News
CHA-CHA-CHA-CORENET
April 14, 2011
| Corporations continue to bleed costs by cutting real estate expenses, but at least many corporate real estate execs are now sitting at the table with the c-suite. | |||
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| That's the observation from our pow wow with Angela Cain, CEO of CoreNet Global, an organization made up of corporate real estate executives at non-CRE industry companies. ?There continues to be pressure on the CRE exec to drive down costs,? says Angela, whom we snapped during our interview in her 15th floor office at 260 Peachtree. ?But what we're starting to see more and more is that emphasis on helping productivity.? And in doing so, many CRE execs are now getting more involved with HR and IT to help design workspaces more efficiently. | |||
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| It's been a year since Angela took over as head of the 7,000-member organization (up from 6,200 at the depth of the Great Recession). And during that time, she has ushered CoreNet into anew HQ space—one that reflects more of the trends the membership is seeing in workplace design. This summer, CoreNet will move to the Georgia Pacific building (we grabbed this shot of it from the street in front of its current building). It practices all the design elements it's promoted—open floor plans, collaborative work environments. CoreNet is actually reducing its space usage from the current 12k SF to less than 10k SF in a seven-year lease, Angela says. ?It's time to practice what we preach.? | |||
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| Corenet IT director David Mercurio is better known as the "Energizer" because his mind is like a car battery—it recharges when it runs. These fun titles are scattered all through the office. Angela says it's a way to make everyone more approachable. For the organization, she's pushing more ?transformative? research products and studies as well as being more aggressive with media communications (though we Sure weren't cOerced into writing thiS). It's also pushing growth internationally. CoreNet already has more than 40 chapters around the globe. It's opening one in France this summer and plans to hold a global summit in Paris this fall. And, of course, Atlanta will be host to a summit event this November at the World Congress Center. | |||
