Originally published in NAIOP Development Magazine Fall 2022 Issue by Mansoor Ghori.

This rapidly growing alternative funding method can help developers meet a wide range of goals.

New financing vehicles can take time to achieve market acceptance, but with more than $3 billion in transactions since its inception more than 10 years ago, Commercial Property-Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) funding is now a go-to green finance alternative for many owners, investors, and developers.

Now available in 37 states and the District of Columbia, the special advantages of C-PACE’s long-term, low-cost, fixed-rate, non-recourse financing are making it a favored option over more expensive mezzanine debt or preferred equity. However, many CRE professionals are still unfamiliar with it. What is C-PACE? What makes it attractive to commercial real estate owners and developers? How have trends including the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement further fueled its adoption?

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On Monday, November 7th, the Charlotte City Council held a marathon day of meetings.  Two of the committees held discussions on topics of significant interest to the real estate industry.  To catch up on anything you may have missed, please click on the information links below:

Transportation, Planning, and Development Committee - Agenda, Video

(Presentations)

• Housing and Jobs Summit Planning
• Charlotte Transportation Center Update
• Lynx Silver Line Light Rail

Housing, Safety, and Community Committee - Agenda, Video

(Presentations)

• Housing and Jobs Summit Planning
• Development Fees for Affordable Housing

Students receive credit towards earning their certificate through core classes presented by the NAIOP Center for Education. So whether you want to enhance the value of your current career track or to increase your credibility in transitioning to a new career goal or area of interest, consider the professional benefits and competitive edge you'll gain by earning your NAIOP Certificate of Advanced Study.

Commercial real estate professionals wanting to advance their careers by earning their certificate can focus their efforts on either the development or finance tracks by pursuing a Certificate of Advanced Study in Commercial Real Estate Development or a Certificate of Advanced Study in Real Estate Finance.

Benefits

Professionals who are involved in all aspects of commercial real estate development benefit from the certificate. You benefit if you are a:

• Developer/Owner
• Investor
• Lender
• Broker
• Industry Consultant/Advisor Planner
• Architect
• Real Estate Attorney
• Civil Engineer/Construction Manager
• Environmental/Sustainability Professional
• Land Use Professional

Employers benefit as well from having motivated professionals on their team who they value for an ongoing commitment to learning. Both certificate programs follow a planned curriculum with a wide range of certificate course offerings to choose from.

View the Nominating Committee's recommendation for the 2023 Board of Directors. The slate will be voted on at the 2022 Annual Meeting on November 30.

Executive Committee

President
Steve McClure, The Spectrum Companies

President-Elect
Dan Melvin, LandDesign

Secretary
Ken Jonmaire, Trinity Capital Advisors

Originally published on November 8, 2022, for NAIOP E-Newsletter.

While most of the political establishment in the nation’s capital is focused on the midterm congressional elections, federal agency staff are still moving forward on developing regulations from legislation enacted this year. The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service last Friday issued their Priority Guidance Plan for 2022-2023, detailing their top regulatory priorities for the next year.

A major focus of the plan is the clean-energy tax provisions contained in the Inflation Reduction Act that was passed by Congress in August. These include measures on tax credits for electric vehicles, clean-energy manufacturing, and energy-efficiency incentives for commercial real estate and other industries. The plan also includes projects on the newly enacted corporate alternative minimum tax, the tax on corporate stock repurchases, and manufacturing incentives for the semiconductor industry.

The Treasury Department and the IRS will update the plan during the year to add additional items that become priorities as a result of legislative developments, or as a result of input from public comments on proposed regulations.

Priority Guidance Plan

Live Web Event on 11/15/2022 at 2:00 PM (EST)

This webinar will provide members with an update on recently enacted legislation and proposed federal regulations of importance to the commercial real estate industry, focusing on NAIOP’s legislative priorities, including developments in tax, energy, and environmental policy. Aquiles Suarez, NAIOP’s senior vice president for government affairs, will also provide an assessment of the results of the November midterm congressional elections and their likely impact on the future course of policy. Attendees can pose questions regarding federal issues affecting their business and gain insights to prepare them for future regulatory or legislative challenges. 

Speaker: Aquiles Suarez, Senior Vice President for Government Affairs, NAIOP

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Is your 2023 salary and bonus package competitive? Find out with the 2022 NAIOP/CEL Commercial Real Estate Compensation and Benefits Reports. These valuable reports (either Office/Industrial-Retail or Office/Industrial-Retail-Residential) enable commercial real estate businesses to stay current on salaries, bonuses, and benefits for CRE professionals from executive to entry-level positions.

