Schwarzenegger Office' $4.4m Boost To Solar Power Plant

september 22, 2010

Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide has announced that the California Energy Commission (CEC) has approved a low-interest loan for the amount of $4.4m under the state's Clean Energy Business Financing Program (CEBFP) for California-based manufacturers of solar products. The low-interest funds will go toward manufacturing equipment for the solar module facility in Irvine, CA, to implement a plant capacity of 45 megawatts annually.

Further to this award, the Californian office of Governor Schwarzenegger stated: "California's leadership in clean energy technology is supported by these manufacturers who are investing millions to develop and produce advanced energy products." The Governor added that, "I commend these innovative companies for the work they are doing in advancing clean energy technology and creating jobs for Californians."

The manufacturing facility, located in offices in Irvine, will replicate the proven equipment, processes and quality control measures employed at Quantum's affiliate Asola's state of the art 45 MW solar facility in Germany. The facility will build solar modules incorporating proprietary technologies and the best practices from Germany, the largest solar market in the world. Key materials including silicon solar cells are expected to be centrally purchased by Asola in Germany, from global sources to benefit from economies of scale, in line with the global strategic plan of Quantum and Asola. Quantum currently holds a 25% equity stake in Asola.

"I am thankful to Governor Schwarzenegger and the CEC for this award," said Alan P. Niedzwiecki, President and CEO of Quantum. "Manufacturing in California allows us to quickly introduce innovative products to support our business development efforts in a number of segments including automotive, residential, commercial and utility-scale solar energy projects."

New Californian Office Lab For Nano Tech

september 22, 2010

Shrink Nanotechnologies, a nanotechnology company based in California offices, has leased laboratory space (the "NanoShrink Lab") inside the TechPortal, an innovative and brand new technology facilitator centre for commercial bioscience research companies.

The firm develops products for the alternative energy industry, medical diagnostics and sensorswhich are in most cases based on University of California, Irvine research. It's new lab office in the new technology-business incubator is part of the Californian Institute for communications which is based across Irvine and San Diego.

"We believe that the best way to highlight these 'apps' is to open an office, and do the app development internally, alongside commercial users - once the product is launched - and to use an integrated web platform to actually show how the product can save innovators worldwide, time, money and at the same time give them increased performance and design flexibility. We will do this for NanoShrink as well as StemDisc. As Shrink gets ready to launch its first commercial products, NanoShrink and the StemDisc family of products, Shrink has decided to adopt a unique development and product marketing and distribution plan, especially for our NanoShrink product," stated Mark Baum, CEO of Shrink. "NanoShrink is a product that has so many applications, and our goal is to demonstrate (with robust and rich audio and video content) how we believe this product can make a difference -- in areas as diverse as printed electronics to microfluidics and diagnostics sensor prototyping.

"The NanoShrink Lab is a world class space located within UCI, a world class university. For a small company like Shrink to have access to 'downstream' resources as part of UCI's broader intellectual community of published researchers, leading bioscientists, businesspeople at the TechPortal and the amazing UCI people and facilities, not to mention our scientific founder -- this is nearly unprecedented for a public company such as ours. We are certainly pleased to be a part of the TechPortal and we look forward to using our time there to launch products and develop a new technology that adds value for our shareholders and which makes a difference in the lives of researchers and scientists who are searching for ways to make all of our lives healthier and more productive, the world over."

Solar Power Gets Extra Power From US Department Of Energy

september 22, 2010

A china office based solar technology firm has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for collaborative research and development activities related to silicon materials and photovoltaic devices. It continues a trend to revolutionise energy for office, commercial and residential purposes in Californian as a leading state in a new green drive.

LDK Solar, a leading manufacturer of multicrystalline solar wafers, said the objectives for the collaborative activities are the investigation of silicon feedstock related issues, development of standards for solar grade silicon and evaluation methods, and research on crystallization technologies and commercial implementation. The NREL is DOE's primary laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development.

"NREL is one of the world's leading PV research organizations and we are honored to partner with them," stated Xiaofeng Peng, Chairman and CEO of LDK Solar. "With common R&D goals and having previously collaborated informally with the NREL, we are pleased formalize our cooperation. We are proud of the continued work by our Technology Center which is dedicated to product and technology development while sustaining competitive advantages for LDK Solar."
"We look forward to working closely with LDK to accelerate research to bring more alternative energy solutions to the market," stated John Benner, manager of PV industry partnership at NCPV of NREL.

LDK Solar's headquarters and manufacturing facilities are located in Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province in the People's Republic of China. Is also has office in the United States is located in Sunnyvale, California.

12 New Offices Opened Across US For New Property Valuation Services

september 21, 2010

Californian office headquartered Grubb & Ellis Landauer launched its valuation advisory services with 12 new offices.

