An office tower built before the Great Depression gets a sustainability makeover while preserving its unique architecture.

As land development opportunities become increasingly scarce, owners and developers are focusing on redevelopment to enhance value for existing properties. Many developers are finding tremendous demand for well-located but obsolete office buildings that have been transformed into contemporary environments. One example of a redevelopment effort that modernized an existing building is the Plaza at Las Olas in the heart of downtown Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Public and private entities redevelop a former railyard into a transit-oriented project that becomes a multi-modal transportation hub and a catalyst for sustainable development.

Development '12 conference session highlights on the impact of economic headwinds on commercial real estate; the state of the capital markets; value-add opportunities beyond the major markets; and corporate tenant space preferences.

Massachusetts-based Boston Properties was named the recipient of NAIOP’s annual Sustainable Development Award, presented during a special ceremony at Development ‘12: The Annual Meeting for Commercial Real Estate. Boston Properties was honored for their mixed-use project, Atlantic Wharf, in Boston, Mass.

A developer moves forward with phase II of a mixed-use project, overcoming economic, construction and design challenges along the way.

How will an office building developed in 2020 look and function? How will evolving user trends affect building design and operations? To gain valuable perspective, NAIOP invited its architect members to participate in a design competition, seeking the most innovative concepts and designs for the office building of the year 2020.

One reason users of e-commerce distribution centers need cheap land is they use so much more of it than the traditional DC. At a session on e-commerce development at the NAIOP Development ‘12 conference, Robert Fenza, Liberty Property Trust, described a recent one-million-square-foot, e-commerce DC project that required 1,500 parking spaces to accommodate the year-round and surge labor forces.