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FeaturesHeartland Feature ArchiveMidwestMixed-UseOhio

Grandview Yard Takes the LEED on Neighborhood Design in Columbus, Ohio

by Kristin Harlow

COLUMBUS, OHIO — In spring 2009, the United States Green Building Council formally launched a new program with the vision of fundamentally changing how the country evaluated green design and development, LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND). The launch of the LEED-ND program coincided with the first phase of Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Realty Investors’ Grandview Yard development: a $700 million, 1.2 million-square-foot, master-planned mixed-use neighborhood located in the fast-growing Grandview Heights community, just minutes from downtown Columbus and The Ohio State University. The first standard of its kind, LEED-ND embraces principles of smart growth and new urbanism, encouraging sustainable and environmentally responsible design and development on a broad and integrated scale. Like a scene in a movie that begins with the camera tightly focused on one element before zooming out to reveal an eye-opening new perspective, LEED-ND is about acknowledging context and connection. Distinguished LEED project Grandview Yard was one of the Midwest’s first LEED-ND Silver neighborhoods. When site work began on the first phase of development of the project in September of 2009, a comprehensive and ambitious on-site reuse and recycling strategy was already in place. An extensive and highly-coordinated warehouse demolition process served as both a challenge and an …

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FeaturesMultifamilyTop Stories

The ‘Three Cs’ of Property Management: Communication, Connection and Comradery

by Kristin Harlow

Being part of a community is an important factor when renters choose a building to call home. According to a National Apartment Association’s report entitled “Adding Value in the Age of Amenities Wars,” a sense of community is what’s behind five of the top 10 amenities added or upgraded in apartments since 2014. Including clubhouses, common areas for socializing and fitness and business centers — the community aspect of apartment living is a huge draw. As property managers, we are constantly challenged to ‘Keep up with the Joneses’ when it comes to offering the latest and greatest amenities. So much so that figuring out how to creatively “add” space to make room for new amenities when updating older buildings has become a top priority. However, while extensive amenities are considered basic requirements for today’s renters, it doesn’t matter how great the amenities are if the building doesn’t have a heart and soul that resonates with residents. To foster that sense of community, there are three best practices in property management to keep in mind: communication, connection and comradery. Make Communication Easy Technology has provided residents the ability to communicate with property management at their convenience. Gone are the days of …

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CaliforniaFeaturesOfficeTop StoriesWestern

Office Rental Rates on the Rise in All 30 of CBRE’s Top 30 Tech Submarkets

by John Nelson

LOS ANGELES — Office rents across the United States and Canada are getting a big lift from the influence of tech job creation, according to CBRE. All of the submarkets tracked in the brokerage giant’s annual Tech-30 report have experienced rental growth over the past two years. In 13 of those submarkets, asking rental rates have grown by more than 10 percent in the two years tracked between second-quarter 2015 and second-quarter 2017. On the list of 30 submarkets, office rent growth was led by Orange County, Calif. (23.3 percent), Nashville (21.2 percent), Atlanta (17.6 percent), Charlotte (16.9 percent) and Silicon Valley (16.8 percent). According to CBRE’s Tech-30 report, the willingness of tech companies to pay a premium for office space in the hottest tech submarkets is starting to spill over into neighboring submarkets, as available space in tech “hotspots” is dwindling. Adjacent submarkets and traditional downtowns with skylines — rather than the brick-and-beam buildings tech companies have demonstrated a preference for — are primed to benefit, according to the report. “If tech companies that are used to paying a premium for space in the top tech submarkets are forced to move to adjacent submarkets in order to expand, we …

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Conference CoverageFeaturesMultifamilySeniors HousingTop Stories