The report includes:

Submissions from over 300 companies

Salary, bonus, incentives, and benefits for up to 200 positions

Originally published in the Fall 2022 Issue of NAIOP's Development Magazine by Patrick Finucan, Sam Bennett, and David Kitchens.

To compete with the rise of e-commerce, traditional shopping malls are evolving to stay relevant and offer experiences that can’t be found online. Recognizing the central location of most malls, more owners are executing major redevelopments of these aging monoliths, transforming them into compelling, destination-worthy mixed-use environments that reflect the needs and wants of the communities they serve. 

One example of this redevelopment strategy in action is the recent renovation of Ballston Quarter, a formerly enclosed shopping mall in Arlington, Virginia, a few miles outside of Washington, D.C.

Over the past 70 years, the site where Ballston Quarter is located has gone through several iterations. From the rise of parking garages to the advent of experiential retail, this regional mall has lived through generations of retail revolutions and undergone two renovations to ensure its continued relevance. 

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Originally published on November 8, 2022, by the NAIOP E-Newsletter. 

While most of the political establishment in the nation’s capital is focused on the midterm congressional elections, federal agency staff are still moving forward on developing regulations from legislation enacted this year. The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service last Friday issued their Priority Guidance Plan for 2022-2023, detailing their top regulatory priorities for the next year.

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Originally published in The Role of Data Analytics in Commercial Real Estate Siting, Design and Valuation Decisions by Clifford A. Lipscomb, Ph.D., MRICS in October 2022.

Industries are rapidly evolving as business processes grow more interconnected and automated. Data and analytics play an important role in information technologies and their interaction with the physical world, including emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and virtual and augmented reality. Although commercial real estate (CRE) has been slower than other industries to adopt data analytics, some firms have identified several ways that data analytics can support land and building development and contribute to better project outcomes.

To gain a sense of how CRE firms are using advanced data analytics, the NAIOP Research Foundation commissioned this report to examine applications in site selection, design and valuation for commercial buildings. The author conducted a secondary research and interviewed brokers, data providers, investors, developers and professionals at CRE technology firms.

Firms continue to rely primarily on traditional forms of market research when making investment and development decisions. Nonetheless, several commercial real estate technology companies have developed specialized software that draws from data analytics to support applications ranging from highest and best-use analysis to real-time building rendering. These emerging applications suggest that data analytics has the potential to add substantial value to new development projects through improved siting decisions and building design.

View Full Report

State of Housing 2022 Summit 
Tuesday, November 15, 2022, at 2:00 pm

In-person at The Dubois Center at UNC Charlotte Center City or via Zoom

The summit, in its fourth year, brings developers, government officials, and community stakeholders together for an exclusive first look at the "2022 State of Housing in Charlotte Report," which details:

• A comprehensive inventory of the current housing stock
• An analysis of housing affordability across all income levels
• A high-level comparison of the Charlotte regional housing market
• A comprehensive look at owner-occupied, rental, and subsidized housing in the eight-county Charlotte region
• How the market has changed since the first State of Housing Report in 2019
• How house price growth rates have fared during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
• A long-term view of the dynamics of the housing market over the last two decades

Event Schedule

REGISTER NOW

Numerous vacancies remain on several Charlotte City Council-appointed Boards and Commissions.  

• The recent vacancy notice lists positions for which the City Council will make nominations and appointments in 2022.  Please take note of application deadlines and dates projected for nominations and appointments.
• Any additional positions will be added to this list as they arise.  Please subscribe to NotifyMe to receive notices of new vacancies.
• Applications are available online at charlottenc.gov/clerk or by clicking here.
• Applications remain active for one year from the submission date.
• Applicants will be notified when appointed.
• Please visit the Boards & Commissions webpage to view more details about each board and commission and their meeting times and locations.  Please review the necessary qualifications for each board, as well as attendance and code of ethics requirements.
• All applicants must be residents of Mecklenburg County.
• Appointees serve voluntarily without compensation.

Previous planning studies related to the Downtown include the 2006 Downtown Master Plan and the 2040 Community Plan.  The 2022 Downtown Plan will both update the 2006 Plan and follow adopted 2040 Plan policies and action priorities.  The Plan will be reviewed by the Huntersville Planning Board and eventually considered for adoption by the Huntersville Town Board of Commissioners. 

The most recent public forum was held on October 20th with about 80 people attending.  The presentation links are listed here for your review:

• Final Draft Presentation 1 of 4 (PDF)
• Final Draft Presentation 2 of 4 (PDF)
• Final Draft Presentation 3 of 4 (PDF)
• Final Draft Presentation 4 of 4 (PDF)

Once you have had a chance to view the presentation, please complete the survey which will be open until Monday, October 31st at 5:00 PM. 

