopping weekly, the gap between Trader Joe’s and a mid-tier grocer like Safeway is roughly $37 per trip, or $1,924 per year. Against a premium grocer, that gap crosses $4,000. On the same twelve items. And the direction of the arrows tells the real story. The chains competing on price held or compressed. The stores competing on curation and neighborhood identity raised prices at 2x to 4x the rate of food inflation. Premium positioning is becoming a pass-through mechanism for commodity shocks. This is the private label trade playing out in real time. Costco saw it years ago with Kirkland. Aldi built an entire European grocery empire on it. Trader Joe’s runs the same model at neighborhood scale: control the supply chain, own the brand, absorb the volatility. The retailers still dependent on national brand distribution don’t have that lever. When eggs spike or coffee jumps 20%, they have one move: raise the price. The grocery industry is bifurcating along this exact line. Private label operators are gaining pricing power by not raising prices. And every inflation cycle widens the gap between the two models.

@misraetel This makes the assumption that the stock market still exists or hasn’t crashed. Without jobs there’s nothing to invest or buy.

One of the biggest unlocks coming in the next few years is going to be the birth and empowerment of financial agents. There are at least two ways in which these agents will transform the economy. 1.) Your personal financial agent will be able to do ALL of your budgeting, bill pay, and investment. If you want (and I sure as shit will opt in), it will be able to cut you a weekly or even daily "free spending money" sum to spend as you like. The rest of your money, it will funnel to needs (rent, healthcare, all bills, etc.) and to investments. This will make mismanaging your finances (one of the most causative factors for poverty in wealthy nations) a thing you have to actively go out of your way to do, radically reducing it. It will also de-stress SO MANY people who stress about money. 2.) Your financial agent (and everyone's agents) will begin to invest in the stock market on your behalf. Once AI exceeds human experts in stock market trading capability (no later than 2028, in my view, but probably sooner), the market will transform. When nearly all traders are using the same frontier models to inform (and eventually execute) their trades, the efficiency of capital flows will begin to rise exponentially. This means for example that companies (and industries) that have a poor outlook on fundamentals will be much quicker to lose shares, and companies that have big, realistic promise for upside will get funding way, way faster. At first that sounds like a lot more chaos in the markets, but when the vast majority of traders are AI agents, their much more aligned visions and long-termism is in my view likely to create a radically more stable market. Much less a place for speculation and shorting, and much more a place where companies that need money for high-probability value creation will get it smoothly and rapidly.

@BucsDugout I’m not sold on this rotation. Obviously Skenes is a stud. On a good team Keller is probably a number four starter. Chandler, Barco and Ashcroft don’t have a track record. Wish we had kept Oviedo.

Previews continue with Starting Pitching #mlb #LetsGoBucs bucsdugout.com/pirates-season…

@KodyDuncanPGH No. Bad trade for the Bucs.

ESPN has a mock trade that would have Isaac Parades + cash going to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Hunter Barco and Jared Triolo. Would you want this trade to happen as a Pirates fan?

@realEstateTrent I’m dealing with a number of Rite Aid owners who bought a cap rate and didn’t think about the underlying real estate. Whoops!

You’re buying real estate, not a cap rate. You’re buying real estate, not a cap rate. You’re buying real estate, not a cap rate. You’re buying real estate, not a cap rate.

The top sports cities in the United States.

@BuccoBantr @NoahW_25 Vientos would be better than Baty.

The Pirates are still in the market for a third baseman. Our @NoahW_25 breaks down how that can be done via trade 👀 buccobantr.com/blogs/articles…

@KodyDuncanPGH Agreed! This has to stop - it’s bad for the game.

Kyle Tucker signing with the LA Dodgers is the prime example on why there needs to be a lockout after next season. The league is going to fall apart and eat itself if something doesn’t change during the next CBA. Payroll differences are insane

Happy “dress up your pet” day!

And here I thought kasperowicz to North Hills was going to be the biggest Pittsburgh coaching news of the day

@JulieChangRE @acquisizioni I had a girl call about a bird in her apartment. I told her to open the window. I then got any angry call from her father telling me to deal with it. I went to the apartment and opened the window and the bird flew out.

@acquisizioni x.com/la_multi_fam/s…

What’s the most 1st world real estate “problem” you’ve come across recently?

@KDPomp They probably did. Toronto is a better market /team and most likely has a direct flight to Japan.

Kazuma Okamoto Jays deal: $60M, 4 years Toronto gave him 4 years. Pirates should have done that!! 15 Million per year is going rate