Features

I s Bernard Landry, Quebec’s new Premier, controversial? Of course he is. A separatist? Definitely. But in his radio address heard around the world about Canada’s “uselessness” in terms of Quebec’s economic development, there was an underlying message that should be music to the ears of corporate investors.         Landry (right), the […]

W hat a difference a few years can make. Ten years ago, Mexico, by most accounts, was a third-world country. But since the opening of North American trade through NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), Mexico has become a fast-growing economy and a much-sought-after spot for corporate locations.         In fact, Mexico […]

W ASHINGTON — It didn’t take long for President Bush to face his first “crisis” in the Oval Office — how to deal with California’s widespread energy shortages.         One group that hopes Bush acts quickly is the Building Owners and Managers Assoc. International (BOMA), the nation’s largest lobbying organization for corporate […]

Serviced Office Provider Sets Franchising Plan R egus Business Centres (www.regus.com), a major provider of serviced office space, is introducing a franchising plan for select organizations and individuals. Franchise owners can create their own office environment, letting them use the space their business requires while devoting the remainder of their workspace to income generation.   […]

O ne theme underlying Jones Lang LaSalle’s Corporate Real Estate Leadership Forum in October 2000 was the similarity of experiences among real estate managers no matter where they are based. Crafting effective relationships with business units remains a top priority of all, for example, as do managing shareholder expectations and balancing time pressures. Another common […]

M illions of dollars of sales can be earned by timely delivery of an e-business facility–or lost if the effort gets mired in delay. Herein lies the importance finance and operations management place on accelerating the start date for billing of services. Although lowest facility delivery cost may feel increasing pressure in 2001, management’s overriding […]

S oftening economic conditions are bringing into focus the role of incentives in closing large project deals, according to experts who follow trends in this area. Several years of economic expansion and high demand for real estate have tempered municipalities’ need to stress incentives in their negotiations.         “Across the board, the […]

R IO RANCHO, N.M. – Driving along the highway from Albuquerque, N.M., to suburban Rio Rancho to the north, the first thing one notices hovering over the town is the giant corporate edifice of the Intel Corp.         Dominating the city landscape like the majestic Sandia Mountains to the east, Intel’s sprawling, […]

I t’s no secret where the big bucks migrated in last year’s economic development race for large corporate facilities. The biggest deals, by far, involved the location of semiconductor manufacturing plants for the computer chip industry.         Just as processing speed and computing power continually increase with breakthroughs in wafer fabrication technology, […]

Abstracts of major presentations of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent corporate real estate association. “Service Models for the New Economy,” Florida World Congress, Nov. 6, 2000:         Attendees in a theme program heard about how two corporations – ExxonMobil Corp. and Lucent Technologies – structure their corporate real […]

A new plant or facility in a struggling community can have a dramatic effect. So can the location of a fresh industry in an area previously unidentified with that specific business. These breakthrough facilities impact their communities by bringing new jobs, new industry and often new opportunities.         With the slowdown in […]

A TLANTA — When Nortel Networks announced Feb. 15 that it would eliminate 10,000 jobs — or more than 10 percent of its global work force of 94,500 — it was further evidence that the economic slowdown had spread beyond the dot-coms.         The dreaded “L” word — layoffs — had reached […]

Big decisions are rarely an easy task, especially when hundreds of millions of dollars and a company’s future may depend on them. Investments like Intel’s US$2 billion expansion in New Mexico or IBM’s $2.5 billion in East Fishkill, N.Y., aren’t decided with a blindfold, a dart and a map. No, instead many hours of research […]

N EW YORK — Sweden defended its ranking this year as the world’s dominant information economy, according to the 2001 International Data Corp. (IDC)/World Times Information Society Index (ISI).         For the second straight year, the ISI ranked Sweden No. 1 in the ability to access and absorb information and information technology. […]

E conomic development organizations worldwide are designing novel programs to enhance their appeal. From interactive web sites and work-force development plans to invent finance and tax incentives, local officials are creating new and innovative programs to lure business expansions and developments. In the slowing economy, these plans are developed to distinguish each individual community and […]

A s globalization accelerates, obliging firms to maximize operational flexibility, the U.S.-led sale-and-lease-back craze is spreading to Europe. Firms are rushing to minimize commitment to fixed assets and re-engineer corporate real estate portfolios to generate more funds for their core business.         Says Denis Kavanagh, international director corporate finance Jones Lang LaSalle, […]

RIO RANCHO, N.M. — S itting on a hillside perch overlooking this town just north of Albuquerque, the 5,500-employee Intel Corp. campus casts an imposing shadow over the area economy.         That shadow is about to grow even larger, as Intel (www.intel.com) embarks on a US$2 billion, 1,000-worker expansion of its semiconductor […]

N on-European firms seeking to establish a call center in Europe faced relatively few obstacles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They opened individual centers in whichever countries they felt the need to be in. By today’s standards, the centers were generally low-tech, and the notion of networking multiple centers had yet to catch […]

Editor’s Note: The following report was prepared by Jan Smit, senior consultant for International Location Advisory Services at Ernst & Young in London (jsmit@cc.ernsty.co.uk). G ermany is the economic powerhouse of Europe. It has a highly educated population, registers a high percentage of European patents and overall presents an interesting proposition to high tech-inward investors. […]

S outh Australia plans to introduce itself to the world as an “Information Economy” success story, and it has just under a year in which to put the necessary pieces in place. Adelaide, the Australian state’s capital city, will be the site of the 2002 WITSA World Congress, a biennial conference of the World Information […]

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 […]