Middle-Class Affordability Is ‘Single Biggest Issue’ Facing Seniors Housing Industry, Says HJ Sims’ Landreville

by Jeff Shaw

NEW ORLEANS — Many seniors housing developers, owners and operators are already looking forward to the “silver tsunami” of Baby Boomers reaching the proper age to enter seniors housing. However, if current trends continue, many of those seniors won’t be able to afford seniors housing anyway, according to panelists at the LeadingAge Annual Meeting and Expo. The panel, titled “Understanding the Economics & Financing Structures of Moderately Priced Life Plan Communities,” took place at the event in New Orleans on Oct. 30. The panelists included Mark Landreville, executive vice president with bond financing specialists HJ Sims; and Steve Kuhns, a partner with seniors housing consulting firm Essential Decisions Inc. Wayne Olson, executive vice president of Volunteers of America National Services, contributed to the presentation but was unable to attend the event. Landreville led the discussion and called affordability “the single biggest issue facing the seniors housing industry.” He cited a recent Time magazine study showing that 30 percent of U.S. households headed by people 55 and older have no retirement account at all, and the remaining 70 percent have a median account balance of just $104,000. “Everyone talks about the Baby Boomers, but they don’t have the resources they want …

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FeaturesIndustrialTexasTexas & Oklahoma Feature ArchiveTop Stories

InterFace Panel: Demand for Automated Labor Growing in Industrial Sector

by Taylor Williams

HOUSTON — The number of American manufacturing jobs has been decreasing for more than a decade, radically enough that the pledge to return them became a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s campaign. Between 2004 and 2014, the country lost about 2.1 million manufacturing jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which also projects that another 814,000 manufacturing jobs will be cut by 2024. The decline in manufacturing jobs has coincided with job growth in other industrial subfields, particularly transportation and warehousing. The total number of jobs in this sector increased by about 391,000 between 2004 and 2014, with an additional 137,000 new positions expected to be created by 2024, per the BLS. Analyzed in the context of e-commerce, these trends suggest that industrial activity is still robust throughout the country, but that distribution is outstripping manufacturing as the primary form of industrial-using employment. Yet the growth of e-commerce alone does not account for the radical dip in the number of manufacturing jobs available. The substitution of human labor for automated robot workers has also been a driving force behind sluggish job growth in the manufacturing sector, according to a panel of industrial real estate professionals who gathered …

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FeaturesRetailTop Stories

Percentage of U.S. Adults Who Prefer In-Store Shopping Versus Online Is On the Rise, Says Coldwell Banker Commercial Survey

by Camren Skelton

MADISON, N.J. — Although the retail landscape has faced disruption in recent years, nearly half of U.S. adults prefer to make purchases in-store rather than online, according to a new survey conducted by Madison-based Coldwell Banker Commercial Affiliates. “Despite doomsday headlines about the retail industry and how e-commerce has taken over, our survey has found that Americans still enjoy and remain loyal to in-store shopping, regardless of the retail climate,” says Fred Schmidt, president and COO of Coldwell Banker Commercial Affiliates. Working on behalf of Coldwell Banker, Harris Poll surveyed 2,001 adults from Aug. 15-17 as part of an online study. The participating cohorts included 194 younger Millennials (age 18-29), 160 older Millennials (age 30-34), 479 Gen Xers (age 35-49) and 884 Baby Boomers (age 50-69), to reveal Americans’ shopping preferences and determine the steps retailers can take to remain relevant in today’s competitive retail industry. Overall, the survey found that 47 percent of U.S. adults prefer to shop in-store rather than online. More than half of Baby Boomers (51 percent) prefer the in-store experience, followed by younger Millennials (50 percent), Gen Xers (42 percent) and older Millennials (27 percent). When asked a similar question in 2016, 43 percent of …

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FeaturesIndustrialNet LeaseOfficeRetailTop Stories

Report: Net Lease Investment Market Heats Up During Third Quarter

by Taylor Williams

TULSA, OKLA. — Sales of net leased properties settled in at nearly $11.4 billion during the third quarter of 2017, up 15 percent over the average for the past five third quarters ($10 billion), according to a recent report from Stan Johnson Company, a national brokerage and advisory firm specializing in net leased assets. The report tracks net leased properties across the office, industrial and retail real estate sectors. “This was the largest third-quarter move in six years and represents resilience in the net lease sector,” says John Zimmerman, director of Tulsa-based Stan Johnson Company. “We may be on our way to another record sales year.” The total is the highest quarterly sales volume in the past 12 months and follows a lackluster second quarter that saw investment sales volume drop more than 20 percent below the average for the past five second quarters. Growth occurred across all net lease sectors, with office, industrial and retail increasing 35 percent, 43 percent and 55 percent, respectively. The results were overwhelmingly driven by growth in the sheer number of transactions — more than 750 — as opposed to the amount of the assets traded. “In recent years, a lot of the growth …

