The demand for sustainable retail properties is growing, demonstrated by an influx in applications at accreditation organizations, top tier rents, and high trade rates. According to Lux Research, green building is now a $260 billion market with retail as one of its most vigorous verticals. Green building certification programs such as LEED for Retail have witnessed an increase in applications. The “LEED in Motion: Retail” report states that more than 8,000 retailers worldwide participate in LEED and more than 1.2 million people experience a LEED-certified retail space on a daily basis. Participating companies include Target, Kohls, Bank of America, and Starbucks, which recently celebrated its 500th LEED-certified store. The transition towards greener retail spaces corresponds with reports that retailers with LEED Gold certification or greater outperform their conventional neighbors. Studies by Nils Kok, Ph.D., executive director of the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) suggests that sustainable office buildings trade at a 13 percent premium over conventional buildings. Green office structures also receive rental rates that are at least three percent higher than their conventional counterparts. “We found that LEED-certified and Energy Star-rated office buildings financially outperform their non-green peers in terms of rental rates and occupancy rates,” says Kok. For new developments, state and federal programs offer subsidies and other incentives to green retailers, helping to raise such projects’ internal rates of return by as much as six percent in less than 15 years. While there are certainly owners who pay top dollar for green retail spaces because they prioritize the environment, financial and social pressure are contributing factors behind the growth in sustainable retail popularity. Publicly-traded REITs face pressure from investors to achieve optimal energy efficiency in order to reduce operating costs and increase returns. Pressures come on a larger scale as well. An...

John Crossman has taken a career in commercial real estate to exceptionally contributive heights. Not content to focus solely on the success of the company he helms, the 42-year-old Floridian takes the time to speak to college students, volunteer and fundraise for non-profit and social justice causes, and all the while maintaining a focus on faith and family. In one of the online videos in which he is featured, Crossman explains his philosophy: “Some people have a perspective that if you’re a leader, you’re a king. You put a crown on, and people serve you. I remind myself that in my leadership, I’m a servant. Staying focused on serving my clients and serving my employees, serving the industry and serving Florida State, that’s my lot in life.” It sounds like a full plate, but Crossman has an impressive legacy to maintain. His father, the late Rev. Kenneth C. Crossman, was a Civil Rights leader influenced by Martin Luther King Jr. Growing up in a home where education and service were strong values was a major influence on Crossman, who has brought those principled practices into his real estate business. “There are lots of reasons to do it, but I feel morally obligated. If we weren’t helping out in the area of education within our industry, we’d really be doing something wrong,” he said in a recent interview. Yardi client Crossman & Company, co-owned by John and Scott Crossman, is a major retail leasing, management, development, and marketing firm in the Southeast, with over 20 million square feet of inventory in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. Since leaving Trammell Crow in 2006 to partner with Scott, Crossman has focused much energy on educating the real estate leaders, both of the present...

As more of the 80 million-member Millennial generation enters the workforce, these so-called Gen Y-ers, age 18 to 35, are on everybody’s minds these days as one of the largest—and most fickle—groups to influence housing, shopping and the workplace. Financially strong and responsible, they nonetheless like to shop, prefer convenient housing over expansive, and while they are not yet the company decision makers, they certainly represent a growing proportion of the workforce—with a work style that is sometimes at polar opposites to their parents, the giant Baby Boomer generation. The Urban Land Institute followed up last year’s study of Gen Y housing preferences with a new analysis of their retail habits, released during the Spring Meeting, which took place in San Diego in mid-May. The study identified a strong group, with even a good percentage of those in their 20s financially independent and earning a comfortable living. Sixty-five percent of the 1,251 respondents to the survey said they do not receive financial help from their parents, with 41 percent working full time and fully 46 percent achieving household income of $50,000 or more per year. Thirty-two percent own their own home (predominantly those in their 30s). They carry an average of $22,000 in student debt, but four of five said they don’t use credit cards and 27 percent pay their credit card bills in full every month. Interestingly, while a large proportion live in or near cities, their orientation and long-term plan may be otherwise. Just 14 percent live in or near downtowns, but another 34 percent live in city neighborhoods outside the downtowns (think Brooklyn in New York City or Buckhead in Atlanta), while 13 percent live in dense older suburbs and 11 percent in newer, outlying suburbs; 19 percent in small cities...

Here’s a trivia question for you: Without cheating and looking at your smartphone, can you name the top ten tallest buildings in the world? And for bonus points: do you know that one of the planet’s highest skyscrapers has a Yardi connection? Until not too long ago, the world’s tallest skyscraper, was the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. For six years, between 1998 and 2004, Petronas’ sky-scraping spires were the highest on record. Since then, a number of buildings have surpassed it. Here’s the top ten list of tallest buildings as recorded by Wikipedia: 1 Burj Khalifa Dubai  UAE 828 m 2,717 ft 2010 2 Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel Mecca  Saudi Arabia 601 m 1,971 ft 2012 3 One World Trade Center New York City  USA 541 m 1,776 ft 2013 4 Taipei 101 Taipei  Taiwan 509 m 1,670 ft 2004 5 Shanghai World Financial Center Shanghai  China 492 m 1,614 ft 2008 6 International Commerce Centre Hong Kong  Hong Kong 484 m 1,588 ft 2010 7 Petronas Tower 1 Kuala Lumpur  Malaysia 452 m 1,483 ft 1998 7 Petronas Tower 2 Kuala Lumpur  Malaysia 452 m 1,483 ft 1998 9 Zifeng Tower Nanjing  China 450 m 1,476 ft 2010 10 Willis Tower (Formerly Sears Tower) Chicago  USA 442 m 1,450 ft 1973   Its one-time status as the tallest is one of many interesting facts about the Petronas Towers. Here are a few more from PBS.org: The Petronas Towers are constructed of 36,910 tons of steel Even if you have never visited Malaysia, you may have seen the towers featured in the film Entrapment, which came out in 1999, just one year after construction was completed A high-speed elevator takes you from the basement to the top of either tower – 88 stories – in just 90 seconds A full round of window washing of the 16,000 windows on each tower...

