A qualified, sustainable, and happy workforce is key to tenant success and exceedingly difficult to attain in today’s labor market. Speakers at I.CON East discussed effective practices for attracting, training and retaining workers at industrial facilities.
At NAIOP’s I.CON East: The Industrial Conference, attendees explored the logistics building of the future, as designed and imagined by Matt Brady, LEED AP, architect and executive vice president, and the team at Ware Malcomb.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and decarbonization initiatives can yield significant advances across the industry, from the important climate benefits to improved investor and community relations. While these are not new concepts – the first solar panels date back to 1954 – they are fresher to commercial real estate as owners and developers as they evaluate how to retrofit existing properties and incorporate elements of sustainability into their projects.
“We’ve been modeling for the U.S. to enter recession this quarter for the last year now,” began Dana M. Peterson, chief economic and center leader for economy, strategy and finance at The Conference Board, to a sold-out audience in a keynote at NAIOP’s I.CON East this week in Jersey City, New Jersey. She explained what a recession would look like, emerging economic trends, and their implications for industrial real estate.
I.CON East: The Industrial Conference tour attendees had the opportunity to see New York from two very different perspectives. With an eye to the past, they explored the historic Brooklyn Army Terminal. With an eye to the future, they visited sites on Staten Island ready to embrace the nascent offshore wind industry.
The NAIOP Research Foundation, as part of its Industry Trends meeting, recently hosted a panel discussion on what’s next for the office sector. The panelists agreed that the sector will undergo a shakeout that will include transformation, streamlining, new approaches to work and holistic solutions.
Recent years brought new stresses on the construction industry – COVID-19 shutdowns, supply chain woes, labor shortages and bank failures have slowed projects or put them entirely on hold. At the same time, the cost of capital has risen considerably.
NAIOP National Forums members attending last week’s annual Symposium had the opportunity to tour several projects in the office and life science markets in East Cambridge, Somerville and the greater Boston market.
The groundbreaking ceremony for a new building signifies the physical start of a construction project. In most cases, however, months or even years have already been spent preparing the land for future growth, as planners and developers work behind the scenes to make the property “shovel ready.” Attempting to market a property that is not shovel ready can be a significant barrier to making a commercial property sale. But what does it mean to have a shovel-ready property, and why is it so important?
America faces a multipronged real estate crisis. We have a stubborn residential housing shortage, high office vacancy rates, and flight from many downtown hubs that is killing off businesses servicing those areas. Converting office towers into housing could solve multiple problems at once.