News
TALK GREEN AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE
March 31, 2010
| Sustainability and its savings (of both the earth and cash) controlled the lectern Tuesday at CityPlace Conference Center during the ULI North Texas Sustainability Symposium. | |||
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| We don't have to tell you the new buzz is energy management modeling and operations accountability. (But Ernst & Young's Judy Barth Bowles does because she was asked to speak.) "Our engineering side holds a landlord accountable," she says. “We have quality landlords who are interested in sustainability and we give them the push." As younger employees enter the CRE workforce, some antiquated processes are being re-examined and the traditional mentor/mentee relationship is often being reversed, she adds. | |||
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| We thought Matthews Southwest prez Jack Matthews was just being zen-like when he said, “The greenest building is one you don’t have to build,” until we heard that MSW actually recently turned a vintage 1913 Sears Roebuck & Co. Catalogue Merchandise Center into the 1M SF South Side on Lamar mixed-use project with high-rise residential lofts, office, and retail. As the lead developer on the 1k-guest room Omni Dallas Convention Center Hotel (opening 2011), he says everything down to the laundry practices are examined for the best green practices. | |||
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| UTA prof Michael Buckley moderated the panel of JLL’s Energy and Sustainability Services chairman Dan Probst, RaceTrac Petroleum's Shoanna Woodham, plus Judy and Jack. Shoanna says the least expensive sustainability option for RaceTrac is retrofitting. With smaller locations of about 5k SF each, buying in bulk and bundling about 10 sites in a deal maximizes the economy of scale. She also follows chains like Walmart to see how they’re applying green practices that might work for RaceTrac. | |||
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| Ernst & Young employees benefit from a neat option that works like a brokerage house. Instead of having a dedicated work space, when Judy plans to be in an area for a few days, she'll go into the company’s reserve system and book an office. With a few keystrokes, she even has her phone number ringing there. A mobile work force drives down the square footage per person, so the firm’s portfolio went from 8M SF to 6.1M SF for the Americas, she says. | |||
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| Channeling Yogi Berra, Michael says "Prediction is very hard, especially when it’s about the future." He (Michael, not Yogi) says business consolidation and mergers from manufacturers to banks to retail are driving transition. In retail, 2% of companies control 50% of all assets, and Michael notes retail is overbuilt, overstocked and overspecialized. Malls are losing anchor stores to mergers, and community centers are losing grocery anchors for the same reason. He calls banking the “incredible shrinking” sector. | |||
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| Immigration will drive the 21st century growth, Michael says. The National Academy of Sciences forecasts that immigrants will account for 2/3 of the projected population growth in this century, which is projected to increase from 263M in 1995 to 387M in 2050. Immigrants and their descendants will account for 80M of this increase, he says. His edict: Pay attention to the Hispanic voice. |
