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August 1, 1999

A Major REIT Is Not Too Heavy To Ride the E

In March 1999, distribution facilities giant ProLogis, an Aurora, Colo.-based real estate investment trust (REIT), acquired Meridian Industrial Trust, another leading manager and developer of distribution facilities, resulting in a global powerhouse with a market capitalization in excess of US$6.7 billion. ProLogis, with more than 168 million square feet (15.6 million sq. m.) under development […]

August 1, 1999

Siegelman Helps Honda’s Star Fall on Alabama

They?re living large in Alabama economic development circles, reveling in landing one of the year?s most coveted deals: Honda?s US$450 million, 1,500-employee plant, a 1.7-million-sq.-ft. (153,000-sq.-m.) behemoth that will rise on a 1,350-acre (540-ha.) tract in Lincoln, a small Talladega County town of some 3,600 residents 35 miles (56 km.) east of Birmingham. Undoubtedly some […]

August 1, 1999

Ontario Power Generation Wins Corporate Appreciation Award

Ontario Power Generation — North America?s biggest electric utility in generating capacity — is an invaluable member of the economic development team that?s helping make Ontario a leader in the chase for new business. In fact, OPG (the electricity generation successor to the former Ontario Hydro) recently won the Economic Developers Council of Ontario?s inaugural […]

August 1, 1999

CIGNA’s Infrastructure Integration: Remaking The Corporation

One of the late 20th century?s most significant business trends, infrastructure integration is an idea whose time has come — and with it, a new role for real estate. Case in point: CIGNA corporate real estate?s (CRE) innovative Vision 3 Initiative, which merited a prestigious Best Practices Award from the International Development Research Council (IDRC), […]

August 1, 1999

Ready or Not, Here Comes Y2K

If only the Y2K bug could be gotten rid of as easily as its counterparts in the natural world. It cannot, of course, and there is a palpable sense of foreboding surrounding the run-up to Jan. 1, 2000, when non-Y2K-compliant computers will assume it?s 1900. There is an even stronger sense in some circles that […]

August 1, 1999

Web Site Describes the Reach of the Y2K Bug

Those looking for immediate insights into real estate-related risk exposure tied to the Y2K bug can find extensive coverage of the topic at www.y2krealestate.com, a Web site operated by Millennium Strategies Group, LLC, a Denver, Colo.-based consultancy. The site lists building operating systems at risk and provides links to numerous articles detailing the various technical […]

August 1, 1999

Essential Electronic Services for Corporate Real Estate Executives

In the coming years, one of the most important service providers to the corporate real estate profession will be a modem-equipped computer. Traditional service providers of all stripes are automating their services where possible in order to reduce their own overhead and to quench clients? thirst for convenient, customizable access to services. As corporate infrastructure […]

August 1, 1999

Level 3: Building a Business Power at Broadband Speed

“If you?re in a pretty strong telecom market position, you?re in a difficult situation,” says Kevin O?Hara, the intensely alert, 38-year-old COO of red-hot Level 3 Communications (www.level3.com). O?Hara?s words may seem to fly in the face of conventional business wisdom. Like Elvis, however, conventional wisdom has left the building. The telecom business, O?Hara explains, […]

June 1, 1999

Citicorp’s Tampa Real Estate Prototype

Merger-contemplating executive No. 1:     “Can anybody stop us?” Merger-contemplating executive No. 2:     “Hmmm . . . NATO?” Citigroup does things big, as boldfaced by that humorous exchange, reported during 1998’s Travelers-Citicorp merger discussions. Just how big is obvious in Tampa. “We have 9,400 employees in Florida, 2,500 in the Tampa area and 2,200 […]

June 1, 1999

Around the Real Estate World in 80 Minutes

Where do real estate consultants go for their expertise before meeting with corporate real estate professionals to plot strategy? Besides drawing on their own professional credentials, many attend educational meetings of The Counselors of Real Estate, a Chicago-based association of real estate consultants. The group’s Midyear Meeting in Seattle, held April 18-21, was a good […]

June 1, 1999

Site Selection: Congratulations on your new assignment at Cushman & Wakefield. How do you envision your role and that of the new Advisory Services unit going forward? Arnold C. Thomas: Advisory Services is a function that has been ongoing at several Cushman & Wakefield offices in the U.S. But the firm did not have an […]

