Posted on January 30, 2018

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department has been diligently working on Charlotte Place Types and Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), a city-wide effort aimed at updating the policies and regulations that guide growth and development in our community. The project is scheduled to meet some major milestones in 2018 with a draft Place Types Policy Document ready for public review in August and adoption of new Transit Oriented Development (TOD) zoning districts expected in December. The success of this project is dependent upon receiving input all our community stakeholders and we believe your organization can help us reach an important audience. Therefore, would you please take a minute to:

• Sign up for updates at charlotteudo.org for blog posts, upcoming events, and quarterly newsletters;
• Like @CLTPlanning on Facebook for fun facts, relevant articles, and short surveys. 

Posted on January 16, 2018

NAIOP asked some of the Research Foundation’s Distinguished Fellows, the nation’s foremost commercial real estate, economic and public policy experts in academia: How do you cultivate leadership skills in your organization? 

Click here to see what they said.

Posted on January 17, 2018

Analysis by Reis, Inc. shows the U.S. office market in 2017 experienced a slowdown in tenant expansions while supply growth stayed at about the same level as in 2016. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the survey of 79 metropolitan areas revealed that net absorption at the end of 2017 was at its lowest since 2012. In 2017, developers added 37.6 million square feet, only 1 million square feet more than in 2016, which may mitigate slower absorption rates. Vacancy increased during the fourth quarter of 2017 in 33 of the 79 markets, with New York having the lowest (8.7 percent) and Dayton, Ohio, the highest (27 percent). According to the report, growth in absorption has been falling in part because tenants have become more efficient in how they use their space, eliminating private offices and encouraging employees to work closer together. The report stated, “office-based industries are healthy, but tenants have persisted in curbing overall leasing patterns.”

View the current NAIOP Office Space Demand Forecast.

Posted on January 15, 2018

By: Jay Todisco

Posted on January 3, 2018

For the article, “9 Big Trends That Will Shape 2018,” Fast Company interviewed systems thinkers, industrial designers and artificial intelligence (AI) specialists and asked them to name the technology trends and forces they see ahead in the next year. Three of the ideas the designers predicted are:

• User-Friendly Government: A rise in tools dedicated to informing people of local elections, decision-making processes and regulations.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Design: AI Designers “will lead multidisciplinary teams in the creation and design of the era of artificial intelligence.” Much the way design humanized technology, design will play a critical role in the advancement of AI.
• Disaggregation of Core Technology: Digital and physical design will become indistinguishable as the core technology found in smartphones (e.g., cameras, microphones and screens) is disaggregated and embedded into different environments (e.g., clothing, homes). No longer will people be staring at their smartphone screens but instead generating and gathering data fluidly in their wider environment.

Posted on December 29, 2017

The NAIOP Office Space Demand forecast has shifted upward to above 10 million square feet of absorption in 2018, said Dr. Josh Harris on the recent exclusive NAIOP member webinar on what's shaping office space demand. What's the outlook for the U.S. economy and what does it mean to you? Find out in the full archived webinar. 

Click here to view the webinar.

Posted on December 28, 2017

Written by Paul Briggs

Posted on January 2, 2018

Written by Camille Galdes

Posted on December 26, 2017

The volume of world trade has exploded – along with the need for expanded intermodal infrastructure. Examine best practices for building a smooth and efficient supply chain that operates between seaports, railroads and business parks in this session recap from CRE.Converge, and download the full presentation on the conference resources page.

Posted on December 21, 2017

Has densification of the office environment reached a tipping point? Yes, say research directors from national real estate brokerage, data and investment firms, whose consensus is that on the whole, office densification is either approaching or has already reached a tipping point, as most of the larger office space users have already downsized and the smaller ones that are left to downsize are not expected to move the market.

Posted on December 20, 2017

"Clear sailing ahead," says Dr. Mark Dotzour on an economic outlook for 2018, kicking off a recent NAIOP webinar on the economy and what's driving demand for office space. This longest economic expansion since World War II – nine years and counting – is showing no hint of a recession, thanks to job creation and rising wages and consumer confidence. Listen to the full archived webinar, a NAIOP member benefit.

Listen to the webinar here.

Posted on December 11, 2017

Written by Susan M. Phillips

Posted on December 1, 2017

Boxed Wholesale believes self-driving carts can be used to navigate through warehouses and pick products, according to an article in DigitalCommerce360.com. Boxed, a web-only merchant that sells primarily household goods, initially plans to use fully automated carts to shuttle goods between picking and packing human warehouse workers. “Long term, we’re aiming to expand the functionality of the vehicles to complete other warehouse tasks that can be made more efficient,” says Will Fong, the retailer’s chief technology officer. “For example, rather than sending a human to restock a picking zone with paper towels, the vehicle could soon be able to recognize the need to replenish the product and complete the task, all without humans needing to get involved.” A Boxed in-house team of two engineers developed the autonomous cart in 90 days. Boxed first added the carts to its warehouse in Union, New Jersey, and plans to add them to fulfillment centers in Dallas, Las Vegas and Atlanta.

Posted on November 30, 2017

A recent article in Bloomberg Technology, What Life is Like Inside WeWork’s Communal Housing Project, profiled WeLive apartment living to see if the shared common space apartments could reinvent rental housing the same way WeWork has changed office space. WeLive provides fully furnished apartments in the same building as WeWork’s shared office spaces. In the common areas, residents can “cook dinner in an expansive kitchen, shoot pool in the laundry room or get neighborly over free WeWork-provided cocktails on the seventh-floor roof terrace.”

Posted on November 29, 2017

According to Dodge Data & Analytics’ 2018 Construction Outlook, construction starts will climb 3 percent to $765 billion in 2018. The growth of the construction industry will continue into 2018, but some product types, such as multifamily housing and hotels, will see less activity. Single-family housing, office building, warehouse, transportation terminal, school and health care facility construction will continue to grow during 2018.

Posted on November 28, 2017

Release Date: Fall 2017

Posted on November 27, 2017

According to an article in the Denver Post, downtown Denver is about 5 degrees hotter than surrounding areas in the summer due to the heat radiating from concrete rooftops and pavement. Denver ranks third in the country for the severity of the “urban heat island” effect — described as a phenomenon that increases air conditioning use and worsens air quality.

Posted on November 22, 2017

By Roger Heerema

Posted on November 21, 2017

NAIOP and the Greater Workspace Association convened with great success last week in Brooklyn, with close to 400 attendees gathering to talk all things office real estate: from co-working to design to demand to tech and beyond. Want to see what you missed? Check out the presentations, with more content being added here daily. Read More

Posted on November 20, 2017

Tapping into financial and property data can allow commercial real estate companies to save both time and money; using real-time performance analytics, for example, can help optimize operating expenses. As the volume of data across the globe increases at a staggering rate, meanwhile, the data center industry faces critical questions about cybersecurity and data management.

• Next Wave of CRE Tech: Harnessing Data to Unlock Value 
  Commercial real estate is coming to terms with the critical need for data-driven organizations, teams and results, reports Waypoint. The current tech landscape enables financial data to be aggregated into a single, company-wide system of record rather than compiling disparate data from separate, siloed systems. How organizations leverage and analyze the data is what will ultimately provide the competitive edge they need to rise above the rest.
• Four Ways the Cloud is Forever Changing Data Center Real Estate
  The future of data center real estate is looking more global and automated, according to JLL research, helping the data center industry become more efficient and keep up with the surging amount of data being generated by corporations, entertainment companies, and personal devices. Combined with the growth of cloud computing, these trends mean that the industry is facing important questions about cybersecurity, data sovereignty, and digital content consumption.