Corporate real estate executives with activity in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul, MN market, take note: another seasoned advisory professional is joining the independent botique club.  Jeffrey LaFavre, who was Managing Principal of the Twin Cities Colliers affiliate until June 2009, has launched Integrust Advisory Group, to assist corporate and institutional clients with site selection, strategic real estate planning, development, and traditional brokerage services, according to Finance and Commerce. (more…)

Planon, a global provider of enterprise real estate and facilities software, today unveiled Planon Green Intelligence for Facilities, its new solution that gives facility and real estate executives everything they need to measure, monitor, and most importantly, act upon, collected property and asset data resulting in significant cost savings and the achievement of corporate sustainability goals.

Facility and Corporate Real Estate executives today are focused on (more…)

On January 22, 2009, CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino broke the story that Merrill Lynch spent $1.2 million in office renovations and decor for John Thain’s executive suite.  The news shocked corporate governance hawks and everyday Americans.  But for savvy corporate real estate professionals, the profligacy is amplified by understanding the modest scope-of-work and complete lack of project controls, both evidenced by the ML internal documents obtained by CNBC.

Among the plain excesses are: (more…)

Crain’s Chicago Business provided a good report yesterday on the emancipation (as it should be described) of exclusive tenant representation firm Howard Ecker + Company.  Mr. Ecker has been around the block, as they say.  He first established his own brokerage firm in 1975, after punching his ticket at Studley, Cushman & Wakefield, and Rubloff (residential brokerage).  In 1995 he merged with Jupiter Realty Corp, and led their tenant rep division until a year ago.  But these days Ecker has been busy reconstituting his own firm, hiring 20 employees, and planting flags in New York, Miami, Detroit and Charleston, S.C. (more…)

Continuing the theme of negative absorption, CRE-Insights noticed that Sunday’s New York Times featured an article on 1095 Avenue of the Americas in New York City, located on Bryant Park just across the street from the new Bank of America Tower.  It seems that while most of the building is officially “under lease”, the committed tenants are drastically reducing their space needs and therefore seeking to unload the excess via sublease or landlord buy-outs.  With committed “face rents” reported up to $130-150/RSF, and current market rates below $100, a few corporate real estate managers will be hurting, while those prepared to lease/sublease can do well. (more…)