Features

 N ow in their third year, the Site Selection/William Dorsey Service Provider Awards are emerging as an important industry tool in the area of corporate real estate problem solving. The awards recognize excellence in client service, which ultimately means doing more than the client expected and delivering value that was not contracted for in the […]

 “E merging Trends this year is relatively positive,” said Marshall Woodward, head or real estate operations for Lend Lease, at the Atlanta revealing of the 23rd annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2002 report. “I have to underscore the word relatively, though. The real estate industry does have its challenges here in Atlanta and across […]

 A textbook case of a corporate real estate service provider meeting — and exceeding — client expectations might well resemble work that the Atlanta-based Walker Companies recently completed for Continental General Tire (CGT) Co. The Walker Companies (www.walkerco.com), a provider of real estate management, location consulting and development services, is a 2001 recipient of the […]

Kevin Falcon  T he lack of running with scissors wide open may be even more dangerous than the alternative for British Columbia (BC), despite what mothers may warn. The gnarled mess of red tape that makes up BC’s regulatory process is seen by many as the reason for the province’s decline as a business location. […]

 W hen it comes time to deliver on a pledge to go the extra mile, service providers have lots of options, depending on the assignment and the nature of the client relationship. One that rarely gets much serious consideration is to simply give the service away. After all, service providers in the business world exist […]

 A n increasingly sophisticated body of theory and practice has emerged over the past 20 years among those working to define the role of real estate in enhancing corporate business strategy. The discussion has covered many levels, from on- and off-site workplace concepts, to overall site and facility guidelines, to the planning and management of […]

 T he Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “flexible” as something that is “characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements.” Many real estate strategists and planners consider it to be the word that best describes the concept of corporate campuses. In a discussion on campuses, it also translates into smart design, operational […]

 T he American dream came to Europe and created its teenage information technology (IT) millionaires. Up went property prices, property availability and the cost of hiring. Europe had its very own IT hot spots. Next came dot.com gloom: tech stock exchanges were on their knees, and the hot spots turned warm. But silver linings are […]

    What’s the big news in the European automotive industry? BMW, the Munich-based automaker, plans to produce 650 BMW 3-series autos each day beginning in 2005 at its newly announced US$860 million, 2,500-employee plant in Leipzig. BMW Chairman Joachim Milberg says that choosing the location “wasn’t an easy decision.”       The year-long search […]

    Eastern Europe is the main beneficiary of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Europe’s automotive sector, according to analysis from PricewaterhouseCoopers-Plant Location International (PwC-PLI), Brussels, developer of the Global Investment Location Database (GILD). “In terms of greenfield FDI projects in the automotive sector, non-European Union (EU) countries have attracted 3.5 times more projects than EU […]

 L ooking for labor is usually the first job of any call center. Jeff Furst of FurstPerson, a Chicago-based call center solutions company, looks to fill that need by tailoring labor searches and finding, hiring and keeping the right people for customer contact centers. FurstPerson acts as an on-site recruiting firm and concentrates in creating […]

 W hen Japanese automaker Toyota needed to increase its share of the European marketplace in the late 1990s, it went in search of the automaker’s Holy Grail — the perfect site for a new manufacturing plant. After heated competition, the Nord-Pas de Calais region in Northern France offered the most tempting of sites.     […]

 N ot too long ago, state legislatures around the U.S. spent their lawmaking sessions deciding which programs to create or increase appropriations to in order to lure businesses, among other agendas. Lofty economic times filled state budget coffers from Hartford to Honolulu, giving lawmakers lots of leeway in reducing corporate tax rates and aiding new […]

 A s if their plates weren’t full enough already, economic conditions are mandating that corporate real estate managers figure out how to do more with less. More what? They must now demonstrate more of an ability to contain, if not reduce, costs where property assets are concerned, because shareholders and real estate investors are less […]

 C ommercial real estate taxes are nothing to sneeze at. In a medium-sized city like Pittsburgh, taxes on a commercial office building in the central business district can easily run between US$2.50 and $3 per square foot, or about $4 million a year on a 1.5-million-sq.-ft. (139,300-sq.-m.) building in the heart of the city. Taxes […]

 E xactly one year ago, the future looked bleak for Ford Motor Company’s European operations. Bleeding red ink by the buckets, plagued by under-utilized plant capacity and struggling to maintain market share, Ford Europe was more than stuck in reverse. It was careening out of control. At Dagenham in the United Kingdom, Ford Europe is […]

 “I ‘m very optimistic about the economy and about what’s happening here in Mexico,” says Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. The software giant announced in August that it plans to invest US$60 million to train 20,000 Mexican software developers. The company will team up with 3,000 computer and technology professors to help Mexico develop a software […]

Abstracts of major presentations of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s pre-eminent corporate real estate association. “Leveraging Technologies in an Internetworked Economy,”    Seattle World Congress, May 14, 2001:         “The power of the chip has doubled about every 18 months,” said Robert J. Herbold, executive vice president and chief […]

 L ong before I ever covered corporate real estate, I had already developed a sort of “connection” with it — with some specific real estate at least. I’m thinking here of the World Trade Center complex in New York City, which loomed over my early career in the city’s financial district.         […]

 N EW YORK — Don’t be fooled by the NASDAQ. High-technology, digitally driven companies are still the crown jewel of economic development, according to a study by KPMG LLP’s Strategic Relocation and Expansion Services practice.         The survey of state and local economic development agencies revealed that an overwhelming 97 percent of […]

 C orporate real estate executives seeking a site for Asia-Pacific regional headquarters operations are taking a second look at Brisbane.         The state capital of Queensland on the East Coast of Australia, Brisbane is rapidly joining the ranks of Sydney and Melbourne as a true economic powerhouse in the Land Down Under. […]

        Site Selection: What is the mission of the association?         Kevin E. Johnson: We share best practices, we leverage the association’s collateral strength in numbers in working with vendors, and we lobby the government, though we haven’t had to do that as yet. There is value in numbers. […]

 A n increasing number of executives in the property market across Europe are convinced high tech will reconfigure relationships in the entire real estate community, from users and providers to contractors and owners. The recession, many feel, will even accelerate the use of technology to help companies downsize, and real estate may be among the […]

New Alliance to Foster Technology-Based Economic Development Communities seeking to implement technology-based economic development strategies will likely benefit from a recently announced alliance between the Milken Institute, a demographics and economic research organization based in Santa Monica, Calif., and New Economy Strategies (www.regional-strategies.com), an economic development consulting firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. The two organizations […]