Alex Garner
Alex Garner is a business reporter at the Sheboygan Press who tracks how development projects, major employers and consumer-facing businesses reshape the local economy, with a recurring emphasis on real estate and long-range impact.
Local development and real estate projects
Garner’s coverage of development focuses on what gets built, what it replaces and how timelines and constraints shape those decisions. Her exclusive on converting the former Mayline site into luxury apartments by 2028 follows a dormant industrial property into a large housing proposal, detailing the scale of the project and its expected schedule.
She has examined how water infrastructure in Howards Grove can limit large-scale development and how the cost of upgrades influences what kinds of projects are realistic. In business roundups, she reports on delays or pauses in major developments such as a Kohler golf course, tying construction decisions to broader questions about land use and investment.
Across these pieces, she connects individual sites to zoning, utilities and financing, making real estate stories about the mechanics behind growth rather than just the announcement.
Major employers and economic impact
Garner regularly reports on the region’s anchor employers and the economic weight they carry. Her work on Sargento’s facility construction tracks progress toward a 2027 finish, combining project milestones with what expanded operations mean for jobs and production.
Coverage of Acuity Insurance’s revenue benchmark of more than $2.5 billion for 2023 turns corporate figures into a clear snapshot of business performance and local economic stability. She writes about manufacturers such as Johnsonville and Sartori in the context of statewide contests and industry recognition, using those stories to show how local brands compete and market themselves.
In her reporting on American Patriot cruise ship visits, she quantifies the economic impact in dollar terms and breaks down how spending flows through downtown businesses, treating tourism as part of the broader economic system rather than a standalone feature.
Retail, food and the consumer business landscape
A significant portion of Garner’s beat looks at how retail and food businesses enter, exit or evolve in the market. Her coverage of Michaels’ grand opening and other chain arrivals examines what new stores bring to local shoppers and to neighboring businesses. In pieces on Olive Garden and other restaurant chains, she explores which brands residents still want in the city and how national chains fit alongside independent restaurants, using community responses to frame demand and competition. She has invited readers to nominate the best food trucks, turning a simple vote into a map of mobile vendors and their role in the local food economy.
Roundups of monthly business news, including bounce-back reopenings and stalled projects, give a consolidated view of how storefronts, entertainment venues and service businesses are changing at once. These stories combine openings, closures and expansions, making the consumer landscape legible for anyone tracking where money and foot traffic move.
Civic issues intersecting with business
Garner’s reporting often sits at the intersection of commerce, policy and daily life.
She has covered debates over ending a contract for license plate reader cameras, explaining how public-safety technology contracts interact with city budgets and vendor relationships. Her work on child care and government trust in a state Senate district shows how economic pressures on families become political issues, drawing out what residents say they need from their representatives.
She has received statewide journalism recognition for environmental reporting on reduced road salt use during winter storms, for a localized look at advocacy after Roe v. Wade was overturned, and for enterprise work on water infrastructure that makes growth expensive.
School-year coverage and seasonal outlook pieces, such as stories on a dry, cool fall, bring in education and environment where they affect business, labor and planning. In these assignments she treats civic questions as part of the same system that governs development and employment, reinforcing her beat’s focus on the practical consequences of policy decisions.
Across her work, Garner favors concrete detail, clear timelines and measurable effects. Whether the subject is a factory expansion, a cruise ship’s port call, a new chain restaurant or a contentious technology contract, she centers what will change on the ground for businesses and residents.
The result is a beat that blends real estate, corporate news and public policy into a continuous picture of how the local economy is built and contested over time.
4 more real estate journalists.
Aaron Elstein
Aaron Elstein brings a Wall Street reporter’s eye to commercial real estate. He is a senior reporter at Crain’s New York Business, where he covers large office towers, Midtown corridors, landlords, lenders, investors and regulators. His reporting shows how ownership decisions, bank balance sheets, capital markets and regulation shape property values and risk. He also covers banking, finance and Wall Street, including bank mergers and investment firms. Before joining Crain’s in 2003, he wrote Heard on the Street columns for The Wall Street Journal and covered bank mergers for American Banker. Elstein reports by closely reading footnotes, contracts, regulatory filings and legal documents. His investigative work has examined executive payments, pension funds, tax enforcement and tenant harassment. His coverage places deals, disputes and enforcement actions within broader financial and property cycles.
Aaron Moselle
Aaron Moselle covers housing and community development for WHYY’s PlanPhilly, filing for radio and the web. He stands out for connecting market data and government action to displacement, affordable homes, and the daily questions facing renters and homeowners. His core beat is housing affordability and market strain, including high mortgage rates, rising prices, tax assessments, and what they mean for buyers, sellers, and renters. He also reports on preserving and creating affordable housing, neighborhood rehab efforts, major real estate deals, and the effect of property sales on residents. His work often uses direct sourcing, plain language, and service journalism to make policy and finance clear.
Aarthi Swaminathan
Aarthi Swaminathan is a personal finance reporter at MarketWatch whose distinctive beat connects residential real estate with household budgets. She covers housing prices, affordability, mortgage rates, financing, insurance, remodeling and the costs of owning a home. Her reporting examines overvalued and fast-rising markets, ZIP-code trends, second-home sellers, builders, developers and buyers facing higher borrowing costs. She also follows Gen Z buyers, owners trapped in weakening condo markets and neighborhood conflicts over development. Her work pairs data-driven housing analysis with detailed case studies of buyers, owners and sellers. She explains complex market data in clear, accessible language and writes news features, personal-finance explainers, Economic Report stories, The Big Move and New American Playbook. She won a silver award for Best Collection of Work by an Individual Covering Residential Real Estate.
Abbey Ferguson
Abbey Ferguson stands out for reporting how major commercial moves and redevelopment plans reshape the built environment, especially the real estate deals that reveal what land and retail space are worth. She covers Central Texas commercial real estate and development for KWTX, with recent stories on land valuation, major transactions, retail redevelopment, and infrastructure planning. Her work has tracked an $80 million data center site offer in Hill County, a prospective Trader Joe’s location in Waco, and a planning project using artificial intelligence to predict traffic patterns. She writes as a news reporter, staying close to the numbers, public records, brokers, officials, and landowners. Her stories turn contract prices, appraisal data, and listing history into plain explanations of what buyers are betting on and how those deals affect surrounding property owners and nearby businesses.