Dan Shingler
Dan Shingler is a commercial real estate reporter at Crain's Cleveland Business whose coverage centers on commercial and industrial property deals, office markets and redevelopment projects, with a consistent focus on tenant movement, job creation and the broader business climate behind each transaction. He brings a long history covering manufacturing and industry, along with occasional public‑service reporting on community issues, into his current real estate work.
Commercial deals and office market movement
In his current role, Shingler tracks the sale and leasing of major commercial properties, treating each deal as a window into shifting demand for office and mixed‑use space rather than just a price point.
Coverage of transactions such as the sale of downtown assets like Ohio Savings Plaza for nearly $3.3 million is framed in terms of who is buying, what they plan to do with the property and how the deal fits into the surrounding business district. His reporting on the Cleveland office market highlights tenant movement and “conflicting data” from major brokerage firms, showing how different data sets from players such as CBRE and JLL can produce different pictures of vacancy and absorption in the same quarter.
He writes in straightforward, factual prose, anchoring his stories in verified figures and named companies, while drawing out what those numbers say about the direction of the regional office market.
Industrial land, redevelopment and jobs
A recurring theme in Shingler’s recent work is how cities assemble and market large tracts of industrial land in order to attract new employers. He has reported on multiple municipalities creating significant parcels specifically for light‑industrial uses, emphasizing their shared goals of bringing in jobs that bolster local income‑tax bases. In those pieces, he distinguishes light‑industrial projects from data centers or warehouse developments by underscoring that they typically support more on‑site employment, and he tracks how local leaders weigh those differences when deciding how to position their acreage. He also covers major redevelopment projects, including the $75 million effort to reimagine the Quaker Square silos complex as a transformative downtown development, explaining the scope of investment and the significance of converting an iconic former industrial site into a new economic engine.
Across these stories, he tends to follow the land from acquisition through entitlement, financing and planned use, giving readers a clear sense of who is driving each project and what kind of jobs and tax revenue are at stake.
Manufacturing and economic cycles
Before shifting to commercial real estate, Shingler spent many years covering energy and manufacturing for Crain's Cleveland Business, building a deep archive on how industrial companies respond to economic cycles.
His earlier reporting documented sharp downturns in regional manufacturing, including survey data showing widespread reductions in employment among producers during the late‑2000s recession. He wrote on initiatives to create a biomimicry hub that would link environmental science and industry, situating that effort as a bid to put the region at the forefront of new, innovation‑driven manufacturing.
Other pieces examined how defense‑related advanced metals centers help companies enter more sophisticated materials markets, and how auto suppliers reacted to government programs aimed at getting older vehicles off the road and stimulating new‑car sales. He has also explored how shops balance workloads with smaller staffs and whether to hire in the face of uneven recoveries, reflecting a sustained interest in the operational side of manufacturing businesses and the practical constraints they face.
That background shows up in his current real estate coverage through a familiarity with industrial tenants, plant expansions and the production needs that drive demand for light‑industrial parks and redevelopment sites.
Public‑service work on gun violence and community safety
Alongside his business reporting, Shingler has contributed public‑service journalism on gun violence and community safety for Crain's Cleveland Business. In the Crain’s Forum on gun violence, he co‑authored work such as “The good gun fight,” which followed campus police leadership and day‑to‑day efforts to keep university environments secure. He also produced a series on gun violence and the search for solutions that was recognized in the public service/investigative category of the All Ohio Excellence in Journalism Awards, underscoring his ability to handle complex, sensitive topics with rigor.
These projects show a capacity to move beyond transactional business coverage when needed, applying the same disciplined, fact‑driven approach to issues that sit at the intersection of public safety, institutions and community life.
Role within the masthead
Shingler has been a reporter for Crain's Cleveland Business since at least 2008, when his byline began appearing regularly on manufacturing and economic‑development coverage, and he moved into a dedicated commercial real estate role in 2025. His long tenure with the masthead means his stories often connect present‑day deals and projects to earlier waves of industrial investment, policy initiatives and business cycles that he has already covered. He also appears as a business reporter on regional news roundtables, adding context on how corporate decisions, development projects and market data affect employers, workers and local governments. Taken together, his work offers a consistent through‑line: real estate and industry coverage that ties physical assets to the jobs, companies and community dynamics behind them, without straying from clear, sourced reporting.
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.