Commercial Property Executive is looking for nominations for its second annual Tops in Technology Awards. The ballot will recognize the leading technology product and service providers assisting the commercial real estate industry, with winners in a variety of categories. The number of categories will depend on the nomination process, though, so be sure to enter your favorite technology providers for consideration! The deadline for nominations is Feb. 19. Then be sure to return to vote on the ballot! As Published Dan Waldman wrote in the announcement of the inaugural awards: “These companies stand out for their ability to provide flexible customization, competitive pricing and the most innovative solutions, all backed by superior customer support. In this fast-paced, competitive business, your technology choices are critical to efficient operations, ensuring satisfied tenants, successful projects and completed transactions. Whether it be marketing your properties with an attractive and informational Web site, streamlining a lease signing or creating convenience by automating billing and payment systems, technology continues to make life easier and less costly for everyone involved. As technologies for our industry proliferate and evolve to meet our constantly changing needs, the playing field continues to attract more contestants. The companies here are the ones that have been rated highest by our readers, so please keep this list as your reference.” Find the 2013 Tops in Technology winners on page 21 of the April 2013 edition of...

Commercial Property Executive is now accepting submissions for the 2014 Distinguished Achievement Awards. The awards program, now in its fourth year, recognizes the commercial real estate industry’s most noteworthy properties and transactions. The winners will be selected by a panel of judges representing expertise across commercial real estate disciplines. Finalists will be announced in June on CPExecutive.com, and winners will be published in the July issue of Commercial Property Executive. (Read about last year’s winners, profiled in the July 2013 issue.) The entry deadline is March 29, 2014. To view the submission entry forms, select from the categories below: Best Lease Best Sale: Single Property Best Sale: Portfolio Best Financing Best Development/Redevelopment Most Effective Repositioning/Turnaround Plan Most Effective Property Management Program Most Innovative Corporate Strategy To submit payment and/or materials online log on to CPE‘s submission manager...

Jonathan Gray’s continued fast pace of acquisitions won him top honors in this year’s CPE Executive of the Year Awards. The Blackstone Group global head of real estate was selected as Executive of the Year for the third consecutive year. He was also named the 2013 Investor of the Year. Now in its 17th year, Commercial Property Executive’s annual executive awards program recognizes industry leaders—those who have demonstrated foresight, ingenuity, character, innovation and strategic thinking during the past year. The program is unique in that winners are determined by a peer vote among the leading commercial real estate executives that comprise the CPE 100 executive board. “The awards program has long been respected among executives because of the peer vote,” noted CPE editorial director Suzann Silverman. “It reveals who the commercial real estate industry’s top executives regard as setting an example for success and taking the industry to new levels.” Including 17 categories, the awards feature one Lifetime Achievement honoree but a first place and two honorable mention winners for each of the other categories. Investment seems to be top of mind today, as the two honorable mention awardees in the Investor of the Year category also were awarded in the Executive of the Year category—resulting in an essential clean sweep of the categories by Gray; Nicholas Schorsch, chairman & CEO of American Realty Capital; and Barry Sternlicht, chairman & CEO of Starwood Capital Group. Hines president & CEO Jeffrey Hines also received two first-place awards. Another repeat winner, he was named both the 2013 Developer of the Year and Office Property Executive of the Year. Last year, Hines won honorable mention in the Executive of the Year and Sustainability Executive of the Year categories. The other honorable mention winner to achieve two awards...

The concept of sustainable design is taking significant steps forward, according to one expert, but it still has a way to go. While efforts are expanding into the planning stages and incorporating operations and asset management as well, hard data evidence of results are still missing, affirms Tom Paladino, founder of consulting firm Paladino and Co. Without that data, most developers are treating new-construction efforts on a one-off basis rather than taking a more programmatic approach to sustainable construction. Certification programs are both proliferating and expanding, offering more options to put an official seal of approval on local materials, efficiency measures and other improvements. And research is picking up, too, for instance through the Greenprint Foundation, which is collecting data from a growing number of companies to track carbon emissions, with some very lofty goals for the industry at large. But those efforts are focused on cleaning up the environment, Paladino notes, who was instrumental in developing the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification program, directed its pilot program and has been technical editor and author of the version 4 reference guides. While environmental improvements are certainly a worthwhile pursuit, nobody is really studying property performance to determine the best business results. For instance, while the industry can measure a leasable area, opinions differ on specifics that combine to create a daylit building that contributes to productivity gain—let alone can they precisely measure what that productivity gain is. The result is that only a few developers are approaching application of sustainable design in multiple projects systematically, with business performance goals in mind. Expansion of the sustainability team might help further those tracking efforts. While there are 200,000 LEED APs out in the market now, there are few other types...