The move comes just three months after Grubb & Ellis Company announced its intent to launch a national valuation advisory business, which will ultimately grow to more than 350 appraisers with a presence in every key market throughout the United States. The business is fully operational and staffed with experienced appraisal professionals in offices in New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Orlando, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Texas, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orange County, Calif., and Seattle.

"We couldn't be more pleased to be launching Grubb & Ellis Landauer with a fully integrated platform," said Thomas P. D'Arcy, president and chief executive officer of Grubb & Ellis Company. "Doug and Ed have combined their unmatched expertise to create a business structured around valuation-related services, state-of-the-art technology and proprietary systems, and also have attracted experienced professionals who share our vision of building on the tradition and excellence of the Landauer brand."

Jack Van Berkel, president, Real Estate Services, said the launch of Grubb & Ellis Landauer provides another important service offering to clients who are looking for both comprehensive commercial real estate solutions and a trusted advisor in today's uncertain environment.

"The strength of any organization lies in its people, and while we've received considerable interest from experienced appraisers throughout the country, we are being extremely selective when it comes to staffing Landauer Valuation Advisory Services," said Haney. "With the significant changes taking place throughout the commercial real estate industry, and the impact those changes have had on property values, there is a critical need for best-in-class valuation advisory services. We see this as an opportunity to build a unique organisation -- one that can provide meaningful analyses and solutions to real estate owners and financial institutions. As with the other services provided by Grubb & Ellis, our objective is to provide clients with a competitive advantage as they look to solidify their real estate strategies."

Solar Power Company Goes Virtual Power

september 21, 2010

Westinghouse Solar, headquartered in California with offices in Ontario, Canada, has announced it is expanding distribution business into the largest solar market in the U.S. with a portable virtual office model.

To implement this distribution expansion, the company will exit its solar panel installation business in the state, focusing exclusively on its manufacturing and distribution business. This move will position the company to sell its award-winning Westinghouse Solar Power Systems directly to dealers in California for the first time.

"Expanding our channels to include authorized dealers in California will accelerate the growth of our distribution business," said Barry Cinnamon, chief executive officer of Westinghouse Solar. "California is the largest state in the country for solar products, accounting for approximately 50 percent of the U.S. market. Westinghouse Solar panels are safer, more powerful, more reliable and easier to install than other products on the market today. Our outreach to qualified solar installers in California begins immediately, making our panels available to more consumers in the state.

"As we transition to a distribution model in California and sign up new dealers, we will continue to focus on securing new distribution partnerships and adding dealers around the country," Cinnamon said.

Since launching its distribution business in the second quarter of 2009, the company has built a network of more than 100 dealers across the United States and Canada, including solar installers, HVAC contractors, electricians and roofers. It has also developed distribution partnerships with Lowe's Home Improvement Stores, Highland Solar in Canada and Lennox International, a global leader in residential and commercial HVAC equipment. Distribution revenue grew from $202,000 in the second quarter of 2009 to $2.2m in the second quarter of 2010, a ten-fold increase.

"Our transition last year to a more scalable distribution model in other parts of the country made it increasingly clear that we can reach sustainable profitability more quickly by focusing exclusively on our lower overhead manufacturing and distribution businesses," said Gary Effren, president of Westinghouse Solar.

US Company Rebounds From Losses To Credit Market

september 17, 2010

A major American insurance and asset management company has pulled in the reigns to rebound from losses in the US credit market.

MBIA reported net income available to common shareholders for the second quarter of 2010 was $1.3 billion, or $6.32 per share, compared with net income of $895 million, or $4.30 per share, in the second quarter of 2009.

MBIA, headquartered in Armonk offices, New York is a holding company whose subsidiaries provide financial guarantee insurance, fixed-income asset management. The company services its clients around the globe, with offices in Denver, San Francisco, Paris, London, Madrid, Mexico City and Sydney.

Pre-tax income was $2.0 billion in the second quarter, driven primarily by a $1.5 billion pre-tax unrealised gain on insured credit derivatives. The mark-to-market gain on insured credit derivatives resulted primarily from the impact of reduced market prices on recovery rate and credit default swap derivatives in the mark-to-market model.

"In the second quarter, we saw both our paid losses and new delinquencies on some of our insured exposures continue to decline," said MBIA president and chief financial officer Chuck Chaplin. "In addition, more market participants are recognizing that many of the loans in these securitizations should never have been in them in the first place, and that the seller/servicers must repurchase them. After the quarter's close, we reduced our exposure to multi-sector CDO-squareds by about 50 percent, and settled a small portion of outstanding putback receivables. The net incurred loss on insured exposures demonstrates that credit stress continues to be a reality, but the volatility of losses appears to be declining."

Boost To Electric Cars For New York Commuters

september 07, 2010

Workers commuting by car to offices in New York will have a boost if they use an electric car.

New York has joined other US cities including San Francisco, Austin and Detroit, as part of a nationwide push to add infrastructure for plug-in cars by installing its first public electric-vehicle charging station. According to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city now has 6,000 alternative fuel vehicles in its fleet of 26,000 vehicles.

