the Editors of Commercial Property Executive
Strong D.C. Fundamentals Help Attract $104M Office Financing
Washington, D.C., is feeling the effects of the economic slump, but the area office market remains attractive enough to help reel in lenders willing to part with the big bucks. Perseus Realty L.L.C., with the assistance of affiliate Perseus Realty Capital L.L.C., has obtained $103.5 million in financing for its 309,500-square-foot Class A office property at 1110 Vermont Ave. N.W. in D.C.’s Central Business District.Developed in 1980, 1110 Vermont (pictured) is a 12-story structure featuring approximately 20,000 square feet of ground-level retail space and a two-level parking facility. Perseus had owned a 5 percent stake in the property until 2005,…
Economic Update – Spooked by Economy, Consumers Consume Less
The U.S. Department of Commerce reported that retail sales dropped by 0.4 percent in April, compared with the previous month. The decline was a little more than expected, but less than the revised March drop of 1.3 percent. The recent two months of decline followed unexpected increases in consumer spending in January and February. Gasoline sales, which sagged 2.3 percent in April as gas prices rose somewhat (and reminded drivers of the gas-price bubble of last summer), accounted for a fair chunk of the total decline. But for gas sales, the overall decline in retail sales would have been 0.2…
Timing, Tenancy May Be Key for Proposed WTC Hotel
With the recession suppressing the need for office space in New York City, planners at the World Trade Center site could be calling an audible. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is now looking at building a luxury hotel and residential building to replace one of the planned office towers. According to a report in the New York Post, the hotel and residential tower would be built at the site of the Deutsche Bank. The plan for that site was to sell it to JP Morgan Chase, which planned to build a new tower, complete with trading…
Philadelphia: Soon to be America’s Greenest City?
If Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter meets his goal, the City of Brotherly Love could soon be called the City of Sustainability instead. He plans to make the nation’s first capital the greenest city in America. And he has set out 15 targets to achieve that goal by 2015, before his term is up. The plan is practical, too. “This is not an environmental plan; this is an economic plan,” said Mark Alan Hughes (pictured), director of the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and a senior advisor in his cabinet, speaking as the opening keynote at CPN’s inaugural Hidden Opportunities conference in…
Voice as a Telecom Tool
A: What are the pros and cons of going with VOIP as my company’s main telecommunications set-up?B: Here’s why you might want to switch to VOIP:• The cost of VOIP calls is significantly lower than use of traditional telecommunications. Many providers offer a flat rate and unlimited calls within the continental United States. Some include flat-rate charges to selected countries as well.• If you have staff that travel extensively overseas or are opening a branch office, many providers will let you ship a pre-configured handset to other countries. All they have to do is plug it into a network with…
Business First Aid
Having a data recovery and business continuity plan ready for activation following a disruptive event—localized building fires and floods as well as widespread disasters—can minimize down time and allow companies to collect rent, execute leases and perform other essential functions virtually uninterrupted.Real estate companies wishing to shield their databases from the most crippling effects of a disaster have a couple of options: They can host their critical operating data themselves, which means acquiring and maintaining the necessary IT, network security, and disaster recovery infrastructure. Or they can spare themselves this burden and concentrate on their core real estate business by…
Upgrades for Easier Contract Management
On April 30, the AIA released an updated version of AIA Contract Documents® software, making it better and easier to use. Guided by extensive input from hundreds of contractor, owner, architect and attorney users of AIA Contract Documents, the updated software saves time and money by offering easier project and document management and document completion. Users can now view, edit, share and manage documents using one tool and easily populate and edit contract documents using a pop-up dialog box. In addition, new Microsoft Excel® capabilities allow for quick editing and calculations, and one-click custom template creation helps users save edits…
Economic Stimulus & Data Center Construction
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, as it is technically titled, has allocated roughly $19 billion for the deployment of electronic medical records. What exactly does that mean?Today, at most family practices and hospitals, the vast majority of medical records are a combination of paper and film. A patient’s health history and images from X-rays, CT scans and the like are stored in coded folders in a medical records storage room.That won’t be the case much longer.We are at the beginning of a paradigm shift to all-digital storage of patient medical records. A handful of institutions have taken…
An Integrated Approach
Today’s commercial real estate market presents an extraordinary challenge but also an excellent opportunity for firms large and small to increase market share. Using an integrated marketing approach to communications will boost your firm’s visibility with buyers and sellers who will once again become active. And it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to be successful. Integrated marketing communications is a process designed to assure that brand information received by customers and prospects for a product or service are relevant and consistent over time. It involves using online and offline marketing tools. Online marketing tools include e-marketing campaigns such…
As Mortgage Pool Shrinks, Lender Turns to LoanMarq for Leg Up
With the mortgage industry still in a state of tumult, lenders and investors are on the lookout for new and innovative methods to increase profits and make every aspect of the mortgage process run as smoothly as possible. Such was the goal of Mortgage Solutions, a Knoxville, Tenn.-based lender, when the firm turned to Sthenia Solutions and its LoanMarq software program. LoanMarq is a complete loan processing and customer service application that allows all parties in a mortgage loan transaction to communicate and collaborate in a Web-based community interface modeled after popular social networking systems like Facebook and MySpace….