C ome on down and do a sale-leaseback right now. Get a high price; pay a low rent. Hurry. This is a limited time offer.         For the past year or so, investors across the board have been re-evaluating their commitments to the stock and bond markets, sizing up alternative investments, and […]

ver the past 30 months, United Technologies Corporation has slashed $40 million from its 58 million-sq.-ft. (5.4-million-sq.-m.) domestic real estate portfolio, thanks to the help of a strategic alliance with United Systems Integrators Corp. (USI) of Stamford, Conn. Today, USI is expanding its efforts to include United Technologies’ international portfolio. All told, USI is now […]

R anked by Site Selection as the third-best state in the nation in attracting new and expanded corporate facilities, New York is experiencing a resurgence across its business communities. Governor George Pataki’s lower tax policies and investments in promoting high-tech, industrial, and transportation projects have tremendously helped the state recover from the devastating affects of […]

T he people whose pictures you see here are members of a select group. In recent weeks, I have asked these corporate real estate executives, economic developers, service providers and other industry players to serve on Site Selection’s Editorial Advisory Board, and they have graciously accepted that invitation.         My colleagues and […]

From Site Selection magazine, March 2003 WORLD REPORTS Edited by JOHN McCURRY Austria Touts High-Tech Contribution To Space Effort Work on satellite projects progresses in this clean room at Austrian Aerospace. The subsidiary of Saab Ericsson Space of Sweden is developing a navigation signal generator unit for the European Space Agency. Austria is promoting itself […]

T he enduring ditty etched on Alabama’s license plates has it wrong: It’s not that song’s stars that are falling on Alabama right now. It’s cars.         Current case in point: the 430-employee, 400,000-sq.-ft. (36,000-sq.-m.) plant that Hyundai Mobis has decided to build in Montgomery. Mobis’s first U.S. production operation, the facility […]

  Palm Harbor Program Finalized The Spring 2003 IAMC Professional Forum, slated for April 6?9 in Palm Harbor, Fla., has adopted the theme “Getting it Done Right: Industrial Asset Management Approaches to Proficiency and Profitability.”         Building on the success of the inaugural IAMC Professional Forum in Savannah, Ga., the keynote speakers […]

“C harles McSwain is a master,” CSX Real Estate President Stephen Crosby has said.         But McSwain, a vice president at both CSX Real Property and CSX Realty Development LLC, deflects praise to others on his team such as colleagues Crosby and Randy Evans, CSX Transportation vice president of real estate and […]

O ABOVE: In January 2003, crucial green lights from both the city council and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency enabled brownfield redevelopment work to move forward on this bundle of some 250 former industrial properties along the Rio Salado in downtown Tempe, Ariz. – the largest piece of undeveloped land left in the entire city. […]

O ut of the old. Into the new.         Despite rising vacancy rates in the industrial property sector – from 8.3 percent in 2001 to more than 10 percent at the end of 2002 – corporations are bypassing existing space and ordering new built-to-suit warehouses.         At First Industrial […]

I llinois has broken archrival Michigan’s five-year claim to having the most new and expanded facilities in a calendar year – by just three projects. The 2002 almost-tie is testament to the Midwest’s economic strength; Ohio and Indiana also made the Top 10 list.         Illinois, however, like virtually all states, saw […]

I n a repeat of 2001’s one-two finish, Chicago and Detroit head up Site Selection‘s list of top U.S. metropolitan areas for new and expanded facilities in 2002. While the order and the approximate winning margin are the same as last year, the pace was off considerably. Both metros were off by about 300 total […]

W ith 591 projects, the transportation industry again dominated the rankings of top new and expanded U.S. manufacturing facilities by industry sector in 2002. The headlines were led by the new Hyundai plant in Alabama, and backed by just-as-major plant expansions, including three in the top 10 from Michigan. It marked the fourth consecutive year […]

T he rest of the world is doing just fine, thank you.         That’s the message coming through loud and clear when analyzing the thousands of new projects that located somewhere outside the United States in 2002. And the rest of the world that’s achieving the most is made up of countries […]

W hen Graceland Fruit announced the US$15 million, 60,000-sq.-ft. (5,574-sq.-m.) expansion of a food-processing plant in the Traverse Bay area of Michigan in 2002, the news only confirmed what many corporate executives already knew about this location.         It’s the Top Small Town in America. According to the Conway Data New Plant […]

I f you haven’t heard by now, the inaugural conference of the Industrial Asset Management Council (IAMC) in October was an unqualified success – highlights of the meeting in Savannah can be found in this issue’s IAMC Insider.         Attendees, who included corporate real estate executives and service providers, participated in a […]

From Site Selection magazine, January 2003 WORLD REPORTS edited by JOHN W. McCURRY Survey Says European Companies Prefer Switzerland as Headquarters Site Dr. Herbert Wanner A recent Arthur D. Little survey indicates European companies consider Switzerland to be the most attractive place for global headquarters location in Europe. The study also found that headquarters are […]

Pro-Business Bipartisanship Brings SCIENX Plant to Upstate N.Y. Politics may make for strange bedfellows. A major New York site selection decision, however, made for surprisingly cordial ones.         There on the dais, a mere six days before November’s elections, were Gov. George Pataki (R) and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D), linked […]

    “I was very impressed with the content of the sessions. In each one, there was at least one nugget I could take away and apply to my own situation.” – Charles Veley, Director, Global Real Estate, United Technologies Corp., on the proceedings of the inaugural IAMC Forum in Savannah, Ga. Westin Innisbrook Hotel, […]

D evelopers of new facilities have a very basic decision to make at the outset of a project, be it a new manufacturing plant, a distribution center or any other facility. Will its impact on the environment be negative or positive in the long term? Those who choose to design and build a project that […]

S ynthetic leasing by its very nature is two-faced, an adjective most corporations are scrambling to avoid in today’s scandal-plagued environment. A corporate user gets to be the owner of an asset for income tax purposes and gets to treat it as an operating lease for financial reporting purposes. What could be better? The rent […]

E ight corporate real estate service provider companies have won Site Selection/ William Dorsey Service Provider Awards for work they did in 2002 that exceeded the expectations of their clients. These awards, now in their fourth year, recognize those companies that are helping evolve the definition of client service in the corporate real estate context. […]

T he most likely candidate for a location decision involving a new or expanded facility will be in the manufacturing sector, according to corporate executives surveyed by Development Counsellors International (DCI), a New York?based economic development marketing firm. More than 280 corporate executives participated in the exercise.         Forty-four percent of the […]