🏰 Duke of Westminster dumping $954M in US real estate
⛪ Archdiocese sells Palace hotel land for $491M
🍺 Craft brewery bust leaves a real estate hangover
🔧 Upcoming Workshops:  Building & Funding Student Housing

Data Viz of the Week: AI and Enrollment

Despite widespread anxiety about AI displacing knowledge workers, college students are leaning into fields with AI exposure rather than fleeing from them. While a Lumina-Gallup poll found 42% of bachelor's students have reconsidered their major because of AI, enrollment data tells a very different story.

Degrees with the highest AI exposure are up 8% since 2017, even as Computer Science declines. Wages remain highest in AI-exposed fields, and recent graduates aren't fleeing their disciplines either. The takeaway: students are betting on AI as an asset, not a threat... at least for now.

Upcoming Thesis Driven Workshops

• 📣 Last Call - May 12: Building & Funding Student Housing (💻 Online): ​​A two-hour interactive workshop designed for real estate investors, developers, and capital allocators who want to understand—and invest in—the purpose-built student housing (PBSH) asset class. - $299

• May 14: Placemaking: Unlocking the Value of Rural Land (💻 Online): ​​​A 2-hour interactive workshop for developers who want to find, evaluate, and unlock the hidden potential of rural parcels using modern tools and proven placemaking frameworks.- $299

• May 18: C-PACE: Redefining Commercial Real Estate Capital Stacks (💻 Online): ​​​An interactive workshop for developers, lenders, investors, and advisors seeking a clear, working understanding of C-PACE and its role in today’s financing environment. - $299

• May 20: AI in Underwriting (💻 Online): ​​​An interactive workshop for owners, operators, developers, acquisitions teams, and asset managers exploring how AI is reshaping underwriting—from deal screening to investment committee. - $299

• May 21: Structuring an OpCo/PropCo Business (💻 Online): ​​​​A one-day interactive workshop designed for real estate operators, entrepreneurs, and investors looking to structure or invest in OpCo/PropCo platforms. - $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) Billionaire Duke of Westminster to Sell $954M of U.S. Real Estate Assets Grosvenor Group, the centuries-old property empire of Hugh Grosvenor, the 35-year-old Duke of Westminster (net worth: $12.7B), is exiting its direct U.S. real estate holdings — a portfolio valued at roughly £700M ($954M) spanning properties in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Seattle. The move comes after the group recorded a $147M loss in North America last year. Grosvenor will pivot to indirect investments in the U.S. while refocusing direct capital on Europe. The assets will be marketed on a case-by-case basis over time. A rare example of a multi-generational institutional owner waving the white flag on U.S. direct ownership — and a potential buying opportunity for domestic operators in gateway markets.

2. (The Real Deal) Archdiocese Offloads Lotte New York Palace Ground Lease for $491M The Archdiocese of New York closed on the sale of the ground lease beneath the Lotte New York Palace hotel at 455 Madison Avenue for $491.1M to Seoul-based Lotte Hotels, reuniting ownership of the land and building. Roughly $200M of the proceeds will fund clergy sexual abuse settlements, with the remainder paying off loans from prior settlement programs. The deal, which also included a neighboring two-story building at 35 East 50th Street, is the latest in a series of major asset sales as the Archdiocese works through an $800M settlement commitment. For Lotte, it eliminates ground lease risk on one of Midtown's most iconic luxury hotels.

3. (Bisnow) Craft Brewery Slowdown Leaves Behind a Real Estate Hangover For the second straight year, more U.S. breweries closed than opened — with 481 closures against just 300 openings in 2025, bringing the total count down to 9,578, a 2.9% net decline. The real estate fallout is growing: taprooms that once anchored neighborhood retail corridors and transformed vacant warehouses are now leaving behind awkward, purpose-built spaces that landlords struggle to re-tenant. The mix of industrial layout, commercial kitchen infrastructure, and specialized drainage makes these spaces a poor fit for most conventional retail or office users. Rising costs, shifting consumer habits, and the expiration of pandemic-era 5- and 10-year leases are forcing operators to choose between renewal, relocation, or shutdown.

Developer of the Week: Fort Partners

Fort Partners, the Fort Lauderdale-based developer led by Nadim Ashi, just notched a $386.4 million sellout at Seaway North—the 10-unit boutique tower in its Surf Club complex on Collins Avenue. With an average price of $38.6 million per unit, it's the highest median in any new Miami-Dade development. 

Brokers credit the Four Seasons partnership, Joseph Dirand-caliber finishes, and the "ecosystem" of Surf Club amenities. It's the latest chapter in Ashi's compound: the original 150-unit Richard Meier towers (2017), 26-unit Seaway South (2024, home to a record $86M penthouse sale), and the upcoming 17-unit Surf House. Brokers predict $6,000/sf is coming.

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

Investor of the Week: 4S Bay Partners

4S Bay Partners is the Highland Park, IL-based single-family office of Jessica Sarowitz, whose wealth traces to the payroll services industry. Sarowitz also runs the Julian Grace Foundation, the family's philanthropic arm, and the two entities operate in tandem — 4S Bay deploys capital into deals that must deliver both compelling financial returns and measurable community impact. The firm runs a staffed investment team with a professional IC process, currently led by Acting CIO Rashid Malik, and invests family capital only with no outside LP base.

4S Bay apart has a hard impact mandate: BIPOC leadership, racial equity, and community economic development are core investment criteria (not side considerations). Within real estate, the firm focuses on affordable housing rehab and new construction, mixed-income multifamily, mixed-use community redevelopment, and student housing. In Los Angeles, 4S Bay acquired a $24M, 1.8-acre site in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw corridor to develop Stocker Street Creative, a 256,750 SF creative campus with production, office, restaurant, and community space designed to drive economic growth for BIPOC creatives — with LA city planners approving the project in March 2026. In Philadelphia, the firm has partnered with DePaul USA and La Salle University to develop dormitory housing for housing-insecure college students, and invested in St. Joseph's House, which provides housing and case management for homeless students. The firm also backed a $35M LA redevelopment site in 2020.

4S Bay backs external GPs as part of its standard mandate and is open to direct deals — but the filter is affordable housing, mixed-income multifamily, or mixed-use redevelopment with a genuine community angle and a mission-aligned operator.

Get more details on 4S Bay Partners, including team contacts, deal activity, and investment preferences, inside the CapitalStack database.

—Brad and Paul