June 1, 1999

Site Selection Magazine Online – Europe’s 1998 Facilities Race

 JULY 1999  SITE SELECTION  EUROPE’S 1998  FACILITIES RACE   • COVER PAGE   •  INTRODUCTION   •  EUROPEAN     CHAMPION:THE UNITED KINGDOM   •  THE RUNNER-UP:      FRANCE   •  GERMANY GRABS      THIRD PLACE   •  BELGIUM, NO. 4   •  POLAND TAKES      FIFTH PLACE   •  IRELAND, NO. 6   •  HUNGARY TAKES      SEVENTH PLACE   •  SPAIN, NO. 8   •  THE NETHERLANDS      RECORD BREAKING   &nbsp  YEAR   •  […]

June 1, 1999

IDRC Abstracts

A look at recent major presentations of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent association of corporate real estate professionals. “Interactive Member Survey and Awards Luncheon,” IDRC San Antonio Fall World Congress for Corporate Real Estate Executives, Nov. 2, 1998: This interactive survey provides likely the most persuasive evidence of the growing importance […]

June 1, 1999

IDRC Log: IDRC Expands Electronic Member Services Menu

IDRC, the world’s leading professional association for corporate real estate executives, is going electronic with its membership services offerings. “Members on the Web” will include a number of new interactive features through IDRCNet, the group’s World Wide Web site in response to the growth of event registrations and other services on line. “Visits on IDRCNet […]

June 1, 1999

Decision Data: Watching Where Your Money Goes

Relocation: What’s Your Currency Conversion? How far will your employees’ current salaries go in a new location? Homefair’s Web site (www2.homefair.com) provides online assistance in that important currency conversion. We randomly picked 10 U.S. cities and calculated how far a US$100,000 salary in relatively low-cost Peoria, Ill., would go in each. And $100,000 of Peoria […]

June 1, 1999

Winner & Giver: Peace wins Krafsur Award

Awards range from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the Nobel Prize to a Hair Club for Men’s vice presidency. A major yardstick for any award, though, is who wins it. Clearly, that standard elevates the Krafsur Award. The award’s consistently high quality was again evident at the New England World Congress of the International […]

June 1, 1999

IDRC’s Cannes Conference: Infrastructure Integration In the New Europe

C annes, France: Integration of a new and different sort is advancing on the new Europe: Like their U.S. corporate counterparts, European companies are feeling the pressure to maximize the synergies of their corporate infrastructure resources (CIR). Responding to the accelerated pace of workplace change generated by rapidly evolving technology, European firms are looking for […]

June 1, 1999

Quebec: Building Partnerships In the Americas

[Editor’s note: The following is excerpted from a speech by Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard in New York City on April 15.] I am very pleased to be back in New York City. On my last visit, three years ago, I had just become Premier of Quebec, and I spoke about our goal of turning around […]

June 1, 1999

Lucent Technologies’ ‘Project Atlas’ Sets Workplace Standard

At its best, corporate real estate is like Atlas, the mythical Greek god who bore the heavens: Top-flight real estate shoulders strategy. Appropriately, Lucent Technologies’ workplace strategy is dubbed “Project Atlas.” Led by Lucent’s real estate group, Project Atlas is a dramatic, five-year workplace transformation now under way for 24,000 key R&D employees located in […]

June 1, 1999

Due Diligence Experts Say Connectivity is King

If a corporate real estate executive (CRE) can get a due diligence professional to alleviate the countless headaches associated with environmental, architectural and engineering aspects of major transactions, then it may cost him, but he’s ahead of the pack. More importantly, expansion strategies stay on track and the CRE can stay focused on the other […]

June 1, 1999

Running With Gazelles Keeps Service Providers in Shape

One way to virtually ensure superior service from companies charged with solving business problems — service providers — is to stress your shop’s high-growth company characteristics. (That’s not a stretch for most high-tech and telecom companies.) Why? Because service providers are bending over backwards to retain the business of such players in the hope they’re […]

June 1, 1999

Born to Run Hot

”The rich,” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “are not like you and me.” Similarly, Fitzgerald might’ve added, fast-growth firms are not like you and me — or most of our businesses. Very few of us can claim status as one of today’s fabled “gazelle” firms, who’ve become something like the business world’s Furbies. Everyone wants to […]

June 1, 1999

How Fast

In the beginning, Paychex was about not getting paid, providing an object lesson in fast-growth small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) cash-starved travails. Today, the Rochester, N.Y.-based payroll services provider is a US$500-million-a-year business with 100 facilities. But for five long years in the 1970s, Paychex was a $0-a-year business with zero facilities. “I started with […]