A New York-based, tech-oriented brokerage firm is entering the Metro Atlanta market through the acquisition of a 6-year-old office leasing firm headed by entrepreneur Patrick Braswell. 
The transition to SquareFoot also consummates a relationship between Braswell and SquareFoot co-founder and CEO Jonathan Wasserstrum that started more than a decade ago, when Braswell was running the proptech firm Ten Eight, another company that aimed to digitize the commercial real…  Read the full story here. | | |
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RLJ Lodging Trust Buying Midtown Hotel For $58M  RLJ Lodging Trust is under contract to buy one of Midtown Atlanta's newest hotel towers.The Bethesda, Maryland-based hotel REIT has agreed to purchase the 186-room Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Midtown at 1231 West Peachtree St.…  Read the full story here. | | |
Beyond Zoom: Can Virtual Reality And Hologram Tech Reinvigorate Remote Work? | During its annual I/O event in May, Alphabet Inc.’s Google showed off Starline, a high-tech video chat system that brings depth and lifelike reality to on-screen conversations. Other tech giants have similar ideas: WeWork has begun rolling out a hologram chat system in select New York, Los Angeles and Miami locations, while Microsoft has launched Microsoft Mesh, a smart glass-compatible means of showcasing 3D images of people during a conversation. These different spins on the sci-fi premise of speaking to holograms at the office share a few things in common, namely a desire by Big Tech to make videoconferencing better and iron out the kinks in personal communication in newly remote and hybrid offices. Gartner research predicts by 2023, more than 40% of workers will work remotely at least one day a week, up from less than 30% before the coronavirus pandemic. But communications specialists and business analysts suggest that while new tools would be welcomed by workers, they may not be ready for prime time. Starline, for instance, currently requires an expensive tech setup and is only operational at select Google offices, with reports of small trials taking place at certain media firms. “It’s an amazing technology that appears to offer a close approximation to the in-person experience and addresses one of the major problems with current virtual video solutions, the issue with eye contact,” said Karin Reed, founder of Speaker Dynamics and co-author of the book Suddenly Virtual: Making Remote Meetings Work. “Unfortunately, this technology requires highly specialized equipment that won’t be available, let alone be adopted by the masses, for some time.” Read the full story here. | |  | | |
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On My Own: Growing Biotech Firms Making The Costly, Risky Move Into Dedicated Labs |  | | Boston-based Affinivax, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, had been working on a novel type of vaccine technology well before any mention of Covid and lockdown entered the lexicon last year. So it’s not surprising that on the heels of the company's own advances in developing a unique platform for vaccines and the big boost in the sector due to Covid and mRNA tech, it would start looking for a new home. The step is a common, and challenging, one for developing firms like Affinivax. With financial responsibilities pushing a rapid timeline that forces companies to be more specific than ever with the design and operations of their new workspace, they must really consider long-term corporate strategy. “These firms need to be able to make a commitment to a space quickly and get into the space quickly,” said TRIA Director of Integrated Design Edwin Hargrave, whose team spent a year designing the new Cambridge space for Affinivax in a 50K SF suite in Kendall Square, the center of the Boston region’s biotech world. “There’s a lot of pressure in that regard to be timely. It’s incredibly high pressure.” Read the full story here. | | |
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Origin Stories: Victor Body-Lawson On Embracing Design And The Earning Potential Of Development | Victor Body-Lawson, principal of New York-based Body Lawson Associates, is a man of many talents. Preeminently an architect and designer as the head of the firm he founded in 1993, Body-Lawson is also a developer, an educator on the faculty of Columbia University, and a painter of abstract art whose many works adorn common spaces in the buildings he has designed. A native of Nigeria, Body-Lawson came to the United States to pursue higher education, attending Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and studying architecture in graduate school at Columbia University. Enthusiastically advocating for collaborative design, arts integration and architectural education, Body-Lawson has largely specialized in affordable housing. Read the full story here. | |  | | |
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