Today’s retail market is something of a “living” sector, seemingly in a state of constant change as manufacturers and retailers learn to harness ever-advancing technology to attract and retain customers. Over the years, advancements have led to a variety of concerns, some of them significant: The growing popularity of online shopping has at various times fanned real estate owners’ fears that demand for bricks and mortar would wane. Retailers have feared a loss of turf to e-tailers, in particular Amazon and other mega-players. Consumers have feared invasion of privacy as their preferences are recorded and targeted in minute detail. All are valid concerns. But like any advancement, over time technology has also brought brand awareness, better customer service, greater convenience—even a competitive edge. And the refinements keep coming. As the speed of e-commerce increases, the types of technology needed to meet higher expectations grows ever more complex. Same-day delivery of consumer and business goods is one new wrinkle. Once limited to local delivery in big cities (Barnes & Noble has long offered the service in New York City, for instance), this trend promises to spread in the not-so-distant future. But with volume and distance come complications: Extending the reach and volume of same-day service demands new types of machinery and new sorting capabilities—and that presents a challenge not just for the machine manufacturers and logistics providers but for the property owners, as well. In fact, the new machinery requires a variety of changes in space: more complex internal layouts and technical capabilities to accommodate the machinery; larger mezzanine areas with higher clearance for packaging and other back-office tasks; greater life-system components ranging from lighting to HVAC to parking to fire protection because of an increased employee presence. The warehouses, though necessarily more locally based...

Joanne Massey is the controller for Sundance Square, the renowned Fort Worth property management firm owned by the Bass family that controls 35 city blocks of the city’s downtown core, including numerous historic buildings, and is considered one of America’s most successful urban revitalization efforts.  But her interest in cool stuff from the past doesn’t end when she leaves the office. In her free time, Joanne and her husband Robert enjoy shooting vintage lever action guns – “the kind that cowboys used to shoot” – in Cowboy Silhouette competitions. She’s reached the AAA level in many of the competition categories, which is no surprise when you learn that she’s a former national-caliber archery athlete. She got into Cowboy Silhouette after reconnecting with her husband, a college sweetheart whom she married four years ago. He was attending competitive rifle and shotgun events, so she tagged along. The Omaha native is also an avid golfer who hits the course several times a month. “I won’t go and just sit, that’s too boring,” she told us. While attending college at Texas Christian University, she was the top female collegiate archer in the state of Texas, and ranked in the top 10 nationally. Though the U.S. team selection process for the 1980 Olympic Games didn’t go in her favor, she has fond memories of her archery days. Joanne is also right on target with her career at Sundance Square, where she rose up through the Bass corporate accounting office to head up the accounting team for Sundance and oversee numerous major software transitions. Her team initially ran two high-rise office towers, then merged with another Bass-owned operation to form Sundance Square that oversees all of the downtown properties. She loves her job. “Being in a property management office,...

Lucy Billingsley’s distinguished career in real estate development ranks her among the nation’s leading female industry executives.  In the fourth decade of her career, she maintains great passion for the next project to command her attention. “My favorite deal is always the next one,” she told us during a recent interview. Billingsley Company, the Dallas-based company with land, office space, industrial, retail, single-family, multi-family, mixed-use and master-planned developments that she and her husband Henry founded in 1978, is flourishing. New phases of 10,000 unit master-planned rental communities The Neighborhoods of Austin Ranch and Cypress Waters are currently underway, and Billingsley is excited about changing the face of the multifamily experience. The company is also expanding its office and industrial holdings. Billingsley also devotes much of her time and energy to charitable work, and her philanthropy has included The Chiapas Project, Grameen Foundation USA, Women for Women International, National Geographic Society Council of Advisors, World Affairs Council (Dallas), Brain and Creativity Institute at USC, Council of Foreign Relations, The Hockaday School, and The Hunter and Stephanie Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity Advisory Board. In a short conversation, she filled us in on few views of the current marketplace, how she chooses philanthropic causes, and the lessons that her father, famed developer Trammel Crow, imparted to her. TBS: It’s been a challenging climate for real estate sales, investment and development over the last several years, although Texas come through the down economy very strongly. What do you see as the most pivotal focal points for property executives as the financial climate nationally continues to improve? LB: I think the multifamily world is a world that has made a significant and permanent shift in its role in America today – the shift is because the American...