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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

[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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

”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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

 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   •  […]

From Copenhagen and Stockholm to Oslo to as far out as Helsinki, Nordic markets are bubbling towards a top. After several years of rapid growth in available space, the market tune has changed. As a result, corporate denizens are scrambling to reposition themselves to control occupancy costs, which, for the average firm, make up 20-30 […]

A decade ago, many U.S. site seekers thought Canada an expensive place to do business. As a result, they rarely looked north of the border when expansion plans loomed. True, Canada was a costly place to operate, compared with many stateside locations. In fact, high operating costs helped turn the country into a favorite hunting […]

Breaking down outmoded boundaries: It’s a key element in the ongoing revolution in corporate real estate service delivery. And boundary-breaking is precisely what’s driving the creative alliance between Cleveland-based KeyCorp (www.key.com) and service providers Johnson Controls (www.johnsoncontrols.com) and Trammell Crow Corporate Services (www.trammellcrow.com). Formed in September of 1997, the KeyCorp Real Estate Enterprise (KREE) is […]

Much of the US is running out of attractive, properly prepared industrial land. Twenty-five years ago, the issue of site availability for expanding companies was not usually a major concern. When a client needed a fairly conventional property of perhaps a hundred acres, there was usually a range of choices. Virtually every community or region […]

Most owners of diverse real estate holdings would jump at the chance to organize their property tax records and be able to access tax-related information for specific properties easily. And all owners of real estate would want to reduce their property tax burden wherever possible. Users of Property Tax Office (PTO), a software program from […]

From Site Selection magazine, May 1999 1 9 9 8 ‘ s     T O P     1 0     D E A L S Dovetailing Development Excellence with Corporate Strategy b y     J A C K     L Y N E From Boeing to UPS, 1998’s top 10 deals cut a wide industry […]

From Site Selection magazine, May 1999 T O P     D E A L S 1998’s Very Honorable Mentions A hot year for the world economy, 1998 saw a dizzying array of top-flight facility deals, too many to be crammed into one top 10. Here are a few other eminently worthy deals Site Selection cites […]

From Site Selection magazine, May 1999 Championship Caliber: Site Selection‘s 1998 Top 10 Development Groups b y     T I M     V E N A B L E Hundreds of growing companies played the location game with skill and poise last year, capitalizing on the championship-level services of Site Selection‘s 1998 top development groups. […]

From Site Selection magazine, May 1999 Other Top Development Organizations: Honorable Mentions from 1998 TTaken from the many nominations received for this year’s Site Selection list of top 10 development groups, here are profiles of other worthy organizations from 1998: Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, Bowling Green, Ky.: Played a key role in attracting […]