Car Charging Group, headquartered in Miami offices has announced it has entered into a pilot agreement with Icon Parking Systems, the premier provider of parking services in Manhattan, to provide electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at select trial locations.

"This partnership lays the groundwork in Manhattan to support the national roll-out of electric automobiles on the way to dealer showrooms in late 2010 from manufacturers such as Tesla Motors, the Renault and Nissan alliance, General Motors, Ford and others," said Car Charging Group CEO Michael D. Farkas.
Car Charging Group plans to install charging stations for EVs which are manufactured by Coulomb Technologies (www.coulombtech.com), the industry leader in electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Through the aid of government tax incentives, subsidies, loan guarantees and grants, the stations make no charge to property owners to house them.
"By partnering with Car Charging Group, we are poised to meet the increased demand from electric car owners while simultaneously working towards transportation solutions that are more sensitive to the environment," said Paul Regan, Vice President of Operations, Icon Parking Systems.
Icon Parking Systems operates more than 200 parking facilities in Manhattan. Many of Icon's locations are in the City's busiest and most vibrant commercial neighbourhoods, others can be found near famous New York City landmarks, and many are in residential areas throughout the City.

Largest US Real Estate Office Website Announces Increased Profits

october 31, 2010

A major virtual office American commercial real estate and office website based in San Francisco offices has announced increased profits for the US real estate market.

LoopNet operates the most heavily trafficked commercial real estate marketplace online with more than four million registered members and more than six million unique visitors quarterly, as reported by Google Analytics. LoopNet also now offers one of the largest commercial property databases with more than 7.5 million commercial property records.

Revenue for the third quarter of 2010 was $19.8m, compared to $19.4m in the second quarter of 2010 and $18.8m in the third quarter of 2009. Net income applicable to common stockholders for the third quarter of 2010 was $2.7m or $0.06 per diluted share, compared to $3.7m or $0.09 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter of 2010 was $4.4m or $0.11 per diluted share, compared to $5.5m or $0.13 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2009. The effective tax rate in the third quarter of 2010 was 34.8 per cent compared to 26.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2009.

LoopNet's Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest and other income (expense), income taxes, depreciation, amortization, stock-based compensation and litigation related costs and recoveries) for the third quarter of 2010 was $7.4 million compared to $7.8 million in the third quarter of 2009.

"Our Q3 financial results exceeded plan, despite persistently challenging industry conditions. Additionally, we made solid progress in the quarter on products and initiatives that we think our customers will embrace and that we believe will significantly enhance the value of our company over time," said LoopNet chairman and CEO, Rich Boyle. "We remain confident that Q1: 2010 was an "inflection point" for our business, and are excited to see growth reaccelerating once again!"a

New Colorado Office Built By Bridge Construction Company Goes Green

october 31, 2010

A new Colorado office block is following the green office trend sweeping America and is pursuing LEED New Construction Certification through the US Green Building Council.

Construction has been completed for new Colorado offices by Flatiron Construction Corporation. The new two-story office building designed by Ware Malcomb is located in Firestone, Colorado, but has been constructed by a company more used to building major engineering projects like bridges.

The 41,664 square foot two-story office building is constructed on a three-acre lot that is part of the existing three-building Flatiron campus. The building utilises concrete tilt-up construction with a composite metal entry feature. The interior space of this secure office building features exterior wall offices, a large meeting room, and a training room. The interior design has a warm, natural color palette that incorporates sustainable design principles and finishes.

Turner Construction Company served as General Contractor for the project, which was built for an estimated cost of $5m

Flatiron, with a construction volume of $1.04 billion in 2009, is one of the leading providers of transportation construction and civil engineering in North America. Its core competencies include major bridge, highway and rail projects. Flatiron also operates as a contractor in public-private partnership projects, making this American office project a new area for the company.

Ware Malcomb’s Denver office offers planning, architecture, interior design, graphic design and site development offers services to commercial real estate and corporate clients throughout the Southwest. Ware Malcomb Denver specialises in the design of commercial office, industrial, technology, healthcare, retail, auto dealerships, educational facilities and renovation projects.

A Virtual Office High School Feeds Hungary.... Yes You Read It Right

october 28, 2010

An American virtual office high school is collecting food for charity that helps Americans struck with hunger and poverty.

But before we get onto that, what is an virtual office high school and how are they going to get the food physically to the charity?

Primavera Online High School is a fee-free school that provides virtual education via the internet to students ages 14-21 from Arizona. Primavera’s accredited program educates thousands of students each year and provides a flexible, yet structured, environment that accommodates the needs of the 21st century student, they say. Courses are available any time of day, anywhere in the world. Students receive one-on-one attention from certified, highly-qualified instructors in a positive, supportive learning environment. Primavera offers half-credit courses on a block schedule, and free tuition and all this from offices in Arizona.

