It’s inevitably going to come from when (not “if”… right…??) we recover from this; when people feel comfortable going out and doing things in public life again, I think what @Boltman was getting at will eventually come into play. If I had to guess, I’d think makers of medical devices like ventilators (also see the Defense Productions Act) or PPEs (masks, gloves etc.) might be the first to see the light at the end of this tunnel -followed by pharmaceuticals, if they can start mass-producing testing kits, drugs, and/or vaccines. And obviously, the Triangle isn’t exactly new to the biotech world.
For what @scotchman mentioned with inflation -or worse, stagflation- wouldn’t that take lots of very dumb and preventable mistakes to happen? The 1990s-2010s Japanese economy has already shown it’s not a road worth going down, too; you don’t need an economic history degree to see that.
What I am worried about with COVID-19 and our economy, though, are these things:
How will businesses and workers ride out this pandemic? Tens of thousands of workers are already losing their livelihoods to stay-at-home orders, but North Carolina hasn’t indefinitely suspended evictions etc. for people who are out of jobs in the same way New York has. Plus, sure, certain sectors like major airlines or oil companies are slated for bailouts. …but what about the ones that don’t have strong connections to Congress but still have important functions in society like public transit or housing/real estate?
What’s our game plan to “return to normal”, anyways? Even when the vast majority of American residents are immunized or whatever, it’ll probably still be reasonable to think that people will feel too unsafe to go to crowded places etc. Could there be certain people or industries that’ll have a hard time re-opening even after all the quarantine orders are lifted just because ex-customers will still feel like they still can’t go there?
I just read a story about a restaurant and grocery store in Miami working together to keep employees employed. The grocer is temporarily hiring the restaurant’s workers to keep up with the demand. This is the sort of thing that could be happening all over the place. It won’t cure all needs, but it’s an example of people coming together to figure out how to help at the local level.
This one may be of special interest to lot’s of board members from Clancy & Theys
“One of the company’s highest-profile projects, the Smoky Hollow project in downtown Raleigh, is still on track to deliver later this year, with the first phase expected to open in early summer. Construction is also well underway on the second phase of the project, and Clancy & Theys expects to move its headquarters there this November.”
It’s called mutual aid within and between government entities and many have formal policies drawn up. It’d be worth some consultant volunteering their time to draw up some private industry mutual aid strategies and then share them with the press.
The severity of the Coronavirus pandemic will ultimately be the deciding factor. We are still in the early stages of this. It could get really, really bad and if it does, then this will not merely be “a few months”.
At that point I’d stop caring about downtown and start worrying more about your parents.
Hopefully we get lucky and the warmer temperatures stave it off…
Only because of the extreme lockdown measures they’ve put in place (whereas spring breakers in Miami are… uh… almost living in a different world…), weeks of nonstop global shaming, thousands of deaths, and a top-heavy and heavy-handed national government.
I think you’re right in that the “few weeks” estimates are probably wrong -but because it may go on for even longer. Not because of paranoia or anything, but because the 1918 Spanish Flu -the last time we had a pandemic of a similar scale- also looked like it went away during the Northern summer of 1918 only to come back and infect hundreds of millions of people that October.
Going back to the Raleigh economy (since not everyone’s in the healthcare/biotech world, here)… If we only have to ride out this current wave of patients, researchers in Columbia Univ. say North Carolina could ride out the storm by July; my coworkers and classmates on the front lines give me the impression that our region just might be able to handle this slightly better than New York or the Seattle area in that case.
But if we end up having to stay home through this fall, and if we see more people getting/dying from COVID-19 just when we think it’s all over… What would that mean for downtown Raleigh (and the Triangle in general!!)'s culture and industries? Do y’all think it could permanently affect how we work or interact with each other, even after the pandemic is over?
I think you are right. My Chinese friend mention during a call the other day that she has to report their (Her, hubby, 2 kids) health status every day. She was only one allowed to go out once a week for food. (I did not ask why only her, but hope it was not due to underlining opinion in China that men are worth more than women) In some areas they would put people in jail for breaking the quarantine and some sure most have seen leaked video of suspected sick people being forcibly dragged to be tested if they did not report voluntarily. All that and they are not even in a “HOT” zone. They are about 50 miles from Shanghai that is a hot zone. People here in US would be storming government offices if put those restrictions were put in place here.
I suspect we are only in the beginning here. Do not forget people where getting sick in China 3 months ago, just it was covered up so we did not know about it.
The Fed can’t create demand with trickle down. The economy doesn’t grow because more money was injected at a zero rate. Hospitality (what I mentioned first and only really meant to talk about) will be hit hardest with what is sure to be extended virus containment measures. At least through April, possibly May. Clearly estimates of the effect of the existing bubble coupled with coronavirus run the gamut but the St Louis Fed is touting the largest numbers to date I’ve seen of 50% GDP contraction overall with 30% unemployment. They tend to be pessimists though. 10% contraction seems to be about the average. In 2008 the economy contracted 15.5% and 2008 halted every hotel project in DTR. Be safe everyone and do your part of flatten the curve.
Wake County Board of Commissioners is going to order stay at home for all county residents. Downtown is already really pretty dead today. By tomorrow, it will be absolutely nobody around to include any of these on going construction workers at downtown projects.
The State Construction Office Office email I just got said Wake may be like Meck’s and consider construction essential. It’d take a total lockdown order (next step up I think) before even those had to stay home. State projects all appear to be under way with only some minor delays caused by material delivery.
I looked at a couple places in Bloomsbury when they were first opening up and the monthly HOA/maintenance fees were almost what you would pay in a mortgage. That additional cost made me take a quick U-turn. Perhaps Bloomsbury management has taken a reality pill and reduced those fees to something more manageable.
What were those fees? Some of those units were quite large and HOA dues are usually charged per square foot. If the unit was large, then it’s understandable that the dues were high.
Don’t forget insurance is a good chunk of your dues…100-300 a month you’re not paying bundled with your mortgage. Often water is metered to an entire building too and in rare instances, cable.
@john and I have shed some light on HOA dues in Condo bldgs in other threads. You really have to understand what you get for your dollars before you decide they are outrageous.
Indeed. I was a president of a board here in Raleigh. ~350k budget. Me and the resident architect did the maintenance budgeting (a ton) but left the dog poop policing to others.
