{"id":1004737192,"date":"2024-11-14T04:41:50","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T12:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/?p=1004737192"},"modified":"2024-11-19T07:27:59","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T15:27:59","slug":"cretech-special-report-industry-leaders-talk-brass-tacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/cretech-special-report-industry-leaders-talk-brass-tacks\/","title":{"rendered":"CREtech Special Report: Industry Leaders Talk Brass Tacks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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\"Some<\/a>
Frank Cuevas of McKesson, John Bullen of Comcast, Salesforce’s Elaine Schultz, Interpublic’s Gerry Lifrieri, and Laurie Rothenberg at Pfizer in conversation with Emily Wright, CREtech’s head of content. Photo by Gabriel Frank<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

On the first day of CREtech New York 2024, discussions around specific uses of ever-more sophisticated proptech took a back seat to the larger employee retention, revenue generation and sustainability goals of some of the industry\u2019s top owners, operators and tenants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new flight to quality<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the conference\u2019s first panel discussion, a group of real estate directors at Fortune 500 companies shared what they are looking for the most in their office spaces and tech stacks, at a deeply uncertain time<\/a> for the sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the flight to quality has long been associated with the shiniest amenities, some tenants now put physical and mental wellness, location, leasing term flexibility<\/a> and operator sustainability commitments above a fitness center or ground-floor retail space. “I don\u2019t consider it to be a flight to quality. It\u2019s an expansion of the definition of quality,\u201d said Laurie Rothenberg, global real estate & workplace strategy lead counsel at Pfizer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank Cuevas, vice president of global real estate at McKesson, sees this as especially applying to opportunities for interpersonal collaboration at the office. \u201cThe biggest amenity is seeing other people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Applying these principles to building designs and technology adoptions is more difficult. \u201cWe\u2019re in such a unique time where real estate has changed more in five years than it has in the last five decades, and people don\u2019t know what they want,\u201d said Cuevas. \u201cEmployees want to be at home, yet they want better technology. They want spaces that are quiet, and (also) spaces that are vibrant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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READ ALSO:<\/strong> Growth in Office Tenant Costs Moderates<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If there\u2019s one thing that tenants universally want, however, it\u2019s spaces that bolster physical and mental wellbeing. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the building; is there access to fresh air and open spaces?\u201d asked Elaine Schultz, vice president of workplace services Americas at Salesforce. \u201cIs this where you are going to put your innovation center and top customers?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another area that captures Cuevas\u2019 sentiments is lease terms. Now, companies such as Interpublic Group want shorter terms that have more opportunity for expanding or downsizing as they see fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In practice, applying the above principles to the design process leads to floorplans that resemble coworking<\/a> and residential spaces, with tenants preferring flexible desking options right next to bookable conference rooms. \u201cThis has always been important for Salesforce; we purposefully pick residential finishes, so it feels like you are not just inside an old-fashioned cubicle farm,\u201d Schultz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sustainability: from boiler room to boardroom<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/a>
BXP executives Colin Joynt, Hilary Spann, Jim Whalen and Ben Myers talk industry-leading sustainability with Measurabl co-founder & CEO Matt Ellis. Photo by Gabriel Frank<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

These more pragmatic views on office work also apply to tenants\u2019 and operators\u2019 \u00a0views on using technology for meeting their sustainability commitments. For their part, the tenants stressed using accurate measurement tools for energy expenditures and carbon emissions as being equally important to a landlord\u2019s commitment or a building\u2019s LEED certification. “It can have all the bells and whistles, but you need to get value out of it,\u201d Schultz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s not just a sentiment held by the tenants; it\u2019s being directly observed by both property owners and the proptech industry itself. \u201cIt\u2019s the tenant\u2019s action driving the occurrence of penalties, which are a direct hit to (a building\u2019s) NOI,\u201d said Jonathan Pearce, senior managing director of leasing at Hines. \u201cA lot of it is due to the total cost of occupancy, and it\u2019s not just about the rent; end users are massively focused on their carbon footprint as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a strategy is also embraced on the operator end. A panel of executives from BXP discussed the latest uses of technology for meeting the firm\u2019s sustainability commitments, some of the most aggressive in the industry. And the efforts are paying off. The firm\u2019s Manhattan properties are 91 percent leased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But commitments themselves are getting harder to make. \u201cIt\u2019s the hardest time to do public target setting because a lot of the low-hanging fruit has been picked,\u201d said Ben Myers, the firm\u2019s senior vice president of sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, decisions that BXP makes around using new technology for meeting sustainability commitments must have on-the-ground support from engineers and maintenance personnel, all the way up to the C-Suite; \u201cfrom the boiler room to the boardroom,\u201d as Myers put it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One leg up that the firm has is its vertical integration, and its creation of an in-house data collection and analysis platform. In one case, the company tightened and sealed an entire building\u2019s windows, but would still have HVAC energy expenditures that were exceeding its standards. In turn, the operational team monitoring the building\u2019s emissions on a 24\/7 basis led to the firm avoiding $3 million in additional costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t jump on the proptech bandwagon<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The executives see competent personnel and a willingness to experiment with new technologies<\/a> over simply adopting the latest proptech as the key to achieving sustainability goals. \u201cTake the technology, model it, and see what works; if you don\u2019t have the wherewithal to throw an idea on the table, nothing is ever going to move the needle,\u201d Myers advised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, there are some solutions that should be avoided outright. Data lakes can overcomplicate any attempts at monitoring and modeling energy efficiency, while AI is best used as an assistant to the goals of sustainability teams, and not an outright replacement for them. \u201cIf anyone tries to sell you a data lake right now, run from that solution,\u201d cautioned Jennifer Nuckles, CEO of R-Zero. \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating to the CRE owner when you have to deal with 26 different vendors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If possible, stakeholders would do well to develop their sustainability-oriented tech stacks in-house. \u201cWe like the idea of a walled garden, but you need something that is completely open source,\u201d Pearce said. \u201cCompanies that went big on those are finding that they have to rebuild.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reimagining the office sector and proptech’s more sophisticated role in sustainability dominated the first day of the conference. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3012,"featured_media":1004737195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21784,21808,23891,21742,21747,21787,51037],"tags":[52299,33372,52517,52514,52515,52516,33611],"class_list":["post-1004737192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brokerage","category-featured","category-national","category-latest","category-office","category-technology","category-trends","tag-bxp","tag-comcast","tag-cpdq","tag-mckesson","tag-pfizer","tag-r-zero","tag-salesforce"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCREtech Special Report: Industry Leaders Talk Brass Tacks - Commercial Property Executive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Reimagining the office sector and proptech's more sophisticated roles in sustainability dominated the first day of the conference.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/cretech-special-report-industry-leaders-talk-brass-tacks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CREtech Special Report: Industry Leaders Talk Brass Tacks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Reimagining the office sector and proptech's more sophisticated roles in sustainability dominated the first day of the conference.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/cretech-special-report-industry-leaders-talk-brass-tacks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Property Executive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CPExecutive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-11-14T12:41:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-11-19T15:27:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/11\/CRETechBXP-e1731588270680.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1443\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1081\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gabriel Frank\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cpexecutive\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cpexecutive\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/cretech-special-report-industry-leaders-talk-brass-tacks\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/cretech-special-report-industry-leaders-talk-brass-tacks\/\",\"name\":\"CREtech Special Report: Industry Leaders Talk Brass Tacks - 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