The online high school undergoes an accreditation process every five years done by the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement, which is based in offices in Tempe, Arizona. The accreditation process involves an outside team of professionals who visit the school and evaluate how well the stakeholders have placed systems to “increase student performance through a continuous process of school improvement”.

In January 2010, the school's accreditation was renewed for additional five years. According to Dr Mark Elgart, president of AdvanceEd, “Primavera Online High School is to be commended for engaging in this process and demonstrating their strong commitment to continuous improvement”. 


Back to the food, Primavera has partnered with St. Mary’s Food Bank to collect non-perishable items during its autumn exam period. This month thousands of Primavera students will attend more than 20 locations throughout the state to take the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) exams.

Students are being encouraged to not only bring a pencil to the testing centre, but to also bring a non-perishable item as part of the Primavera food drive to give back to the community.  Students will be helping to fight hunger in their communities by donating to the St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, based in a number of buildings and offices in Phoenix. The food items will be collected at each location by Primavera instructors and advisors who will proctor these exams.

“This is a great opportunity for Primavera Online High School students to participate in a school wide event to help people in need all over the state of Arizona,” stated school principal Dana Van Deinse. “Projects like this food drive bring our students together and build a sense of community as they attend their online classes.”

American Handyman Office Uses SEO Company To Boost Virtual Office Business

october 28, 2010

Virtual office based businesses are expanding so much that a New Yorker handyman and tree service business has hired an internet marketing company for SEO.

Clear Choice Handyman and Tree Service, a handyman service team based in Delanson offices in New York has expanded to serve the entire Albany and Capital District area. It is announcing its new collaboration with Prospect Genius, an Internet marketing company based in Albany offices.

Clear Choice Handyman and Tree Service hopes to use Prospect Genius's search engine optimisation (SEO) program to help local residents who are searching for handyman services, tree contractors, and tree trimming services in the Capital District of New York. By increasing their visibility on the web, they are hoping to increase customers while out and about on jobs.

Douglas Kantrowitz, a tree removal service professional and owner of the company said: "I knew we could use the internet better. So I teamed up with Prospect Genius to help local homeowners that need handyman services find us online."

Prospect Genius' senior internet marketer Matt Gallo explained: "The goal of our SEO program is to increase website visibility by improving client's search engine rankings. By partnering with our team, Clear Choice Handyman and Tree Service will appear higher in the listings on search results pages in the major engines, including Bing, Yahoo!, and Google. And, as both common sense and substantive research report, the higher your company's ranking, the more attention your listing receives, and the more your customer base increases."

US Office Market Shows Increased Leasing Activity

october 21, 2010

The US office market is show an increase in leasing activity for central business districts as vacancy rates continue to decline according to New York office headquartered real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield.

Year-to-date leasing activity for US offices totalled 45.5 million square feet at the end of the third quarter of 2010, a 31.6 per cent increase from the 34.6 million square feet leased at this time last year. Of the 30 CBDs tracked by Cushman & Wakefield, 18 saw year-over-year increases in leasing activity, with the most significant increases in Midtown South Manhattan (179.1 per cent increase), Denver (120 per cent increase), Westchester County, N.Y. (88 per cent increase), Philadelphia (79.8 per cent increase) and Midtown Manhattan (67.3 per cent increase).

The rise in leasing activity led to declines in vacancy in most markets. After reaching a high of 15.0 per cent at the end of first quarter of 2010, the overall US CBD vacancy rate continued its decline for the second consecutive quarter, ending the third quarter at 14.7 per cent, down from 14.8 per cent at midyear 2010. Fifteen of the CBDs tracked by Cushman & Wakefield saw quarterly declines in vacancy, with the largest quarter-over-quarter declines in Portland, Ore., which declined to 11.6 per cent from 13.3 per cent; Orlando offices in Florida., which declined to 18.8 per cent from 20.0 percent; Washington, D.C., which declined to 13.3 per cent from 14.3 percent; Dallas, which declined to 29.1 per cent from 30.1 percent; and Miami, which declined to 19.6 per cent from 20.3 per cent.

"While the U.S. office market has seen some improvement, the full recovery - from trough to peak - will be gradual, mirroring the U.S. economy's recovery," said Maria Sicola, executive managing director and head of Americas Research for Cushman & Wakefield.

Texas Offices Raise $95m In Mortgage Deal

october 17, 2010

A Los Angeles Office and Residential Property firm is to raise $95m in a new finance deal.

Thomas Properties Group, headquartered in Los Angeles offices, which owns, acquires, develops and manages primarily office, as well as mixed-use and residential properties on a nationwide basis, announced today that the company closed on a new $95 million first mortgage on two offices in Houston, Texas. The deal is through its joint venture with the California State Teachers' Retirement System.

