Features

C orporate real estate executives from most of Silicon Valley’s high-tech companies gathered in early June in Redwood City, Calif., to participate in one of two Jones Lang LaSalle Leading Edge Series 2002 events to take place this year. Besides high-level presentations on economic forces influencing business decisions, the impact of changes in accounting rules […]

S teps taken to make the Tar Heel State even more competitive with surrounding states are paying off. For the second year in a row, North Carolina has claimed the top slot in Site Selection‘s annual business climate ranking. Among the measures helping to boost the state’s allure was passage in the state house of […]

S tate budgetary shortfalls have mirrored the U.S. economy at large over the past year, prompting many legislatures to adopt stringent measures to curb spending and maintain the tax base. Many held special legislative sessions in order to achieve some fiscal progress.         While some economic development branches have been streamlined, most […]

H opes were high at the beginning of the year that 2002 would see the start of a sustained economic recovery in Europe and the rest of the industrialized world. The figures for the first few months appeared to show that the optimism was well founded. The leading global economies grew at 2.4 percent in […]

P hil Condit, chairman and CEO of The Boeing Co., knows a thing or two about the importance of infrastructure to economic development. After all, without the airports and transport systems providing access to them, his global, multi-billion dollar aerospace company wouldn’t be around.         “Economic growth follows infrastructure,” Condit told members […]

I BM and Cisco Systems call Beijing home. Now the plan for the Beijing Science and Technology Park Construction Company Ltd. is to recruit even more big names from the West to establish operations around China’s capital city.         The lure? Brand new, high-tech corporate campuses that are virtual “Science Cities” — […]

G etting e-noticed involves far more than simply replicating your organization’s brochures online. Economic development agencies in Europe ? that might previously have sat back and let their regions’ charms speak for themselves ? are increasingly adopting a far more polished approach. This might not necessarily involve investment in all-singing, all-dancing flash-enabled Web sites, but […]

H ow can you help your region grow when you’re busy managing your own growth?         That is one of several questions facing the economic development arms of utilities big and small around the United States. As a recent benchmarking and best practices survey by the Utility Economic Development Association found, utilities […]

E xecutives of the US$11 billion Computer Sciences Corporation understand the business benefits of outsourced services as well as anyone. The El Segundo-based company earned a $344 million profit in its 2002 fiscal year as an outsourcing provider of information technology services to corporations. Check that. Approximately $40 million of Computer Science’s 2002 profits came […]

T ry to image a more daunting task than relocating a plant to another location. Better yet, to another country. Building a new plant is just part of the task. Relocating a plant also involves moving equipment, materials and production lines to the new facility — and disposing of the original site.       […]

Worldwide Practice Named Real Estate Law Firm Of the Year The law firm of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, founded in Los Angeles in 1951, was named the International Real Estate Law Firm of the Year at the Chambers Global awards in London, which honors the finest performers in international commercial law. Philip Feder   […]

T ony Miele’s job could be compared to that of the captain of a supertanker making a U-turn in a swiftly moving river.         Ontario Realty Corporation (ORC) for generations has served as the Canadian province’s property asset management arm, an agency charged with owning and operating facilities in which government ministries […]

From Site Selection magazine, September 2002 WORLD REPORTS   | CHINA | ENGLAND | MEXICO | EUROPE | AMSTERDAM | FREE AND OPEN TRADE | As Rest of World Shuffles, China Sprints Even amid widespread concern about too much reliance on China as the new industrial powerhouse, the capital and projects just keep coming.   […]

A fter a period of rapid growth, company managers may step back and ask if their current facilities structure — often haphazardly cobbled together through mergers and acquisitions and building on existing operations — can be rationalized in a strategic manner to more efficiently and cost-effectively meet the needs of the integrated firm.     […]

B roadband Internet access is rapidly being perceived by governments and business as an essential utility which will soon be as important as water or electricity to economic development. Cities or regions that embrace this concept and make this new utility widely available are variously described as being “intelligent, smart or wired.”       […]

TAMPA — IBM didn’t have to turn to its Deep Blue supercomputer to find the answer for this site location decision. It really wasn’t that complicated.         “The Tampa Bay Area has been a long-time focus IBM. We have many clients in this area and more than 1,300 employees involved in the […]

The mission of The Competitiveness Institute is to improve the living standards and local competitiveness of regions across the world by enhancing cluster-based development initiatives.         Our focus is primarily on regional clusters – geographic groupings of firms in the same or closely related industries. The Institute’s members are active in 38 […]

From Site Selection magazine, July 2002 WORLD REPORTS   | SOUTH KOREA | MEXICO | AUSTRIA | PORTUGAL | SINGAPORE | SCOTLAND | Incheon Stakes Its Claim as Intelligent City In the first-ever U.S.-South Korean real estate joint venture, The Gale Co. has been tapped as a partner in developing the US$12.5-billion New Songdo Intelligent […]

Grubb & Ellis Growth in Services and Affiliates Inspires Investment Real estate investment firm Kojaian Ventures, based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, has agreed to stake $15.2 million on the growing fortunes of real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis, a measure that would grant Kojaian the voting power of a majority stockholder. The investment will […]

J oe Moravec, commissioner of the Public Buildings Service of the U.S. General Services Administration, recently sat down with Site Selection’s Director of Publishing Ron Starner for an interview on the changing role of GSA and how the agency’s new direction will impact corporate America.         The linchpin of Moravec’s strategy is […]

W hen Concept Inc. went looking in 1988 for a site to manufacture arthroscopic medical devices, the company found what it needed in Largo, Fla., a town in the Tampa Bay Area on the Gulf of Mexico.         Today, the US$256 million-a-year company known as Linvatec employs 1,100 workers and occupies 235,000 […]

N ine out of 10 CFOs based in the U.S. believe that using outside resources to perform non-core functions increases shareholder value.1 Yet fewer than two out of 10 have empirically measured the return on investment (ROI) of their outsourcing initiatives. Those who have measured ROI report an average of 17 percent savings.     […]

T he queues were shorter, but the destinations more varied.         That is one conclusion to draw from the annual “European Investment Monitor” report from Ernst & Young. European new facilities and expansions dropped 12 percent in 2001, but it was a good year nonetheless for “gatecrashers, EU (European Union) accession countries […]

E merging industry clusters in such high-tech fields as life sciences and software engineering are driving demand for a new breed of business park. But more than futuristic laboratory and office space is required to catch the attention of industry players seeking suitable locations in which to research and develop tomorrow’s systems and services. The […]