Features

Abstracts of major presentations of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent corporate real estate association. “Global Corporate Real Estate Practices,” IDRC New York World Congress Workshop, May 1, 2000: This session reviewed the Annual Survey of Corporate Real Estate Practices, conducted each year by Johnson Controls in conjunction with IDRC. Among most […]

A onetime jazz saxophonist with the likes of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Lou Rawls, Imation executive Thomas Foyer muses that the song in part remains the same. “Today’s business environment is like jazz because it’s moving so fast. You have to improvise, keeping the group small enough so you can make changes quickly,” says […]

Site Selection‘s editorial quality — on both the printed page and in cyberspace — has bagged three more awards in the 12th annual global “Awards for Publications Excellence” (APEX) competition. The three APEX Awards were for Site Selection‘s excellence in the categories of: Feature writing, for the January 2000 cover story, “U.S. Car Wars: Toyota […]

The Johnson Controls USA Office Costs Index[See Tables One, Two, Three and Chart A for data] The Johnson Controls USA Office Occupancy Costs Index is based on a detailed model of a medium grade air-conditioned office building, which operates reasonably efficiently with no unusually high service standards or demands. The building is 160,000 rentable square […]

IDRC and NACORE, the world’s two leading professional associations for corporate real estate executives, service providers and economic developers, are exploring possible integration. This unprecedented step would create one new association to represent the corporate asset management industry with a singular mission of creating value through the workplace. Since plans to converge both groups were […]

Editor’s note: A former president of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent corporate real estate (CRE) association, Michael Bell (right) is a widely recognized industry leader. His Gartner Group (www.gartner.com) research focuses on workplace transformation and the virtual enterprise — specifically, the workplace impact of information technology (IT), including corporate strategy formulation, […]

‘Effective Rents’: How Much Are You Really Paying? What can you tell from landlords’ asking rates? Not necessarily very much, according to a new study of “tenant effective rents” in 12 major U.S. markets. The study, from New York-based Julien J. Studley (www.studley.com), subtracts lease concessions from total rents. Some of the results may surprise […]

“If everything is so good, why do we feel so bad?” was the working title of a presentation made at a recent gathering of the Counselors of Real Estate (CRE), a Chicago-based association of corporate real estate consultants. The presenter was Phil Ward, senior managing director, real estate investments, at CIGNA Investment Management, Hartford, Conn. […]

Michigan’s banner years under Doug Rothwell’s leadership just got a major exclamation point: General Motors (www.gm.com) has decided to invest US$1 billion to build two plants just outside Lansing that will add 2,800 jobs. And Rothwell, president and CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC at www.michigan.org), did a lot of the heavyweight deal’s […]

For those of you waiting for the Canadian electricity market to open up to competition, you will now have to wait a little longer. Although the plan was to open the market up in November of this year, the Ontario government announced on June 22 that the open date will be pushed back to a […]