The new first mortgage is on CityWestPlace Buildings III and IV, part of a distinctive four-building office campus totalling almost 1.5 million square feet located in the Westchase market. The new loan represents a 50 per cent loan to value, was provided by the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. The loan will mature in 2020 and bears interest at a fixed rate of 5.03 per cent. It replaces a short term floating rate $92.4m loan which was scheduled to mature in July 2011.
With the completion of this refinancing Thomas Properties has no remaining debt maturities through the end of 2011. Thomas Properties has increased occupancy in CityWestPlace to 99 per cent from 78 per cent when originally purchased four years ago. The company expects to benefit from increasing rental rates as leases come up for renewal in the next several years that are currently below market rent.
Thomas Properties Group manages primarily office with primary areas of focus in the acquisition and ownership of premier properties, property development and redevelopment, and property and investment management activities.

Major Medical Offices In Florida Get Snapped Up

october 17, 2010

A commercial property company has bought nine Florida office buildings which are part of a medical real estate portfolio.

Palm Beach Gardens office-based AW Property Co. and a joint-venture partner has bought nine medical offices buildings in South Florida from Tenet Healthcare Corp. for $47.1m. The purchase of 630,000 square feet, at almost $75 a square foot, was an all-cash deal leaving no debt on the properties. All of the properties are near hospitals owned by the Dallas office-based Tenet.

AW Property made the deal through its joint venture with Dallas office-based Behringer Harvard. The deal was in the works for three years, according to a press release from the buyers. They promised to spend $6m on capital improvements in the first year.

The buildings Tenet sold to AW and Behringer are the Victor Farris Building in West Palm Beach, a 148,000-square-foot medical office next to Good Samaritan Medical Center, the eight-story Palmetto Medical Plaza, a 130,000-square-foot building and the Hialeah Medical Plaza, a 72,000-square-foot office building. The 56,000-square-foot North Shore Medical Arts building, and four medical office buildings for a combined 207,000 square feet near Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale were also included.

“This medical office portfolio provides an attractive value-added investment opportunity,” AW Property managing director Brian Waxman said. “We intend to implement a capital improvement program to enhance the appeal of the properties, as well as leasing and management initiatives to maximize the potential of the portfolio.”

Healthcare Real Estate Capital’s Hunter Beebe arranged the joint venture on behalf of AW Property.
The deals are a continuation of Tenet’s shedding of properties in South Florida. In 2008, it sold North Ridge Medical Center to Holy Cross Hospital, which, in turn, shut it down.



Read more: Tenet sells nine medical offices for $47M - South Florida Business Journal

San Francisco Office Block in $35m sale

october 17, 2010

A San Francisco office sale has completed for £34.9m.

Hudson Pacific Properties, based in offices in Los Angeles, has completed the $34.9m acquisition of 144,440-square-foot, two-building, 222 Kearny Street office property in San Francisco's North Financial District from an affiliate of Canyon Capital Realty Advisors.

222 Kearny Street, located at the northeast corner of Sutter and Kearny Streets, is comprised of two buildings, a 10-story office tower built in 1986 and the five-story, 180 Sutter Street building built in 1915. The historic low rise building located at 180 Sutter boasts a distinctive articulated facade and substantial interior renovations complementing the adjacent Class A, 10-story glass and steel tower at 222 Kearny, both of which benefit from one of the city's major pedestrian and transit corridors. A portion of the 222 Kearny building sits on a long-term ground lease.

"Our relationship with the seller, which we have developed over many years, led to the opportunity to acquire this property through an off-market transaction. This is a good fit with our investment strategy, an attractive office property at a premier location in the heart of San Francisco for good value," said Howard Stern, president of Hudson Pacific Properties. "San Francisco is one of our company's top targets for expansion. We will continue to grow our presence here through the acquisition of other well-located-office properties."

"With easy access to both the financial district and Union Square shopping and dining, in the hub of the area's public transportation network, it is a popular location choice for a variety of businesses from professional service firms to creative technology companies," Stern added.

Hudson Pacific Properties also owns 875 Howard Street, a 286,000-square-foot office property South of Market across from the Moscone Convention Centre.

Hudson Pacific Properties is a real estate investment trust focused on owning, operating and acquiring high-quality office properties and state-of-the art media and entertainment properties in select growth markets primarily in California. The company's strategic investment program targets high barrier-to-entry, in-fill locations with favourable, long-term supply-demand characteristics in select target markets that include offices in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and the East Bay. Its portfolio is currently comprised of nine properties totaling approximately 2.1 million square feet and four properties that may support future commercial development of up to 1.4 million square feet strategically located in the company's target markets.

Huge Profit Margin For California Office Sale

october 10, 2010

A $43m office park sale has made a huge profit of $16m for an commercial and office real estate company in Hawaii.

A&B Properties, the real estate subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin, a multi-market transportation and real estate company with office in Honolulu and Pittsburgh, announced the sale of the Ontario Distribution Center, an 898,400 square-foot, three-building office park located on 38 acres in Ontario, California, for $43 million. A&B purchased the property in 2000 for $27 million.

