Jennifer Van Grove
Jennifer Van Grove reports on growth and development, focusing on how major real estate projects, public land deals and the reuse of legacy properties reshape the region’s built environment and civic life. Her coverage centers on complex transactions where government, investors and communities intersect, with particular attention to legal risk, financing structures and long-term use of contested sites. She is an award-winning business journalist with more than a decade of experience, now dedicated to real estate stories that carry political, financial and neighborhood consequences.
Sports arena land deals and the Midway Rising project
Van Grove closely tracks the effort to remake the city’s sports arena property through the Midway Rising real estate deal, treating the project as a test case for large-scale public land redevelopment. She reports on delays in the city’s decision on the agreement, explaining how thousands of planned apartments and a new entertainment venue depend on a timeline that keeps slipping further into the future.
Her work follows the environmental review in detail, including a legal letter to city leaders that lists alleged deficiencies in the state-mandated impact report and lays out a foundation for court challenges if the analysis is approved. She also covers a special statute introduced in the state Legislature that seeks to exempt Midway Rising from key elements of state environmental law, showing how bespoke legislation can shield a single project from lawsuits tied to the California Environmental Quality Act.
Across these stories she treats zoning, environmental procedure, political negotiation and investor expectations as parts of the same land-use narrative rather than separate beats.
Adaptive reuse of historic and legacy properties
Historic buildings and long-neglected venues are a recurring focus, especially where new owners propose significant reuse or redevelopment. Van Grove reports on the Prebys Foundation’s agreement to buy the abandoned California Theatre building, documenting how the deal could finally resolve a prominent downtown blight and open the door to a new future for the landmark site.
She covers the city’s decision to sever ties with Save Starlight at Balboa Park’s Starlight Bowl, recounting how the outdoor amphitheater has decayed amid vandalism, arson and squatters and why officials lost confidence in the nonprofit that aimed to reopen it.
Her author archive includes work on converting a downtown office tower at 707 Broadway into low-income housing, treating office-to-residential conversions as both a real estate strategy and a response to changing demand for workspace. In these stories she ties architectural history, neighborhood identity and modern use cases together, emphasizing the practical steps and obstacles involved in turning obsolete or derelict properties into functioning parts of the city again.
Real estate finance, legal disputes and investor exposure
Van Grove regularly covers the financial side of real estate, including investor disputes and complex capital structures behind development deals. She reports on a civil complaint filed in Delaware against life science real estate investment firm IQHQ, detailing allegations that the company made false promises to secure an equity investment that has since lost all value.
Her earlier business reporting includes coverage of platforms such as PeerStreet, explaining how they bring real estate investing to a broader audience and position themselves as an alternative to traditional savings products. She often uses court filings, transaction documents and investor communications to show how risk is allocated between developers, lenders and equity partners.
The result is finance-focused real estate coverage that goes beyond property descriptions to reveal who bears the downside when projects stall or market conditions change.
Urban villages, bayfront projects and economic trends
Major mixed-use and waterfront proposals feature prominently in her recent work on growth and development. Van Grove reports on High Street Village, the Little Italy–inspired neighborhood slated to replace the Costa Verde Center, outlining the developer’s vision for a European-style retail street with cafes, wellness spaces and a small market at the heart of a new urban village.
She covers the “half-baked” mega sports complex proposed for the Chula Vista Bayfront, explaining how the tennis-anchored project remains in play despite unanswered questions about a high-profile athlete’s commitment and the environmental impact of building on tidelands.
She also writes about regional employment data, including a story on rising unemployment that highlights underlying strengths in the local economy and places the numbers in the context of broader business trends. Across these pieces she treats real estate as both a physical and economic force, linking new development concepts, waterfront ambitions and labor-market shifts into a single picture of how the region is changing.
From technology coverage to growth and development
Before focusing on real estate, Van Grove built her career covering technology companies and broader digital trends, including work for prominent online outlets. Her author bio notes that she reported on consumer tech and industry shifts, experience that informs her current attention to platforms, data and innovation within the property sector. That background shows up in stories that treat real estate platforms and new business models as seriously as traditional bricks-and-mortar transactions, and in a writing style that explains complex systems in plain, direct language. She now applies those skills to growth and development coverage, consistently framing land-use decisions, redevelopment plans and investment controversies as part of a larger business story rather than isolated real estate events.
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.