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FeaturesTop Stories

Economists: Job Growth Strong, But Expect Slow Wage Growth as Inflation, Labor Participation Remain Low

by Taylor Williams

The U.S. economy added 261,000 new jobs in October, its highest monthly total of 2017, according to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The revised numbers suggest that the U.S. economy has recovered well from hurricanes Harvey and Irma, as evidenced by strong growth in the construction and leisure and hospitality sectors. In addition, the overall unemployment rate dropped to 4.1 percent, down 70 basis points from 4.8 percent at the beginning of the year. However, overall labor participation rate continues to dwindle, driven by a growing number of retirees and misalignments between employees’ skill sets and employers’ demands, according to economists. All of these forces — plus low inflation — point to sluggish wage growth, which has only increased by 2.4 percent during the 12-month period ending in November 2017. REBusinessOnline contacted three economists to get their takes on what these factors mean for the overall jobs market on both individual and collective levels: Ryan Severino, JLL’s chief economist; Steve Hovland, HomeUnion’s director of research; and Ken McCarthy, Cushman & Wakefield’s principal economist. Their edited responses are as follows: ReBusinessOnline: Economists polled by MarketWatch expected the U.S. economy to generate a net gain of …

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FeaturesIndustrialTexasTexas & Oklahoma Feature Archive

Logistics Consultant: Role of Air, Rail Transit Expands in Industrial Market

by Taylor Williams

HOUSTON — As the growth of e-commerce continues, its impacts on logistics and operations within the industrial real estate sector become more significant. Recent data from supply chain consulting firm Tompkins projects that by 2020, the value of America’s cross-border e-commerce sales will be approximately $486 billion. In addition, the value of cross-border purchases via e-commerce will total about $140 billion. To meet the e-commerce demand, industrial developers will have to supply about 160 new logistics facilities spanning 800,000 square feet in top urban markets, according to Tompkins. Another 100 or so facilities in the 75,000- to 100,000-square-foot range will need to be repurposed to support delivery to secondary and tertiary markets. Distributors in the e-commerce era have long since learned to compress their supply chains and look for logistical opportunities to save on “last-mile” expenses. To that end, industrial operators are increasingly looking to air and rail transit as distribution channels. Steve Schellenberg, vice president of business development for IMS Worldwide Inc., a logistics consulting firm for the industrial real estate sector, discussed the rise of intermodal transit during the InterFace Houston Industrial conference on Oct. 31. Approximately 115 industrial real estate professionals attended the event, which was held …

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FeaturesTop Stories

InterFace On-Campus Housing Brings Focus to Generation Z, Successful 3Ps

by Katie Sloan

PHILADELPHIA — Over 240 leading figures in on-campus student housing gathered last week for the 5th annual InterFace On-Campus Housing conference at the Loews Hotel in Philadelphia. Each year, the conference brings together a cross-section of all the stakeholders in on-campus housing, from academic institutions to developers, owners and vendors. The first day of the conference, Oct. 24, began with on-campus tours of Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania, where attendees were able to visit The Summit at University and Chestnut Square by American Campus Communities at Drexel University, and New College House at the University of Pennsylvania. In lieu of the tour, attendees were also able to attend facilitated discussions on incorporating retail into student housing and key issues and trends on-campus. Both events were followed by a successful cocktail reception. Day two kicked off with speed networking, a popular event which provides attendees a venue to meet fellow industry experts in short, one-minute conversations designed to spark conversation and grow new relationships. Keynote speaker Michael Wood, youth expert with The 747 Group, continued the day with a deep look into the differences and similarities between generations from the baby boomers forward, and provided a look into important factors to …

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