🕊️ David Simon, mall titan, dies at 64
🤖 OpenAI locks down 450K SF in Mountain View
⚽ FIFA slashes hotel blocks in World Cup cities
🔧 Upcoming Workshops: AI in Capital Raising

Data Viz of the Week: Slow Builds, High Rents

Another study confirms the Abundance hypothesis: slow, constrained permitting drives up housing costs.

New research from Princeton's Evan Soltas and MIT's Jonathan Gruber offers a new way to measure the cost of permitting burdens on housing. By comparing pre-approved land in Los Angeles to land that isn't pre-approved, they found that permit approval raises land prices by 50 percent, putting a sharp number on what's often a hard-to-quantify driver of the housing shortage.

The charts below compare markets rents across a number of cities to annual permits issued (L) and standardized time-to-build (R).

Upcoming Thesis Driven Courses & Workshops

• 📣 LAST CALL - March 31: Workshop: AI in Capital Raising (💻 Online): A one-day interactive workshop designed for sponsors, bankers, capital advisors, and investor relations professionals on how AI is reshaping the mechanics of capital raising - $299

•  April 15: Workshop: AI for Real Estate Lawyers (💻 Online): An interactive workshop for real estate attorneys, in-house counsel, paralegals, and legal teams exploring how AI is reshaping transactional practice—from due diligence to closing - $299

• April 17: Workshop: Raising Capital from Large Real Estate LPs (💻 Online): ​​A live, interactive workshop designed for real estate sponsors, fund managers, and capital raisers looking to access institutional-scale capital — including pensions, endowments, OCIO platforms, large family offices, and RIAs - $299

• April 23: Workshop: AI in Real Estate (💻 Online): ​​A three-hour interactive workshop for owners, operators, and developers exploring how to use AI in the real estate sector - $499

• April 29: Workshop: LinkedIn Strategy for GPs (💻 Online): ​​A live, practical workshop for real estate GPs, operators, and fund managers who want to use LinkedIn intentionally—as a capital formation tool, not a vanity channel - $299

Three Articles We Loved from Last Week

It’s not easy keeping up with everything. Here are three articles we loved from the past week that you may have missed:

1. (Bloomberg) David Simon, Shopping Mall King, Dies at 64 After Cancer Fight. David Simon, the chairman and CEO of Simon Property Group, passed away on March 22 after a battle with cancer. Named CEO in 1995 at just 33 years old, Simon transformed a regional mall company into the world's largest retail REIT, delivering a cumulative total shareholder return of more than 4,500% since IPO. Under his watch, SPG grew into a global platform spanning premium outlets, malls, and mixed-use developments across North America, Europe, and Asia. The board appointed his son Eli Simon as CEO and president, keeping leadership within the family that has defined American retail real estate for three decades.

2. (The Real Deal) OpenAI Mountain View Campus Lease Confirmed OpenAI signed a 10-year lease for a 450K SF, five-building Class A campus at 350-380 Ellis St. in Mountain View, owned by KKR Real Estate Finance Trust and TMG Partners — who acquired the property via a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure in 2024 and spent two years overhauling the campus. The deal includes two six-year extension options and a right of first offer to purchase the buildings. With annualized revenue now at $25B, OpenAI continues an aggressive Bay Area leasing spree — a rare bright spot for a Silicon Valley office market still searching for its post-pandemic footing.

3. (The Philadelphia Inquirer) FIFA Is Dropping Hotel Rooms in Host Cities Three Months Before the World Cup With the 2026 World Cup just three months away, FIFA quietly backed out of hotel blocks across all 11 U.S. host cities — releasing 2,000 of 10,000 rooms in Philadelphia, as many as 15,000 rooms in Vancouver, and undisclosed numbers in Boston and Arlington. FIFA hasn't publicly explained the pullback, but insiders point to overestimated demand and visa and travel restrictions dampening international fan attendance. Last-minute cancellations leave hotels scrambling to remarket rooms — an unwelcome signal for hospitality operators who banked on a World Cup windfall.

Developer of the Week: Landmark Properties

A student housing behemoth is making the leap to senior.

Landmark Properties, one of the largest student housing developers in the US, announced its entry into the senior housing sector this week, pursuing both ground-up development and acquisitions through operator partnerships.

The move signals a broader trend of institutional developers diversifying into senior living as demographic tailwinds from aging Baby Boomers intensify. It's a notable strategic pivot for a firm that built its reputation in a completely different lifecycle segment, and suggests the student-to-senior housing playbook may be gaining traction among large-scale developers.

You can read more about Landmark on the Thesis Driven GP database here.

Investor of the Week: RSF Partners

RSF Partners is a Dallas-based real estate private equity firm founded in 1998, currently deploying its eighth commingled fund. Over 25+ years and 10 fund vehicles, the firm has raised $1.3B+ in total commitments, scaling from a $22M Fund I to a Fund VIII north of $300M — all with full discretion across the capital stack. RSF deploys across preferred equity, program equity, bridge, mezz, and sponsor capital in both leveraged and unleveraged structures.

The firm's primary vertical is senior living, where it has capitalized more than $2.5B across 155+ properties spanning independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing — both acquisitions and ground-up development. RSF targets markets with supply/demand mismatches and regulatory barriers to entry, partnering with operators through an alignment-of-interest model. Beyond senior living, RSF runs an opportunistic CRE strategy covering value-add, distressed, and niche/overlooked assets — including last-mile logistics, residential lot portfolios, and defaulted mortgage acquisitions. The distressed track record is notable: RSF acquired an interest in a special servicer to source off-market deals, ultimately purchasing 31 assets via defaulted mortgages and REO at an average 63% of outstanding loan balance. The firm invests nationwide across all U.S. geographies and product types, with select European exposure including a London and Paris last-mile logistics program launched in late 2018. It's a full capital stack platform that pairs deep senior living specialization with the flexibility to pivot toward dislocation wherever it emerges.

Get more details on RSF Partners, including team contacts, deal activity, and investment preferences, inside the CapitalStack database.

—Brad and Paul