Features

 “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 […]

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. […]

 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 a company finds success, they tend to run with it. Such is the case with Xerox’s Canadian call center operations. The firm already has operations in Saint John, New Brunswick, and announced in September 2001 a new center to be located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The site will initially employ 150 full-time workers […]

Survey: Efficiency Issues Challenge Lenders’ Profitability Mortgage lenders’ profitability – already on shaky ground – is being jeopardized by inefficiency and insufficient use of technology, according to a recent survey conducted by Ernst & Young’s Real Estate Advisory Services Group. The survey was sponsored by CapitalThinking, a financial services technology firm. Ten of the largest […]

 W hen they turn their attention to the Internet, corporate real estate departments have been mainly concerned with improving communications, customer service applications and Web site development. But a Corporate Real Estate Technology Benchmaking Survey conducted in August 2001 by Ernst & Young (E&Y) and the National Association of Corporate Real Estate Executives (NACORE) suggests […]

 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 […]

 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 […]

 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 […]

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 […]

 “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 […]

 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. […]

 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 […]

        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. […]

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 […]

 S everal years ago, the Council for Urban Economic Development (CUED) and the American Economic Development Council (AEDC) convened a joint task force to address an issue of their membership. The two associations merged earlier this year to form the International Economic Development Council (IEDC).         At issue was the concern of […]

 S pearheaded by the meteoric rise of the Charlotte and the Research Triangle metro areas, North Carolina has climbed to the top spot of Site Selection‘s 2001 Business Climate Ranking.         Becoming the No. 1 state for doing business wasn’t easy. The Tar Heel State barely edged out last year’s winner — […]

 E conomic slowdown and uncertainty is increasing pressure on companies to improve margins. Within Europe, one response of multinational corporations has been to initiate cost reduction through consolidation/rationalization /relocation projects of both manufacturing and service activities.         Government financial incentives are available for these projects (as well as typical new/greenfield investments) and […]

Ontario, Alberta Prove Most Appealing Ontario and Alberta were ranked as the top two investment climates in Canada by U.S. and Canadian investment managers, according to the 2000 Survey of Senior Investment Managers, released by the Fraser Institute, a Canada-based economic research organization. The two provinces tied with a score of 7.7 out of 10. […]