"Located in the heart of the Inland Empire, Ontario Distribution Center has been a good investment for A&B," said Norbert Buelsing, president of A&B Properties. "We achieved an exceptional 97 per cent average occupancy during our 10-year ownership and realised favourable pricing for the property. Consistent with our real estate investment strategy, we anticipate reinvesting the proceeds from this sale, through a tax-advantaged transaction, into other commercial real estate investments with good growth prospects."
With the sale of this property, A&B Properties' commercial property and investment portfolio consists of 7.5 million square feet of retail, office and industrial space located in Hawaii and seven U.S. mainland states. The company has a portfolio with offices in Arizona, California, Colorado and Georgia. Significant investments are also held in Nevada, Texas and Utah.

A&B is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii and is engaged in ocean transportation and logistics services through its subsidiaries, Matson Navigation Company, Inc., Matson Integrated Logistics, Inc. and Matson Global Distribution Services; in real estate through A&B Properties, Inc.; and in agribusiness through Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company and Kauai Coffee Company, Inc.

Multi-Office Take Over Deal In Florida

october 10, 2010

One of America's largest insurance intermediaries has been acquired in a large multi-office deal in Florida.

Beecher Carlson Holdings, has announced the asset acquisition of Thomas R. Jones and T.R. Jones & Company. The move is expected to bring in nearly $7m worth of annual revenues. The company has multiple offices across Florida.

T.R. Jones & Company has provided commercial and personal insurance with over 5,000 office clients as well as casualty and employee benefits products and services to individuals, businesses, and organisations throughout Florida for over 50 years. The company's Tom Jones and Alan Lund and their staff will join Brown & Brown and continue to serve their clients from their Homestead, Key Largo, and Ocean Reef offices in Florida.

The agency's Winter Park operations, doing business as Kraft Insurance Agency, will combine with Brown & Brown of Florida's existing Maitland, Florida office.

Tom Riley, who is responsible for certain Brown & Brown of Florida's retail operations, commented, "Tom Jones and Alan Lund have built one of the most admired insurance operations in South Florida, and Kraft Insurance Agency has been part of the foundation of the insurance community in Central Florida for almost 100 years. We are very pleased to have this group of insurance professionals join our team."

"We are pleased to join the Brown & Brown team," said Tom Jones. "Tom Riley and his team are some of the most respected insurance professionals in the business and have been formidable competitors over the years. We have had a nice run at Beecher Carlson and appreciate the efforts our former partners there made on our behalf."

Brown & Brown, Inc. and its subsidiaries offer a broad range of insurance and reinsurance products and services, as well as risk management, third party administration, managed health care, and Medicare set-aside services and programs. Providing service to business, public entity, individual, trade, and professional association clients nationwide, the Company is ranked by Business Insurance magazine as the seventh largest independent insurance intermediary in the United States.

US Airforce Base To Make Way For Texas Offices

october 10, 2010

An American airforce base has been officially decommissioned in order to make way for new offices in Texas.

Military ownership of former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base ended today when the Air Force transferred the final 2.4 acres of the former base to Horry County. A formal ceremony commemorating the transfer is scheduled for October 27, 2010 at the Base Recreation Centre.

“Myrtle Beach Air Force Base has a long, proud history of service to our nation,” said Robert Moore, Director of the Air Force Real Property Agency, headquartered in offices on the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. “Since closing the base has completely transformed itself.  It now serves the Myrtle Beach community, providing it with a new commercial air terminal, over 1,200 homes, more than 300,000 square feet of Myrtle office and commercial space, health care facilities, and multiple park and recreation facilities.”

The former base consisted of 3,937 acres and has been transferred to the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base Redevelopment Authority, Horry County, and several other organisations. Redevelopment includes an International Airport, The Market Common urban village, residential development and other commercial facilities.

Myrtle Beach Air Force Base was established in 1940 as a World War II training base and was also used for coastal patrols during the war. After the war it was a front-line USAF base in the Cold War, Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War of 1990. The 354th Fighter Day Wing/Tactical Fighter Wing, based there from 1956 – 1993, deployed squadrons in Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, with major service in Lebanon, Germany, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf.

 “Since the announcement of Myrtle Beach’s closure, we have been working with our partners at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 4, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base Redevelopment Authority, Horry County, and the City of Myrtle Beach to achieve our mutual goal of transferring this former military property for beneficial reuse,” said Cathy Jerrard, BRAC Environmental Coordinator. “With the transfer of this final parcel, all of the former Myrtle Beach AFB is in the hands of the local community.”

Paper Adverts That Will Plug Into Your Computer

october 08, 2010

Virtual advertising is now coming to the pages of magazines and newspapers through a nano virtual office technology that will allow paper adverts to plug into your computer.

