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D ennis Cuneo may be one of the most sought-after site seekers in the world. But enter “Cuneo” in a search engine, and you’re likely to read a lot about a province in northern Italy or an Arizona feng shui master before you find any trace of the Senior Vice President of Toyota Motor Manufacturing […]

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n April 25, 1953 Francis Crick and James Watson launched the modern era of molecular biology with their discovery of the structure of DNA. Fifty years later, on June 23, 2003, President George W. Bush spoke at the Bio 2003 Convention Center and Exhibition and said, “Our biotechnology industry is the strongest in the world […]

T he sun had already set on the Alabama State Capitol on April 1, 2002, when then-Gov. Don Siegelman received the phone call that would change Montgomery forever.         Dong Jin Kim, president and CEO of Korea-based Hyundai Motor Co., was on the other end of the line. Governor, he said, I […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

T hey say misery loves company. When everybody is having a bad year, then one company’s troubles don’t look so bad. But even in relative terms, Lucent Technologies, along with its telecom equipment and networking rivals, has endured more than most.         Lucent’s challenge of spinning off non-core businesses would have been […]

C orporate real estate executives from most of Silicon Valley’s high-tech companies gathered in early June in Redwood City, Calif., to participate in one of two Jones Lang LaSalle Leading Edge Series 2002 events to take place this year. Besides high-level presentations on economic forces influencing business decisions, the impact of changes in accounting rules […]

S teps taken to make the Tar Heel State even more competitive with surrounding states are paying off. For the second year in a row, North Carolina has claimed the top slot in Site Selection‘s annual business climate ranking. Among the measures helping to boost the state’s allure was passage in the state house of […]

C ompanies facing earnings pressures are taking public-sector incentives more seriously during these challenging economic times, according to a survey recently completed by Stadtmauer Bailkin Biggins (SBB), L.L.C [a firm where the author is a principal]. The study, which queried both corporate real estate executives and economic development agencies on developing trends in incentives, was […]

T ony Miele’s job could be compared to that of the captain of a supertanker making a U-turn in a swiftly moving river.         Ontario Realty Corporation (ORC) for generations has served as the Canadian province’s property asset management arm, an agency charged with owning and operating facilities in which government ministries […]

A fter a period of rapid growth, company managers may step back and ask if their current facilities structure — often haphazardly cobbled together through mergers and acquisitions and building on existing operations — can be rationalized in a strategic manner to more efficiently and cost-effectively meet the needs of the integrated firm.     […]

P hil Condit, chairman and CEO of The Boeing Co., knows a thing or two about the importance of infrastructure to economic development. After all, without the airports and transport systems providing access to them, his global, multi-billion dollar aerospace company wouldn’t be around.         “Economic growth follows infrastructure,” Condit told members […]

N ine out of 10 CFOs based in the U.S. believe that using outside resources to perform non-core functions increases shareholder value.1 Yet fewer than two out of 10 have empirically measured the return on investment (ROI) of their outsourcing initiatives. Those who have measured ROI report an average of 17 percent savings.     […]

J oe Moravec, commissioner of the Public Buildings Service of the U.S. General Services Administration, recently sat down with Site Selection’s Director of Publishing Ron Starner for an interview on the changing role of GSA and how the agency’s new direction will impact corporate America.         The linchpin of Moravec’s strategy is […]

 “W e’re not getting what we need to out of these real estate benchmarks,” said my client, Scott Weas of SC Johnson, almost 10 years ago. What really bothered Scott was his perception that most of the benchmark information available for our planning efforts had little direct relevance to the core business and the strategies […]

Site Selection recognizes 12 more economic development agencies for their successful efforts to attract business expansion activity. The groups mentioned here scored well in the same areas the Top Groups did — capital investment and new jobs created overall and on a per capital basis. Arkansas Dept. of Economic Development, Little Rock, Ark.www.1-800-ARKANSAS.com     […]

 M ost Fortune 1,000 companies view corporate real estate as a strategic asset. This means it plays a primary role, along with human resources, technology and information, in helping the company achieve its long-run goals and objectives. In 1993, the International Development Research Council’s (IDRC) first Corporate Real Estate 2000 Program report said, “We have […]

 I n the January issue of Site Selection, I introduced the Strategy Alignment Model, which is a framework for directly aligning corporate real estate with the core business. As shown in Figure 1, the model is comprised of three components and seven guiding principles.         The focus of the first installment was […]

 D uring the closing months of 2001, activity in the real estate sale-leaseback market surged as more and more corporations sought to raise cash in a declining economic environment.         W. P. Carey & Co., LLC, completed US$185 million worth of transactions in the fourth quarter of 2001, nearly half of the […]

From Site Selection magazine, March 2002 IDRC ABSTRACTS Following are abstracts of major presentations of the International Development Research Council, which this year is merging with NACORE to form CoreNet Global — the world’s pre-eminent corporate real estate association. “Corporate Energy Strategies: Corporate Real Estate and Economic Development Perspectives,” Texas World Congress, Oct. 22, 2001: […]