Hello Brick Brief readers, 

Happy Monday. In recent news, August core PCE inflation met forecasts as the job market remains sluggish, Six Flags faces activist pressure to unlock $6B in park real estate, and major tech investors continue to commit billions to new AI data centers.

💼 Jobs & Inflation
Bloomberg economists expect U.S. payroll growth to slow to about 71K jobs a month through 2026, with September likely near 50K. They project roughly 1% in Fed rate cuts by next September as the Fed balances elevated inflation and a weakening job market

🎢 Six Flags Real Estate Push
Activist investor Land & Buildings urged Six Flags to spin off or sell its park properties, valuing the land at up to $6B - nearly triple the company’s market cap. After a failed Cedar Fair merger and a weak summer that drove shares down 55% this year, management faces intense pressure to monetize its real estate through a REIT or large asset sale.

💻 Data Center Surge
Google is investing over $3B in deals with Cipher and TeraWulf to secure fast AI-ready data-center capacity. Cipher is building new Texas facilities backed by a $1.4B Google guarantee, while TeraWulf is converting former crypto-mining sites into AI hubs. Blue Owl and Qatar’s QIA are adding to the momentum with a separate $3B pledge for a U.S. data center platform, underscoring the global race to expand infrastructure for energy-intensive AI workloads.

30Y Mortgage: 6.38% (-1 bps) 

10Y Treasury Yield: 4.16% (-1 bps)

WSJ Prime Rate: 7.50%

FTSE NAREIT Index: 773.99 (+0.96%) 

30-day SOFR Average: 4.34%

Economists expect payroll growth to slow to 50–71K jobs a month with unemployment steady at 4.3% as core PCE inflation holds at 2.9%. Bloomberg economists project roughly 1% in additional Fed rate cuts over the next year while central bank officials debate the pace of easing.

Economists cut US job growth forecast to 71K a month through 2026 – Slower hiring expected to drive about 1% in Fed rate cuts by next September (Bloomberg)

Core PCE inflation holds at 2.9% in August – Headline PCE up 0.3% MoM and 2.7% YoY as spending climbs 0.6% and income rises 0.4% (CNBC)

US job growth expected to slow to 50K in September – Fed considers further rate cuts as unemployment holds at 4.3% (Bloomberg)

Fed’s Barkin sees limited downside risks – Says recent rate cut moves policy toward neutral while balancing inflation and jobs (Bloomberg)

Fed’s Bowman calls for faster rate cuts – Warns labor market is fragile and urges proactive easing while backing a smaller, Treasury-only balance sheet (Reuters)

Six Flags is under renewed scrutiny as activist investor Land & Buildings calls for a major real estate monetization following a troubled merger attempt and a sharp share-price drop.

🧱 Six Flags pursued a merger with Cedar Fair in 2024–25 to create a coast-to-coast theme park giant, aiming for stronger pricing power and marketing efficiencies. Regulators and investors questioned the integration risks and limited synergies, and reviews of the merger have been largely negative. The stock is down 55% year-to-date to a market value near $2.1B after a weak summer season.

🧱 Attendance and per-capita spending have lagged, prompting closures and asset sales. Six Flags America in Maryland is scheduled to close next month, presenting a 500-acre redevelopment opportunity near Washington, D.C.

🧱 Land & Buildings Investment Management, which holds a ~2% stake, sent a letter urging Six Flags to separate its real estate from operations through an opco-propco REIT spin-off or an outright sale.

🧱 Land & Buildings estimates Six Flags’ park real estate could be worth as much as $6B, nearly triple the company’s market cap, and says management has been receptive to discussions.

🧱 This is Jonathan Litt’s second campaign to monetize the parks. Three years ago he pushed for similar action and even secured a supportive board member, but the company declined to move forward.

🧱 Shares climbed more than 3% after the latest proposal, signaling investor optimism that a real estate transaction could unlock significant value. Activists often push undervalued companies with prime real estate to spin off or sell those properties to unlock the land’s full market value.

Takeaway: Six Flags controls a land portfolio that may be worth far more than its operations. Activists see a REIT spin-off or sale as the fastest way to capture that value while management faces mounting pressure after the failed Cedar Fair merger and continued weak results.