Florida-based company LLC has launched its USB Insert Nano, an extension of their already
successful USB Insert print to web tool, which was launched earlier this year throughout North America. The webkey is housed in a one-eighth of an inch housing, which can be integrated and custom die cut into any physical printed media such as brochures, direct mailers and now, magazine inserts, providing advertisers yet another new dimension in print-to-web marketing.

When plugged into a USB port, it automatically routes readers in seconds to a landing page, microsite, online promotion, multimedia presentation or e-catalog, where they continue to learn, experience or simply shop.

The process of die cutting and integrating webkeys in paper enables unlimited customisation in terms of shape, colour, graphics and logo, without the high custom plastic molding costs. It makes a webkey affordable as a mass media marketing tool.

According to Rich Butler, managing director of the West Palm Beach office-based company the Nano is so small, thin and lightweight, it can be fully integrated cost-effectively into magazine advertisements and direct mail campaigns without the worry of increased postage rates."

US branding group LLC is a hybrid advertising agency and manufacturer of innovative, technology-driven marketing solutions, with offices in South Florida, Asia and the UK. Their latest internationally patented technology combines a webkey with any customizable physical print media, seamlessly
connecting to exclusive landing pages or microsites.

Virtual Financial Accounts And Online Transaction Company Buyout

october 08, 2010

Flint Telecom Group, an international telecoms technology company based in US headquarters in Kansas offices, is to acquire virtual office bank accounts and online financial transaction firm Ingedigit International.

Fint say the acquisitionw will expand and strengthen its existing pre-paid market activities and open up new international markets and products for the group. Its management anticipates that these companies will add additional high revenues and margin for Flint Telecom, which runs international headquarters in Dublin offices in Ireland.

Flint Telecom will assume fully operating turn-key companies in the US and India, with additional market operations in Australia and Asia Pacific, evolving Flint Telecom into a Global Enterprise.
Prepaid services are among the fastest growing service industry segments globally. In 2007, The World Bank estimated that worldwide remittances exceeded $318bn. Independent research commissioned by MasterCard estimates the US market opportunity for branded pre-paid cards in excess of $440 Billion by 2017, a 400% increase over the market value estimated in 2009.
Consideration for the transactions will be performance based. Payment will be share based in the form of Preferred Shares that will be restricted from conversion to Common Shares for a period of 12 months from Closing.

Ingedigit International president Mitch Siegel said: "We are very excited to be joining Flint Telecom and look forward to achieving great success together. We have been searching for the right partner to take our business to the next level for some time and we believe we have that partner in Flint Telecom. These acquisitions will allow Flint Telecom to offer Financial Service activities, without risk, through significant participation by banks on a global basis. Our existing relationships with a number of banks around the world, including India, provide significant flexibility in delivering card programs and clear competitive advantages over other programs. This market is huge. Expatriate workers remit billions of dollars every month around the world and debit card usage is growing every year, particularly in these tough economic conditions. We enable our clients to offer customers the ability to operate a debit card without the need of a bank account or credit standing. We expect to be a significant contributor of growth and profits to Flint Telecom in the as we execute."

$500,000 Restructure To Virtual Payments Company To Streamline Business

october 07, 2010

An international virtual office payment processing company currently introducing electronic payment solutions to the South African market, has announced major strategic reorganisation to slice $0.5m off running costs by streamlining its senior management structure, reduce corporate overhead and strengthen its overall operating platform.

FNDS3000, headquartered in offices in the U.S. with offices in South Africa says changes to the composition of the board of directors has reduced the number of members from nine to five. Expanding the leadership role of current chairman, Raymond Goldsmith, through his appointment to the additional posts of president and CEO, replacing the company's John Hancock.

The move is expected to eliminate approximately $500,000 in annual expected corporate overhead expenses through corporate staff and cost reductions in the U.S.
"The global prepaid card industry continues to evolve and expand. In order to optimize the shaping and definition of FNDS3000's future in this dynamic, high growth environment and to ensure that we are in a position to deliver maximum value to our shareholders, we must embrace opportunities to improve how we operate," stated Goldsmith.

He added: "By effecting these changes to our Board and by adopting a much more lean U.S. corporate infrastructure, we can devote more resources to supporting growth of our prepaid card business - first in South Africa and ultimately in other emerging prepaid markets around the world."

Washington DC Office Move For Aerospace Company

october 03, 2010

Applied Energetics is to open a business development office in the Washington DC tomorrow.

The US company, headquartered in Arizona offices, manufactures of advanced high performance lasers, high voltage electronics, advanced optical systems for aerospace.

Joe Hayden, chief operating officer of Applied Energetics commented: "Opening an office in the Washington DC area will allow us to better serve our existing customers in the U.S. Government and military. It will also allow us to have a more concentrated and continual focus on growing our business in this area. We are very excited to have Al Womble join us to lead this effort. His extensive experience in business development and government procurement will significantly strengthen our capabilities and ability to gain new customers. As a career military officer he understands the needs of our military customers exceptionally well. We are confident that his contributions will have a significant positive impact as we seek to grow our business."

