ProLogis is developing internally too, even as it posts its logo seemingly everywhere around the globe. The company's headquarters now resides

The ProLogis name adorns more developments around the world every week – even its own new $20-million headquarters.

in a new $20-million, 89,000-sq.-ft. (8,269-sq.-m.) facility that can hold up to 325 people. Located near Denver International Airport, the new headquarters, opened in February 2006, is also near about 110 acres (45 hectares) where ProLogis may develop up to 6 million sq. ft. (557,400 sq. m.) of space.
   Among the jobs filling the facility are corporate functions (management, finance, accounting, legal, asset services, human resources, marketing, investor relations, IT) and North American real estate operations (property and fund management, design and construction, due diligence, and the Denver leasing and property management office). About 250 employees are currently working there, drawn from three previous facilities that included part of a Denver warehouse and an office in El Paso, Texas.
   "ProLogis is a true Colorado success story," said Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. "A little more than a decade ago, it had 75 employees and less than $500 million in assets under management. Today ProLogis employs more than 1,000 people globally and has assets under management exceeding $22 billion."
   Walt Rakowich, president and COO of ProLogis, pointed to the environmental features of the facility, designed by Gensler, project managed by The Post Group LLC and built by Denver-based Saunders Construction Inc. in one year. Among the special features: an illumination system that harvests sunlight during the day and reduces power consumption and recharging stations for electric vehicles.
   "Sustainability is an increasingly important concept in building construction, not only in the U.S. but in all of the regions we operate in around the world," said Rakowich.
   Grubb & Ellis' fourth quarter 2005 industrial market report for Denver showed the heaviest leasing activity in R&D/flex space ($9.08 per sq. ft.) and general industrial properties ($5.24 per sq. ft.), including from office tenants fleeing the area's increasing office space rates (averaging $17.08 per sq. ft.). But one concern pointed to by the report is the impact of transit-oriented FasTracks on small-user industrial facilities serviced by rail lines. This is the result of the November 2004 passage of a mass transit ballot measure that called for the addition of 119 miles (192 km.) of rail transit, a $4.7-billion project funded by a sales tax increase and slated to be ready to move by 2012. The project builds on the success of a popular light rail system, but like encroaching residential development, encroaching transit uses sometimes collide with industrial-use lines.
   "While the rail companies will still service existing users along these lines," reads the Grubb & Ellis report, "cities are now focused on these areas for transit-oriented developments, which in many cases do not include industrial uses. This has led to an inability by land owners to market underutilized properties as industrial areas, despite the lack of a clear present-day market for other uses at the sites."
   A more promising trend, states the report, is the rising profile of second-tier cities like Denver in the logistics marketplace, helping to move goods caught in the bottlenecks at U.S. ports and larger cities. In 2005, manufacturing comprised only 25 percent of leased space, while distribution and warehousing comprised 60 percent.
   That trend may mean even more of a Rocky Mountain high for ProLogis.