Trump slaps 50% tariff on imported cabinets/vanities and 30% on upholstered furniture – Expected to raise housing and renovation costs nationwide (NYTimes)

SFR repair costs run high – Lessen finds median $516 per call and $1,752 annual per home, with general maintenance leading and median fix time 9.6 days (GlobeSt)

Lower mortgage rates set to boost sales in West and Northeast – Realtor.com finds markets with higher mortgage use like D.C., Maryland, Colorado, Utah and California will see the biggest lift, while senior-heavy areas feel less impact. (GlobeSt)

Trepp report shows U.S. office revenues rose 30% from 2015–2024 while expenses climbed 25% – Insurance costs nearly doubled and NOI growth slowed, pressuring valuations and operating margins (Trepp)

AI firms drive San Francisco’s office rebound – Anthropic and OpenAI leases fuel a surge in demand projected to cut the city’s 34.6% vacancy rate in half within five years (TheRealDeal)

DRB Group signs 56K-SF HQ lease at Summit at Washingtonian in Gaithersburg, MD – Principal Asset Management lands expansion as homebuilder relocates from Rockville (CommercialObserver)

Trump’s 25% tariff on imported heavy-duty trucks – Heightens supply chain uncertainty as manufacturers face unclear USMCA exemptions and potential trade retaliation (FreightWaves)

Mall vacancies climb as chain stores close – U.S. shopping center vacancy rose to 5.8% in Q2 2025, easing rent growth and giving small businesses rare access to prime retail space (CNBC)

Off-price apparel surges while luxury plateaus – Value retailers gain as shoppers trade down and luxury’s audience narrows (Placer.ai)

Walgreens shrink-to-core strategy – Nationwide store closures and aggressive lease renegotiations are set to raise retail cap rates and force landlords and lenders to rethink net-lease underwriting (CommercialObserver)

Google backs $3B AI data center contract with Cipher – Guarantees $1.4B and gains option for 5.4% stake to secure Texas capacity (Bloomberg) 

TeraWulf plans $3B Google-backed junk debt raise – Funds will build new AI-focused data centers amid soaring demand (Bloomberg)

Insight: Just like OpenAI’s multibillion-dollar contracts with CoreWeave, Google is partnering with crypto-data-center operators to secure GPU-rich capacity it can tap immediately. The goal is to sidestep long construction timelines and guarantee the compute needed to scale its AI models and cloud services.

U.S. hotel RevPAR fell 1.4% for the week ending Sept. 20 – Occupancy dropped for the 118th day since May while ADR slipped 0.3%, with Top 25 markets like New Orleans and Houston driving declines (STR)

CMBS conduit spreads tighten to early-2024 levels – Strong bond demand and Fed rate cuts let lenders lower coupons as disciplined underwriting keeps LTVs below 60% and DSCRs above 1.5x (Trepp)

Mortgage REIT loan portfolios shrank 18% since 2022 – Rising rates and loan losses pushed firms to manage risk, cut office exposure, and pivot toward multifamily and industrial lending (Trepp)

NorthPark family nears $900M refi of 1.9M-SF NorthPark Center mall in Dallas, TX – Plans call for a two-year CMBS loan arranged with Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs plus $300M mezzanine financing to buy out J.P. Morgan’s 60% stake and regain full ownership (TheRealDeal)

Activist investor urges $2B-listed Six Flags to sell or spin off its park real estate – Land & Buildings estimates up to $6B in asset value as the theme park operator faces steep stock losses and merger scrutiny (TheRealDeal)

Ares Management buys 231K-SF Meridian at Weston warehouse in Broward County, FL for $56M – Purchase from Cabot Properties expands Ares’ South Florida industrial footprint (CommercialObserver)

Blue Owl and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund QIA launch $3B data center platform – QIA commits $1B equity to build and expand U.S.-focused AI infrastructure (Bloomberg)

SEC sues Retail Ecommerce Ventures founders over $112M investment fraud – Allegedly misled investors to fund bankrupt retail brand acquisitions like RadioShack and Pier 1 (Bisnow)

PE owners TA Associates, Harvest Partners, and GI Partners explore $10B sale or IPO of real estate software provider MRI – Offers property management, accounting, and leasing platforms for commercial and residential portfolios (Reuters)

Mercator.ai turns permits and rezoning breadcrumbs into early construction signals - LLMs structure messy PDFs so contractors and developers can spot shifting demand ahead of rivals (GlobeSt)