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Going Green? Consider a Woonerf for Your Next Project
To go green in a spectacular way, you really need to add a woonerf to your development. What’s a woonerf? It is quite similar to a verkehrsberuhigter bereich, and functions much the same way. If the woonerf of the Netherlands and Flanders or the verkehrsberuhigter bereich of Germany is a bit far afield for you, The Blume Company of Seattle, Washington, recently unveiled Yale Campus, a 776,000-square-foot office, life-sciences/biotech and retail development in the South Lake Union area. That will feature a woonerf among numerous other green elements.
The woonerf, by the way, is translated as a recreation area where automobile traffic is restricted to a speed limit of walking pace. The two-block Yale campus will be knit together by a series of plazas and linked by Yale Avenue North, a green street with an innovative bioswale. Automobile traffic will have to travel at walking speed on the campus, where tenants and visitors will be able to see and touch sustainable solutions, such as green roofs and energy-efficient technologies.
“This is Seattle’s new street for living,” said Bruce M. Blume, founder, chairman and CEO of The Blume Company, a Seattle-based commercial real estate development and management company. “With its engaging architecture and smart-growth philosophy, Yale Campus is going to have a positive effect on this important neighborhood. We call it a street for living, which is based on a Dutch concept called a woonerf.” Yale Campus will be a curb-less plain where motorists are slowed by trees, planters, bollards and other obstacles.
Have a LEED-Certified or Green Building? Why to Seek Special Insurance Coverage
Whether you are building a new green building or retrofitting an older structure to include green elements, consider special insurance to protect your investment, according to Stephen L. Riemer, president, Riemer Insurance Group, Inc., Hannandale Beach and Miami, Florida.
“If someone has a solar heater on the roof and special electrical fixtures inside the building that are energy efficient, unless the owner has special insurance, the policy does not cover the replacement of those energy-efficient tools that make the building green,” he asserted.
Currently, two companies offer “green” insurance, to Riemer’s knowledge. These include Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co.’s “Green-Gard” and AIG’s Green Coverage. “With Green-Gard, a building owner will get new for old,” Riemer said. “For example, if a building owner has installed green technology on his building and suffers a covered loss, if that technology has been improved since that installation—a new generation of solar panel, for example—that is covered under Green-Gard.”
Fireman’s Fund, on its Web site, claims that it is the only company that offers the options to rebuild a building with green alternatives such as…
- Non-toxic, low-odor paints and carpeting
- Energy-Star® rated electrical systems
- Interior lighting systems that meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) or Green Globe requirements
- Water-efficient interior plumbing
- Energy-Star qualified roof and insulation materials
The company will also pay to hire the right professionals to rebuild a building green.
For more information
Riemer Insurance Group:
www.riemerinsurancegroup.com
Fireman’s Fund:
www.firemansfund.com
AIG:
www.aig.com
Need a New Logistics Hub? Here Are Some Up-and-Coming Locations
More than in years past, high fuel costs and infrastructure issues will drive the location decision for new logistics hubs, according to Grubb & Ellis. In a section of its recently released 2008 Real Estate Forecast, Grubb & Ellis suggested that overall logistics costs as a percent of gross domestic product will continue to rise, exceeding 10 percent in 2008 for the first time since 1999.
Up and coming logistics hubs include
- Atlanta (overnight service from ports in Savannah, Ga. and Charleston, S.C.);
- Dallas (a new logistics hub in south Dallas);
- Memphis (new hub); Chicago (growth at Joliet and a potential new hub in northwest Indiana); and
- Columbus, Ohio (the Heartland Corridor to the Port of Virginia at Newport News).
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Keeping a Place at the Top Table
To stay on the “C List,” today’s commercial real estate executives must bring certain skills to the party, and real estate knowledge is the least important of them, asserted Mark Gibson, Leader, Strategy and Operations, Real Estate Advisory Services, Ernst & Young, New York.
“There are many corporate real estate executives who probably feel like they’ve been getting the ‘Hearst treatment’ at their company lately. When publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst felt that a guest visiting his famous San Simeon estate had grown tiresome or no longer provided value to the group at hand, he made no bones about letting that person know. Hearst required all guests to dine with him each night; so, he would have that individual seated farther and farther away from him until he or she finally clued in that they were being politely but firmly shown the door,” he said.
Gibson noted that increasingly, corporate real estate executives are losing their coveted place at their company’s “top table.” For years, many have enjoyed premium seating among the company’s key decision-makers, but now, they are being asked less frequently to provide their opinion and expertise and aren’t being invited to critical meetings related to their company’s growth and expansion objectives. What is the reason for this shift? “Quite simply, most are falling off the preferred ‘C List’ because they aren’t adapting to the modern business world. They continue to present themselves as ‘corporate real estate executives’ instead of ‘business executives with expertise in corporate real estate,’ ” he continued.
There is a dramatic difference between the two types. The first is a 20th century-style executive with a deep understanding of traditional corporate real estate, who is an expert at playing “the local game.” But the second type – the 21st century executive – can take the local game of real estate and play it globally. They have global perspective and can think widely. They have the skill set necessary to do business from Nebraska to Nagpur, India. And what’s even more notable about modern commercial real estate executives is that, more often than not, they are not real estate people: They are business people, according to Gibson.
Gibson offered seven skills the modern commercial real estate executive should bring to the top table:
- Leadership
- Project Management
- Strategic Planning
- Process Improvement
- Understanding of the Business (whatever the business may be)
- Fortitude
- Real Estate
“Real estate is at the very bottom of the list because it really is the least important area of business expertise,” explained Gibson. “Work today is not bound by geography, time zone or building. Globalization and rapidly changing technology are dramatically changing the way business itself is being conducted. One particular trend, offshoring – the relocation of business processes from one location to another – is particularly relevant to the modern commercial real estate executive. It is imperative that he or she be able to contribute intelligently to high-level conversations about whether offshoring is the right move for their company, or their client, and if so, how and where it should be done.”
To stay in the game, savvy commercial real estate executives will learn to leverage their business expertise. Where they lack skills or knowledge, they will seek out high-quality experts who do have understanding of the market space and its risks so they can help the company embark confidently into new territory. “That’s leadership,” he said. “That’s project management. That’s strategic planning. And that’s what it takes for commercial real estate executives today to earn a permanent invitation to the top table.”
By Ron Derven, co-editor of Development magazine |
