Features

G rowing pains and growth obviously go hand in hand. Sprawl and traffic congestion are an inescapable part of modern metropolitan life.         Actually it is a barometer of prosperity. The benefits of growth are sometimes lost in the minds and media, especially after a decade of continuous prosperity. When the populous […]

N aysayers predicted havoc when the British handed over Hong Kong to Mainland China in 1997. But instead of Red Chinese soldiers charging in to take control, the floodgates opened the other direction. Hong Kong capitalists living in this landlocked economic powerhouse began pouring large sums of money into South China.         […]

D ETROIT — It wasn’t that long ago that pundits and pols alike were lamenting the demise of the Motor City and the state to which it belongs.         There is little such talk now. Winning Site Selection magazine’s coveted Governor’s Cup for a record fourth year in a row (see the […]

I n the new global supply chain — reduced by globalizaton and falling trade barriers — the crunch to shrink costs is driving world-class industries to position production facilities strategically closer to raw materials sources.         Low-cost development zones are emerging to accelerate the reverse migration and few industrial sectors have been […]

A bstracts of major presentations of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent corporate real estate association. “Digital Darwinism: Strategies for Evolving, Adapting, Surviving and Thriving in an e-Business World,” Florida World Congress, Nov. 6, 2000:         The companies that evolve the quickest and adapt to the new e-business landscape […]

W hen Lee Arnold talks about the impact of the Internet on corporate real estate executives, he uses phrases like “fast-moving flexibility,” “blurring of the lines,” “bandwidth access” and “the barrier of inertia.” With Arnold, information technology chairman for global service provider Colliers International (www.colliers.com), the concepts of speed and transition aren’t just fodder for […]

A banner year for the Volunteer State came to an end as the man responsible for a large portion of Tennessee’s economic success stepped down from his post to return to the private sector.         On the same day that Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist announced that his state had achieved a record […]

Fast Track Project Management WorkPlaceUSA (www.workplace-usa.com), a Dallas-based provider of project management and other real estate services, is using an Internet-based project management system from Citadon (www.citadon.com), San Francisco, to facilitate the simultaneous creation of 13 network information centers for WorldCom. The $900 million effort involves building 12 centers totaling 1.3 million sq. ft. (120,700 […]

T he “Wild, Wild West” mentality of Nevada may not be kind to your pocketbook if you’re a high-stakes gambler, but it just might be your best friend should you decide to launch and grow a business there.         According to the annual Cognetics ranking of “Entrepreneurial Hot Spots,” Nevada is the […]

T he corporate real estate industry’s service provider community is in the midst of a heightened state of “convergence” if the past few months are any indication. Late 2000 saw numerous alliances and acquisitions that support a theory put forward in the Site Selection January 2001 cover story, “E-Business Levels the Real Estate Playing Field”. […]

“U p until a few years ago,” says Frank Shepherd, “There were three ways of getting work done. Fixed offices took up 95 percent of the time, mobile work took up 3 percent or 4 percent and teleworking (permanent home-based working) was barely 1 percent. Today hybrid areas are emerging, as are nomadic touchdown satellite […]

Introduction: Information at your fingertips         Welcome to the 4th Quarter 2000 Johnson Controls USA Office Occupancy Costs Index, which provides a snapshot guide to the cost of providing and operating property and facility management services in the USA.         This cost index briefing is published twice a year […]

J ones Lang LaSalle’s (JLL) Global Consulting division recently gave clients and prospects another opportunity to step out of the corporate real estate management fray and put the rapid change they are enduring in context. Dozens of real estate managers joined a team of JLL executives at the firm’s latest Real Estate Leadership Roundtable, in […]

U nderstanding how cities view and evaluate projects is critical to developing more cooperative and insightful relationships between your company and the communities in which you do — and would like to do — business. This article presents an overview of how public officials view and evaluate the community impacts associated with economic development projects. […]

T he big news surrounding the Site Selection Governor’s Cup facilities race for 2000 is the fact that the big winners — Michigan and Detroit — are getting quite comfortable taking their respective rides down victory lane.         For the fourth year in a row, the state of Michigan claimed the top […]

W hen people think of Florida, most probably envision sandy white beaches, family-oriented theme parks and lots of retirement communities. When business people think of Florida, the hot spots of Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Orlando and Jacksonville readily come to mind.       But what about Northwest Florida — or the region locals like […]

I t’s no secret that two of the hottest corporate real estate markets in America are Chicago and Boston. What you may not know is why. After nearly a decade of record US economic expansion, why do these two diverse and yet similar metropolitan markets continue to top the charts for corporate users of industrial […]

O RLANDO, Fla. — Corporate real estate executives have a choice: Change in the face of the e-business revolution or risk being made extinct by it.       In a nutshell, that was the overriding theme of the 76th North American IDRC World Congress, held Nov. 4-8 in the tourism capital of the world: […]

W aves of “creative destruction” will see large numbers of managerial, professional and technical personnel put out to pasture because the technology is so good. These were only some of the conclusions to come out of the Copenhagen World Congress of the Industrial Development Research Council (IDRC), the pre-eminent corporate real estate (CRE) association, on […]

W hoever said ignorance is bliss obviously wasn’t looking to site a facility, especially not a call center. And when ignorance means missing out on 40-50 percent in labor costs savings … well it could mean blissful unemployment. But on behalf of those not knowing that Canada’s British Columbia (BC) could save their firms that […]

P anelists at a recent session on Internet-based capital sources had their work cut out for them. The speakers were part of the program at a NAIOP (National Assoc. of Industrial and Office Properties) conference in Orlando, Fla., in October. “We hope you get so comfortable using the technology that you don’t even think about […]

T he Internet is helping all of us to work faster and better, right? Well, yes and no. Development organizations have created hundreds of Web sites targeting site selectors, but are they really getting the job done any better or faster than the hundreds of brochures, CD-ROMs and videos that came before? To find out, […]

R epresentatives of 10 corporate real estate service provider companies left the International Development Research Council’s Florida World Congress in November with at least one item with which they did not arrive in Orlando. These people accepted the 2000 Site Selection/William Dorsey Service Provider Award on behalf of their organizations. This awards program, now in […]

T ACOMA, Wash. — When Mitch Davis needed a high-speed launching pad for his startup Internet company, he ditched high-priced Seattle for its blue-collar neighbor some 35 miles to the south: Tacoma. When John Gorst needed a place to set up his Internet utility company that provides Web hosting of applications for small businesses around […]