Says the Downtown News: "The surge of investment in Downtown in the last couple years has reminded many people of the pre-recession era. Then, as now, big-budget housing and other projects are announced seemingly weekly. Once again, construction cranes speckle the sky.

"There is a big difference, however, between the current boom and the one that peaked around 2006. Whereas the first wave of housing was powered by local developers often on a piecemeal basis, today the residential and mixed-use projects (and sometimes mega-projects) increasingly come from deep-pocketed institutional investors. What’s more, many of those pouring money into Downtown hail from Asia."

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