A new corporate headquarters was recently completed near our place. It’s sleek, well-designed and sends the right message. When talking to one of their leads, I asked why they chose Gensler for the design. The answer: “They make things painful in the beginning, drilling hard on the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ before they ever get around to what …
The image you see here is one of our recent projects in the southeast. Interestingly, we constructed this building a few years ago and were called back in 2018 in the innovation mode. We’re seeing a number of shifts, and in the process, “innovation” has become a keyword for the companies who are turning the battleship, whether by lowering cost, …
There was a time when pigs did fly. Each year in December, I would look forward to my mother taking me to ride “The Pink Pig” at the downtown Atlanta department store of Mr. and Mrs. Rich (Rich’s). It’s an iconic holiday memory, and one that always endeared me to the now out-of-business retailer. As an …
This week, I participated in an FMI construction conference in Denver, with the goal of discussing the construction outlook for 2018. A major item, not surprisingly, was the increasing shortage of labor and new talent in construction. The problem is likely a combination of after-burn from all those leaving the industry during the financial crisis, baby boomers retiring and no …
This morning, I was on the phone with one of our service providers. There was a question about our account that required me to speak with a representative…And after hearing at least three other conversations in the background as we talked, I’m confident he was sitting in the open office environment that’s become a standard in certain places. For …
Yesterday, one of our customers stopped by to talk about a new mixed use development that we will start end of the 1st quarter–retail, apartments and condominiums. “You may have the curse of being an engineer,” I told him. When he gave me a puzzled look, I explained that a lot of our customers are …
A portion of the ULI 2018 Look Ahead keyed in on retail. Their commentary may best be summarized, “Retail isn’t dead, it’s just changing. Give it some time to adjust.” In 2016, total retail sales approached $5 trillion, broken down: $4.3 trillion from traditional, or maybe not so traditional, bricks and mortar transactions $.5 trillion …
This week I attended our annual ULI Chapter meeting here, where Anita Kramer of ULI’s Washington headquarters presented ULI’s “Emerging Trends in Real estate 2018,” a real estate lookahead produced jointly with PWC. They interview several thousand in the industry, gathering thoughts and opinions combined with data from the field. A few summary takeaways: The “What inning are we …
A couple of weeks ago, I had dinner with David Baker, one of the leading Bay Area architects. Over the years, his firm has designed a number of award-winning projects, but after my visit with David, it seems his passion is multifamily urban projects. He has designed everything from lofts, to market rate and affordable housing, to micro units and senior housing. …
We are in the early stages of a parking structure design for a new project which also includes a storm water management system below the deck. While a number of storm water management systems exist in the market, our design is part of the parking deck and fairly simple compared to most. It features precast …
Many times, prime real estate sits undeveloped because it’s a tough build. Florida is famous for this problem, because of the high concentration of organic matter in their sandy soil. Recently, when a customer came to us, we spent a fair amount of time figuring out how the buildings and parking area would carry the …
It seems the idea of “just right” office space is always evolving. When we designed our office, we carefully weighed the benefits of open space, closed offices and everything in between. In the end, we landed on our own unique hybrid. I’m glad we steered away from a completely open office, as I’m now hearing …