Features

They called it “the Building of the Month Club” at Cisco Systems ( http://www.cisco.com) , and it was exactly that. For 19 consecutive months in 1998-99, Cisco brought yet another new building online in North San Jose. By the time that flurry finished — however momentarily — Cisco had built 35 separate facilities spanning 6.3 […]

World business climates in late 2000 are, for the most part, fair. But some forces are at work that could change that in the New Year. Energy prices in Western markets, particularly the United Kingdom and Continental Europe, are exerting pressure on businesses that manufacture and transport goods. A scarcity of skilled labor is a […]

From Tallahassee to Sacramento, lawmakers in state capitals around the United States heeded business leaders? call to ?run government more like a business.? The result: lower taxes, higher revenue surpluses, more incentives for new business, a rush of ?e-government? and information technology initiatives, and greater investment in needed infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, public schools […]

A good man is hard to find, especially in a market where unemployment rates have dropped nearly a full percentage point from last year and continue to drop by approximately one-tenth a month. For this reason, many site seekers are looking away from Europe’s usual suspects for more abundant labor pools. Although the European labor […]

When Chicago-based Navistar International Corp. needed to expand its new truck assembly operations in 1998, the company selected Monterrey suburb Escobedo in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, for the same reasons that have catapulted the Mexican economy to the forefront of Latin America. Factors like a strong work ethic, an abundant supply of highly skilled manufacturing employees, […]

A group of leading government and industry leaders known as the Industrial Rebirth Council was formed in July 2000 to expand and support Japanese economic reform initiatives. The council, which was convened by — and is chaired by — Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, is comprised of key government ministers and CEOs of such companies as […]

We live in an age of e-commerce, fiber optics, information systems and infrastructure, and ideas and initiatives moving at the speed of light through a network of silicon and wiring. And that prompts one to ask, why do so many good ideas go bad? Could it be that we have forgotten in this gizmo-oriented age […]

A onetime jazz saxophonist with the likes of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Lou Rawls, Imation executive Thomas Foyer muses that the song in part remains the same. “Today’s business environment is like jazz because it’s moving so fast. You have to improvise, keeping the group small enough so you can make changes quickly,” says […]

The Johnson Controls USA Office Costs Index[See Tables One, Two, Three and Chart A for data] The Johnson Controls USA Office Occupancy Costs Index is based on a detailed model of a medium grade air-conditioned office building, which operates reasonably efficiently with no unusually high service standards or demands. The building is 160,000 rentable square […]

Editor’s note: A former president of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent corporate real estate (CRE) association, Michael Bell (right) is a widely recognized industry leader. His Gartner Group (www.gartner.com) research focuses on workplace transformation and the virtual enterprise — specifically, the workplace impact of information technology (IT), including corporate strategy formulation, […]

“If everything is so good, why do we feel so bad?” was the working title of a presentation made at a recent gathering of the Counselors of Real Estate (CRE), a Chicago-based association of corporate real estate consultants. The presenter was Phil Ward, senior managing director, real estate investments, at CIGNA Investment Management, Hartford, Conn. […]

For those of you waiting for the Canadian electricity market to open up to competition, you will now have to wait a little longer. Although the plan was to open the market up in November of this year, the Ontario government announced on June 22 that the open date will be pushed back to a […]

Knowledge is power. A truer statement may never have been uttered, and amazingly, Sir Francis Bacon’s remark still holds true today — perhaps even more so. In today’s fast-moving economy, receiving the right information at the right time can make or break a location deal and sometimes even a company. That’s why site consultants and […]

Abstracts of major presentations of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent corporate real estate association. “Global Corporate Real Estate Practices,” IDRC New York World Congress Workshop, May 1, 2000: This session reviewed the Annual Survey of Corporate Real Estate Practices, conducted each year by Johnson Controls in conjunction with IDRC. Among most […]

Plenty of brainpower is being applied to the merits of electric utility industry deregulation, or restructuring to be more accurate. But the jury is still out in most US states that have deregulation plans in place as to whether the effort was worth it to consumers of electricity. After all, the airline industry — certainly […]

Site Selection‘s editorial quality — on both the printed page and in cyberspace — has bagged three more awards in the 12th annual global “Awards for Publications Excellence” (APEX) competition. The three APEX Awards were for Site Selection‘s excellence in the categories of: Feature writing, for the January 2000 cover story, “U.S. Car Wars: Toyota […]

Editor’s note: This feature is a follow-up report on “Europe’s 1999 Facility Race,” which appeared in the July 2000 Site Selection. This article goes beyond the ranking and looks at which industries are hot and which are not in the top European markets. To be or not to be — in the European Monetary Union […]

IDRC and NACORE, the world’s two leading professional associations for corporate real estate executives, service providers and economic developers, are exploring possible integration. This unprecedented step would create one new association to represent the corporate asset management industry with a singular mission of creating value through the workplace. Since plans to converge both groups were […]

Foreign investment in China is poised to take off, particularly if the Asian mega-market is permitted to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). Every sector of the Chinese economy shows signs of growth, from investments in infrastructure to renovation of state-owned firms and industries to the emergence of a major service industry. Politics aside, China […]

‘Effective Rents’: How Much Are You Really Paying? What can you tell from landlords’ asking rates? Not necessarily very much, according to a new study of “tenant effective rents” in 12 major U.S. markets. The study, from New York-based Julien J. Studley (www.studley.com), subtracts lease concessions from total rents. Some of the results may surprise […]

Freshwater is the lubricant that fuels development. And that means development is in trouble: “Forget oil. In the 21st century water will be king. Already, a supertanker full of water from a pure source . . . is worth more than any supertanker full of oil to thirsty populations in Asia,” says U.S. Congressman Bob […]

Michigan’s banner years under Doug Rothwell’s leadership just got a major exclamation point: General Motors (www.gm.com) has decided to invest US$1 billion to build two plants just outside Lansing that will add 2,800 jobs. And Rothwell, president and CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC at www.michigan.org), did a lot of the heavyweight deal’s […]

Oracle sees blazing changes on Europe’s horizon: “Combine globalization’s thrust, the e-commerce surge and the Euro’s emergence, and you’ll see e-commerce blow through Europe like a whirlwind. The single currency has amplified the velocity of change, broadening and flattening the playing field. E-commerce is impacting our own European operations in a big way, and it’s […]

The U.S. government as a leading-edge indicator? The notion may seem farfetched, but that’s definitely the case with the U.S. General Service Administration (GSA at www.gsa.gov). For the two straight years, the GSA has garnered prestigious Best Practice Awards from the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent corporate real estate association. The organization […]