The Urban Lab

Kirk Sykes, Managing Director of Accordia Partners and former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, joins Sam Chandan to discuss the planned transformation of Boston's Bayside and how the pandemic is shaping his vision for the project and its supporting infrastructure. Accordia is pressing forward with development of the 5.9 million square foot mixed-use project, including apartments, offices, labs, and retail, and more than 13 acres of public space, on a 20-acre parcel leased from the University of Massachusetts Building Authority.

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab and the NYU Urban Lab at the NYU SPS Schack Institute of Real Estate at http://sps.nyu.edu/schack.

Lisa Pendergast, Executive Director of the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC), joins Sam Chandan to discuss  conditions in the commercial lending market, disparities in access to financing across property types, the rising volume of forbearance requests, positive signs for the market's capacity for new CMBS deal activity, and the role of the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) and other interventions in bolstering liquidity.

Information about CREFC, the Borrower's Guide for Dealing with CMBS Servicers, and the Guide to COVID-19 Relief Programs are available at crefc.org.

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab and the NYU Urban Lab at the NYU SPS Schack Institute of Real Estate at http://sps.nyu.edu/schack.

Jeff DeBoer, President and CEO of the Real Estate Roundtable, joins Sam Chandan to discuss the impact of the pandemic on the commercial real estate sector and the Roundtable's current policy priorities. They discuss the Roundtable's recommendations for reforming the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the merits of a Pandemic Risk Insurance Act akin to TRIA, the rent obligation chain, and the Roundtable's broader engagement with Congress and industry leadership. The research and policy recommendations discussed during this segment, as well as the Roundtable's COVID-19 Resource Center, can be found at  www.rer.org.

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab and the NYU Urban Lab at the NYU SPS Schack Institute of Real Estate at http://sps.nyu.edu/schack.

With billions of people around the planet remaining in place, there are vastly fewer cars on the road and planes overhead. All manner of industries and household activities that rely on fossil fuels have seen declines of some degree. In cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai, images of the clearest skies in decades reflect that fossil fuel consumption has plummeted.  Dr. Carolyn Kissane, member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Academic Director of the NYU Center for Global Affairs, joins Sam Chandan to discuss the implications of the resulting decline in oil prices—for the global economy, for oil-producing nations, and for the push for sustainability.

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab and the NYU Urban Lab at the NYU SPS Schack Institute of Real Estate at http://sps.nyu.edu/schack.

While New York City remains the US epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, indications of a plateau in diagnoses and deaths has allowed elected officials and policymakers to begin addressing how we will restart the local economy. Jonathan Bowles, Executive Director of the Center for an Urban Future, joins Sam Chandan to discuss issues ranging from the competitiveness of New York City in attracting and retaining residents and jobs, significant impairments to city finances, disparities in the labor market and recent job losses, small businesses' need for working capital, and threats to housing and food security. The research and policy recommendations discussed during this episode can be found at https://nycfuture.org/. 

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab and the NYU Urban Lab at the NYU SPS Schack Institute of Real Estate at http://sps.nyu.edu/schack.

Across the United States and around the world, offices moved abruptly to remote working during March. Questions about remote work and how it will disrupt the office sector have been points of debate for many years, but the suddenness of the current shift has given these questions new importance. Tom Vecchione, Principal at Vocon and board member at the Center for an Urban Future and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Foundation, joins Sam Chandan to discuss the terms on which we will return to the office, the outlook for relatively dense co-working space, and practical steps to reduce density from the front door to the elevator to the cubicle floor.

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab and the NYU Urban Lab at the NYU SPS Schack Institute of Real Estate at http://sps.nyu.edu/schack.

As the number of infections and deaths related to COVID-19 continue to rise in the United States, evidence is mounting of a disproportionate impact on people of color.  To discuss the racial disparities in the trajectory of the pandemic, Dr. Sam Chandan is joined by Dr. Rashawn Ray, David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution and Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research at the University of Maryland, College Park. Previously, Dr. Ray was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. The research and policy recommendations discussed during this episode can be found at https://www.brookings.edu/experts/rashawn-ray/. 

For more information about the Urban Lab podcast and Dr. Sam Chandan, please visit http://www.samchandan.com/urbanlab and the NYU Urban Lab at the NYU SPS Schack Institute of Real Estate at http://sps.nyu.edu/schack.