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 MARCH 2000  SITE SELECTION  NEW FRONTIERS FOR FACILITY PLANNERS • Cover Page •  Industrial Super     Projects •  Air Transport    Rails    Highways    Water Transport •  Intermodal Systems    Fresh Water Projects    Power Generation     Projects •  Hydro Power    Oil & Gas Projects    Alternate Energy     Sources •  Developing a Global     Power Grid    Environmental     Projects    Global Comm. •  Global Venues    Urban Development    High-Rise Projects    New Urban Forms •  Rapid Transit Systems    New Towns,    Redevelopment,    Mixed-Used Projects    Project Data Base […]

Whirlpool:RE Takes ‘Integrator’ Role b y     J A C K     L Y N E Consistent, quantifiable processes and savvy outsourcing are two of the keys in the dawning rise of Whirlpool’s Corporate Real Estate (CRE) unit into the role of “corporate integrator” — a value-adding effort that bagged a prestigious 1999 Best Practices […]

PeopleSoft’s John Igoe Keeps People in The High-tech Real Estate Management Equation John F. Igoe knows a thing or two about managing real estate assets in the high-tech arena. As vice president, facilities and real estate, at Pleasanton, Calif.-based PeopleSoft Corp. (www.peoplesoft.com), he manages a portfolio of 1.8 million sq. ft. (167,000 sq. m.) in […]

A team of corporate real estate executives, leading academics and service providers met regularly through late 1998 and much of 1999 to craft a new portfolio management model that recognizes corporate real estate as a strategic organizational asset. What exactly is portfolio management in the corporate real estate context? Unless the concept is given some […]

The role of business combinations, including mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic alliances in restructuring industries and companies was a — if not the – business trend story of the 1990s. Since 1990, the worldwide value of merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions has increased over six times to US$3.4 trillion in 1999, according to Securities […]

Separated by a statistical nose, Michigan nipped California, as 1999’s record-breaking business expansion clip again demonstrated who went where for maximum site selection value. Ali vs. Frazier. Affirmed vs. Alydar. Borg vs. Conners. Those kinds of classic confrontations sprang to mind as 1999’s feverish Site Selection Governor’s Cup race wound down. Just like last year, […]

1999 Proportional PerspectivesMichigan, Kentucky Bag No. 1s, but Shakeups Reshuffle Top 10s Albert Einstein, Time‘s “Man of the Century,” knew a thing or two about proportional perspectives. “When you are courting a nice girl,” he observed, “an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder, a second seems like an hour. […]

Y2OK: SSI Projects Bullish 20 Percent Expansion b y     J A C K     L Y N E We have survived Y2K, the millennial-turning Chicken Little equivalent of Comet Kahoutek’s similarly fizzling hysteria in the 1970s. So, since there’s going to be a future, what does it hold in 2000 for corporate expansion? 2000 […]

1999’s U.S. Location Leviathans b y     J A C K     L Y N E The very big U.S. business expansion equaled very big facilities: That’s the nutshell tale of the 20 largest corporate facility deals announced in the United States in 1999, as the nation edged toward its longest sustained economic expansion. 1999’s […]

“Last one out, turn off the lights.” A few years ago, that was the rueful joke in Detroit. Even personable Mayor Dennis Archer joshed at a mid-1990s’ blue-ribbon gathering of corporate real estate executives, “I’ve got a lot of empty lots and boarded-over storefronts that I can really get you a good price on.” But […]

Europe-Middle East Region Claims Most New Activity by Three Key Measures b y     M A R K     A R E N D New facilities sited in 1999 required larger investments, employed more people and were larger in size on average than the previous year, reveal Site Selection‘s New Plant database tallies. Talk of […]

1999: A Very Good Year for Business Expansion in Canada b y     T I M     V E N A B L E Did you know that Ontario’s Niagara region is a leading producer of fine wines? It is. And while we at Site Selection don’t know whether 1999 was a particularly good year […]

SiteNet www.sitenet.com The Internet’s premier source of corporate real estate and economic development information ? The executive’s portal to the latest commercial real estate news and stock market indices. ? Gateway to the GeoFacts Library and all other web sites managed by Conway Data, Inc. ? Delivers over 7,250 pages to industry professionals every business […]

Introduction: Origins of this PaperIn April 1993, the International Development Research Council?s journal, Industrial Development, published an article entitled “A Vision of the New Workplace.” (Industrial Development ran in Site Selection magazine for several years.) The authors were Francis Duffy from London-based DEGW, an architect who has spent most of his career studying and acting […]

In March 1999, distribution facilities giant ProLogis, an Aurora, Colo.-based real estate investment trust (REIT), acquired Meridian Industrial Trust, another leading manager and developer of distribution facilities, resulting in a global powerhouse with a market capitalization in excess of US$6.7 billion. ProLogis, with more than 168 million square feet (15.6 million sq. m.) under development […]

They?re living large in Alabama economic development circles, reveling in landing one of the year?s most coveted deals: Honda?s US$450 million, 1,500-employee plant, a 1.7-million-sq.-ft. (153,000-sq.-m.) behemoth that will rise on a 1,350-acre (540-ha.) tract in Lincoln, a small Talladega County town of some 3,600 residents 35 miles (56 km.) east of Birmingham. Undoubtedly some […]

With Europe?s economic revival gathering strength, the continent?s Latin markets are heating up, and crowding in historic city centers is sending occupiers heading for the hills. In Madrid, the business surge last year boosted takeup 20 percent to a 5.55 million sq. ft. (500,000 sq. m.), a high for the 1990s that has squeezed vacancy […]

Ontario Power Generation — North America?s biggest electric utility in generating capacity — is an invaluable member of the economic development team that?s helping make Ontario a leader in the chase for new business. In fact, OPG (the electricity generation successor to the former Ontario Hydro) recently won the Economic Developers Council of Ontario?s inaugural […]

One of the late 20th century?s most significant business trends, infrastructure integration is an idea whose time has come — and with it, a new role for real estate. Case in point: CIGNA corporate real estate?s (CRE) innovative Vision 3 Initiative, which merited a prestigious Best Practices Award from the International Development Research Council (IDRC), […]

If only the Y2K bug could be gotten rid of as easily as its counterparts in the natural world. It cannot, of course, and there is a palpable sense of foreboding surrounding the run-up to Jan. 1, 2000, when non-Y2K-compliant computers will assume it?s 1900. There is an even stronger sense in some circles that […]

Abstracts of recent major presentations of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world?s preeminent corporate real estate association. ?New New Strategies for Inner-City Economic Development,? Keynote Address by Michael Porter; IDRC New England World Congress, Apr. 26, 1999: ?The inner city is becoming the new hot spot,? offering location strengths, major pools of available […]

Those looking for immediate insights into real estate-related risk exposure tied to the Y2K bug can find extensive coverage of the topic at www.y2krealestate.com, a Web site operated by Millennium Strategies Group, LLC, a Denver, Colo.-based consultancy. The site lists building operating systems at risk and provides links to numerous articles detailing the various technical […]

It?s official: Site Selection?s editorial and graphic excellence now extends from the printed page to its cyberspace base. The magazine recently won awards in both categories in 1999?s ?Awards for Publications Excellence? (APEX) competition. Sponsored by Springfield, Va.-based Communications Concepts, APEX?s 11th annual global competition drew a record 4,900 entries. APEX cited SS for ?excellence […]

In the coming years, one of the most important service providers to the corporate real estate profession will be a modem-equipped computer. Traditional service providers of all stripes are automating their services where possible in order to reduce their own overhead and to quench clients? thirst for convenient, customizable access to services. As corporate infrastructure […]