How do you actually build the future of a region when the biggest projects require decades of planning, political alignment, and infrastructure that cannot be improvised? In today’s environment, that is the real question facing economic development.

Bo Kemp is one of the leaders working at that intersection. As CEO of the Southland Development Authority, he focuses on positioning Chicago’s Southland for large-scale investment by aligning municipalities, capital, and the long-term infrastructure needed to compete for major projects.

In this conversation, Kemp explains why demand is accelerating for next-generation industrial uses like data centers, and why the limiting factor is powered land with the utilities, infrastructure, and workforce needed to operate at scale.

He also outlines the Southland’s advantage through access to two electrical grids, including PJM, and why that matters as power becomes a deciding factor in where development can happen.

In this episode of The Matthews™ Podcast, host Matthew Wallace continues the publication takeover series with Part 3 of the National Shopping Center Overview, breaking down the Mid-Atlantic with Matthews™ Senior Vice President Jeff Enck.

With 25+ years in retail investment sales and hundreds of transactions closed across the Southeast, Enck explains why strip centers have become one of the most competitive pockets of retail today—and how his Strip Center Roundtable is bringing together many of the nation’s largest owners to compare notes on strategy, leasing, and the outlook for the sector.

Wallace and Enck dive into what’s driving Southeast momentum, from population and job growth across major metros to rising interest in select secondary markets as buyers search for yield. They also unpack the “essential service retail” tenant mix that’s powering strip performance, along with why today’s biggest challenge isn’t demand, but simply finding enough product to buy.

In this episode of The Matthews™ Podcast, host Matthew Wallace sits down with Amy Rubenstein, CEO of Clear Investment Group, to break down what it really takes to remedy and revitalize distressed workforce housing—the kind of multifamily most groups won’t touch because of operational chaos, stakeholder complexity, and heavy lift-to-stabilization execution.

Drawing on more than two decades in commercial real estate, Amy explains Clear’s “value restoration” approach to market-rate workforce housing, targeting underperforming properties in strong, stable markets and rebuilding them into safe, working communities. She also shares how Clear leans on data and AI to tighten underwriting, improve due diligence, and improve day-to-day performance, including operational policy changes informed by delinquency trends and resident payment behavior.