CoStar News was recognized in the largest real estate journalism contest in the United States with eight awards, including three gold medals, for work spanning international topics, breaking news, economic analysis and investigative reports.
The awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors were announced at the organization's annual conference in Miami. The winners for work published in 2020 were selected by an outside panel of judges in a competition that included prominent national news organizations such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and the Washington Post.
CoStar staff writers Clare Kennedy and Randy Drummer were awarded a gold medal for best breaking real estate news story for “Netflix Doubles Down in Disney Country With Big Lease in Burbank, California.” The judges said, "The CoStar team left other publications in the dust and forced competitors to cite the team’s exclusive details in this story about Netflix’s mega-lease deal in L.A. for its first stand-alone animation studio. Kennedy and Drummer went well beyond the news of the day to include plenty of regional and industry-specific context. They tell a complete, clear story and explain its importance to readers."
CoStar senior staff writer Candace Carlisle, who covers Dallas, won a gold medal in the economic analysis category for “Nation’s Truck Hub Takes Elon Musk’s Tesla for a Spin in Hopes of Landing Plant.” The judges said, "Using text, an interactive timeline and charts, Carlisle tells the story of Texans’ love affair with trucks and how, despite being the top producer of oil and gas, the state jockeys to be home to a manufacturing plant that would build Elon Musk’s first battery-powered truck. Carlisle reviewed handfuls of documents, including SEC filings, in her research. Her reporting was prescient: A month after her story, Tesla announced it would build the manufacturing plant near Austin."
CoStar senior staff writer Garry Marr, who is based in Toronto, won the gold medal for international reporting for the story “Canadians Shuffle Off to Buffalo.” The judges said, "This is a fresh take on sky-high real estate prices in Toronto. Who knew that fed up Canadian investors were taking their money over the border to buy properties in the often-overlooked city of Buffalo, New York? In this engaging story, Marr gives us strong writing, 'real people' examples, plenty of supporting data, and the kind of detail that enhances a story."
For the category of best breaking real estate story, staff writer Marissa Luck, who covers Houston, won a bronze medal for “Tesla Proposes 2,100-Acre Site in Austin as a Potential Home to Major Auto Plant.” The selection of Austin as the site of a new plant by electric car maker Tesla was one of the biggest business stories in 2020 in west Texas. Luck used documents filed with the county to identify the site in Austin where Tesla was considering building the plant, providing commentary from analysts that proved prescient on why the site would likely be chosen, an event that later came to pass. Luck used county appraisal records to offer immediate details on the site, while stepping back to also provide national context on how the move fits in with corporate migration patterns.
Staff writer Richard Lawson and senior staff writer Mark Heschmeyer won a bronze medal in the category of best investigative report or series for “US Hotel Buyers Overcome a Dearth of Lending by Using Creativity to Close Deals.” Lawson and Heschmeyer pored through lending records to document how hotel companies are using share sales, unsecured debt, cash and other techniques to fund property deals. The writers show that with buyers having few lending options, sellers have stepped up to finance deals involving high-profile properties that are often at the center of downtowns across America. The story explains that sellers had grown so desperate to part with struggling hotels that they were financing the largest portion of deals across the industry.
In the category of best overall series, CoStar News staff writers Drummer, Kennedy, Marr, Katie Burke in San Francisco, senior writer Tony Wilbert in Atlanta and creative director Jelena Schulz won a bronze medal for the eight-part series “Year of Disruption” that explored the commercial real estate disruptions across the United States. In “How One Industrial Broker Shook Off Pandemic Shock and Took Care of Business,” Drummer shows how a JLL deal-maker turned foreboding into success, letting readers empathize as well as learn. Luck, in “What It’s Like to Open a Coworking Space in a Pandemic,” puts readers in a shared office during the coronavirus outbreak to witness the techniques used to stay in business. And Burke and Schulz, in “A Time of Disruption,” lead readers through the year with images and events, both financial and personal, that played out across America.
In the category of best online commercial real estate story, Luck also won a bronze medal for "Why Tesla Is Betting on Batteries to Power Real Estate." While attention focused last year on a proposal by Tesla to expand in Austin, few noticed the company’s role in another major Texas story: a boom in battery storage projects that could transform how the oil-focused state powers its biggest businesses. The article weaves together expert analysis, public data and information from documents to explain how Tesla’s move could fundamentally change how Texas’ energy-dependent economy operates and help the country achieve goals aimed at curbing climate change.
Senior staff writer Linda Moss, who is based outside New York City, received an honorable mention in the best online commercial real estate story category for “A Too Tall New York Skyscraper? Appeals Court Weighs Whether to Chop Off 20 Stories.” New York City is known for soaring skyscrapers that have become representative of the nation’s biggest city, so it’s unusual when officials deem a building so tall for its neighborhood that it may need to be shortened. Moss examined both the local and national implications of New York City wrestling with an issue that's playing out in cities such as Seattle and San Francisco.