Ask the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the October 2025 CPI-U and it returns a dash. The 43-day appropriations lapse killed the collection and BLS said it could not go back for it. Leases that measure rent from October to October now have a base month that does not exist, the index substitution clause most of them contain does not fire, and the derivatives market and BLS's own productivity program filled the hole with two different numbers.
California reassesses a property at market value when a lease of 35 years or more is created, and the count includes every written renewal option. A 20-year data center lease with four five-year options is 40 years. The Board of Equalization drew the line at whether the lease has ever crossed 35 years before, and the Court of Appeal once told an assessor that a long-term lessee buying its own landlord out is not a scam.
A three-arbitrator panel valued the land under 100 West 57th Street at $301,250,000 and raised the ground rent from $4,360,587 to $24,602,184. On 3 September 2026 the First Department threw the award out, but not because the number was wrong. Nobody reviewed the number. The valuation standard decides what the rent becomes; the arbitration clause decides whether anyone ever looks at it again.
