Carbon Footprints and Construction: The Dilemma of Old vs. New Buildings
In order to stop climate change, the world needs to reduce the carbon emissions of our buildings. That isn’t up for debate. Reports have repeatedly shown that buildings, or more accurately, the people who use them, account for around 40 percent of the world’s carbon, making it all but impossible to reach our decarbonization goals […]
Can Office-to-Residential Conversions Be Done at Scale?
One of the most common things I hear these days when talking about empty office buildings from people outside of the industry is “they should just turn them into apartments.” It makes sense, why let office buildings sit with so few occupants when many cities are in the middle of a housing shortage? But for […]
Is Recycled Plastic the Next Big Sustainable Building Material?
Plastic tends to have a bad reputation, and for good reasons. The ubiquitous material is one of the leading causes of pollution worldwide, with the vast majority of the material not recycled, according to the National Resource Defense Council. It’s used in almost everything we use daily, from electric vehicles to toys to floor rugs. […]
Despite Market Turbulence, Industrial Real Estate Will Continue To Boom
There has arguably never been a more robust year for industrial real estate. Construction companies completed 121.4M SF of industrial in Q3 2022, the second-highest quarterly total on record. Demand has more than kept up, and vacancy rates trended downward for the seventh straight quarter to a record low of 3.3%. Though macroeconomic instability is […]
Large Indoor Parks Show the Value of Office Greenspace
As we inch towards the third year alongside the existence of COVID-19, the pandemic’s impact seems more visible in some places than others. Restaurants and bars are crowded again, air travel has rebounded, and mask mandates have eased save for specialized facilities. Yet the dreaded virus has forever changed how people work, which means it […]
Twitter Latest Big Tech Firm to Cut Office Space
Twitter announced this week it would close one of its San Francisco offices and shrink its New York City office footprint in a move to save money and embrace more remote work. The company told employees in an email that it will vacate one of its San Francisco offices in a building close to the […]
Cushman & Wakefield Report Highlights the Inflation Challenges Facing Real Estate Tenants
Rising interest rates could lead to reduced commercial real estate leasing for certain property types for the next several years, according to a new Cushman & Wakefield report on inflation’s impact on real estate occupiers. Most measures of inflation are at levels not seen in decades, and the report notes that the increased costs of labor, materials, […]
Order Up! Independent Restaurants Are Recovering From the Pandemic
If you noticed that your local restaurants are looking fuller these days, you’re not alone. After the pandemic plummeted restaurant activity and forced many mom-and-pop eateries to close, a report from The NPD Group shows that independent restaurants are experiencing quite the upswing. Independent restaurant locations, or restaurants that aren’t associated with a corporate chain (and only […]
Commercial Space: How to Determine Usable vs. Rentable Square Footage
Commercial real estate space is a significant investment and commitment. If you’re an investor or looking for off-market commercial real estate space, it’s important to know what you are leasing before creating rent amounts in a lease. After all the due diligence and property owner background you have collected, it’s crucial to ensure you understand the usable […]
What’s the Best Way to Reposition an Empty Shopping Mall?
The image of a shuttered ghost town that many of America’s shopping malls have become is much different than the bustling epicenters of economic and social activity that they once represented. “The mall, in its heyday, was a portal to the lifestyles to which people could aspire,” writes Misty White Sedell of the Los Angeles […]
Commercial Property Investors Worldwide Rethink the Value of Going Green
Best-in-class buildings now prioritize climate risk, carbon emissions and occupant health Expectations for new buildings – from amenities to environmental footprint – have increased significantly in recent years, reports global property consultant JLL. Sustainability continues to move up the corporate priority list and investors are rethinking value, making the threat of a “brown discount” more […]
Latest Supply-Chain Shift Favors Trading Partners Who Are Closer to Home
When we last analyzed the fallout from shifting global supply chains, we highlighted the looming growth in U.S. East Coast port traffic as imports from Southeast Asia increasingly bypassed gridlocked West Coast ports. From July 2020 to November 2021, monthly imports from Southeast Asia to the East Coast rose by an average of 32% above 2019 levels. […]