For additional details about the plan please visit:

Let's Plan Huntersville

Monday, November 7th

Originally published on October 11, 2022, by Matt Baron for NAIOP.

When you invest time on the front end of your development efforts, you will reap dividends during its latter stages. Conversely, if you don’t heed the details – political landscape, concerns of residents, requirements of regulatory agencies, and more – then you will pay in stalled or stymied projects.

In vivid detail, panelists at NAIOP’s CRE.Converge this week illustrated those contrasting outcomes in a session moderated by Jill Didier, vice president of business development of Miron Construction Co – and also the former mayor of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a community west of Milwaukee.

Her varied background is fitting for the topic at a time of rising complexity in land development, new regulations, fewer municipal employees, and the COVID-19 pandemic combining to create longer delays in permit and entitlements processes; it’s vital to understand the development process from myriad vantage points. Someone who can put themselves in others’ shoes is that much more likely to have a smoother path to seeing developments take shape and bolster the region’s economic well-being.

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Originally published on October 24, 2022, by Konrad Putzier for The Wall Street Journal.

Hybrid work schedules for most companies mean splitting time between remote work and time in the office. For the startup Frontier Talent Inc., it also means rotating through the same office space with another company.

Frontier employees head to their San Francisco office on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. After two of those days, they pack their laptops, clean up their desks and throw away any trash so their work area will be clean when another company moves in for its turn using the space.

Originally published on October 19, 2022, for Business Insider.

As the US emerged from the Great Recession, cheap real estate and the rise of e-commerce collided to create a warehousing boom.

As Amazon and others began building million-square-foot distribution centers, construction skyrocketed. Since 2011, over 2.3 billion square feet of new warehouse space has come to market — enough room to comfortably stuff 3 ½ Manhattans inside.

Past industrial booms created coal countries, steel cities, and oil towns. Now warehouse boomtowns shoot up in places like California's Inland Empire, Pennsylvania's Lehigh County, and Columbus, Ohio, and the number of warehouse workers has nearly tripled in a decade.

Originally published on October 18, 2022, by NAIOP.

The NAIOP CRE Sentiment Index for September 2022 is 47, down from April’s reading of 53. It is at its lowest level since September 2020. This reading suggests that respondents expect unfavorable conditions for commercial real estate over the next 12 months. 

Key Takeaways:

• Respondents expect higher interest rates, higher cap rates, and a decrease in the supply of equity and debt over the next year.
• Their outlook for occupancy rates, face rents, and effective rents are also less optimistic, though they still expect rents to grow.
• Respondents also expect a sharp deterioration in general industry conditions over the next 12 months.
• The only positive development in the September survey is that respondents expect a slower pace of construction cost inflation over the next year.
• Despite a more pessimistic outlook for development conditions, developers plan to maintain recent deal volume over the coming year.
• Most respondents expect to be most active in projects or transactions related to industrial properties over the next year.

View Full Report

Originally published on October 12, 2022, by Matt Baron for NAIOP.

Midway into a panel discussion at CRE.Converge, a quip about the Federal Reserve behaving like a novice teenaged driver – “way too much gas, way too much brake, way too much gas” – drew laughter from many attending the jampacked session. But palpable nervousness tinged those chuckles at the metaphor by moderator Bart Johnson, president, and CRE market head, of Wintrust Bank.

Questions over the duration and extent of rising interest rates have slowed overall market activity. And no one on the panel predicted relief from the ongoing suspense any time soon.

In fact, the first perspective offered by Peter Schultz, a 39-year industry veteran who is executive vice president – of East region, First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc., was that “rates are going to rise, there’s going to be more pressure for sure. I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon.”

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Originally published on October 12, 2022, by Ian P. Murphy for NAIOP.

Pressure to satisfy environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals among companies in the commercial real estate sector has intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to panelists at CRE.Converge.

External pressure is building as local governments establish environmental benchmarking ordinances. But even where regulatory demands and tenant awareness are lacking, boards and investors are asking their firms to do more. “A lot of it is internal,” said Leslie Moore, senior vice president and director of ESG and corporate operations for LXP Industrial Trust. “Certain investors really push for it.”

“We don’t have a lot of pressure from our tenants to adopt sustainability as much as I’ve seen in the office sector,” said Rielle Green, director of ESG for Acadia Realty Trust, a retail REIT. “That’s coming from our investors and board. They ask, ‘What is our strategy? Are we in line with our peers?’”

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