Prior to joining Applied Energetics Mr. Womble served as Director, Business Development, Intelligence Programs for PAR Government Systems Corp. directing all marketing, branding, new business capture and program execution in the Washington Metro Area. Prior to that he was director of business development for BAE Systems, which has its US offices in Rockville, Maryland.

Applied Energetics, based in Tucson, Arizona, specialises in development and manufacture of advanced high performance lasers, high voltage electronics, advanced optical systems, and integrated guided energy systems for defence, aerospace, industrial, and scientific customers worldwide.

Atlanta Office Market Occupancy Increase Following Collapse

november 27, 2010

An Atlanta office based firm has increased occupancy of offices in a difficult US office market that has seen collapse.

Cousins Properties Incorporated completed office and retail leasing totalling 645,000 square feet and sold two assets for $88min. The proceeds eliminated near-term maturities of $122m with sales and new financings Posted leasing improvement across all asset classes

Funds from operations (FFO) were $886,000, or $0.01 per share, for the third quarter of 2010 compared with $41.9m, or $(0.71) per share, for the third quarter of 2009. FFO was $22.8m, or $0.23 per share, for the nine months ended September 30, 2010 compared with $99.3m, or $1.83 per share, for the same period in 2009.

Net Income Loss was $8.4 million, or $0.08 per share, for the third quarter of 2010 compared with $57.1 million, or $0.96 per share, for the third quarter of 2009. Net Income Loss was $(18.6) million, or $0.18 per share, for the nine months ended September 30, 2010 compared with $22.2 million, or $0.41 per share, for the same period in 2009.

The company sold 8995 Westside Parkway, a 51,000-square-foot office building in Atlanta, Georgia, for $3.2 million, generating an estimated net gain of $700,000. Received a $1.1 million payment from the Company's partner in the Oklahoma City predevelopment project representing a partial recovery of amounts previously written off. It also sold San Jose MarketCenter, a 213,000-square-foot power center located in San Jose, California, for $85 million, generating a net gain of $6.6 million. Obtained a new 10-year, $27 million mortgage loan with an interest rate of 6% secured by Meridian Mark Plaza, a 160,000-square-foot medical office building in Atlanta

At September 30, 2010, the Company's portfolio of operational office buildings was 90% leased, its portfolio of operational retail centers was 86 per cent leased and its portfolio of operational industrial buildings was 90 per cent leased.

"The third quarter results illustrate significant progress in our continued efforts to lease vacant space, sell non-core assets and generate additional fee income," said Larry Gellerstedt, CEO of Cousins. "We are particularly pleased with the disproportionate share of leasing we've achieved in our core markets in the face of challenging market conditions."

Virtual Emergency Planning Simulator To Guide American Financial Company

november 27, 2010

Environmental Tectonics Corporation's Simulation Division, located in Orlando offices in Forida, has announced that they have entered into a contract with Wells Fargo Enterprise Incident Management to provide emergency response training utilising ETC's Advanced Disaster Management Simulator (ADMS).

Wells Fargo, the American financial services company headquartered in San Francisco in California offices, has an Incident Management Team (EIMT) consists of a group of experts whose purpose is to guide company emergency managers in the event of an emergency situation. The EIMT focuses on ensuring the safety of company members and customers while protecting the continuity of the business. Uniform procedures have been established within Wells Fargo and each office is trained on the proper response in every possible type disaster or incident. ADMS will be used to enhance their existing training program employing the latest in simulation technology.

Utilising ADMS, Wells Fargo personnel will have the opportunity to train in a true-to-life, virtual reality environment, gaining experience in incident command, control, coordination and communication. ETC Simulation will provide the necessary equipment, instructional staff and training scenarios consistent with the objectives of Wells Fargo's current emergency management program. Training will take place at a non-disclosed Wells Fargo location.

"We are looking forward to working with Wells Fargo and playing a part in their training program," said Marco van Wijngaarden, president of ETC Simulation. "Wells Fargo is a highly respected company who takes their security and emergency preparedness very seriously, and their acknowledgement that ADMS can enhance their current program gives testament to the effectiveness of ADMS at all training levels."

Virtual Office Outsourcing Grows Outside The US, But American Market Tough

november 21, 2010

A virtual office outsourcing company says growth outside the US remains strong, while the American market is declining.

StarTek, which offers sales, order management and provisioning, customer care, technical support, receivables management, and retention programs, says its has grown internationally by nearly a quarter towards the end of 2010, but the US market has seen drops.

The company also offers clients a variety of multi-channel customer interaction capabilities including voice, chat, email, and back-office support, is headquartered in offices in Denver, Colorado but has 18 delivery centres located in offices in Canada, Philippines, Costa Rica and the United States.

The company reported third quarter 2010 revenue of $65.6m and an operating loss of $4.1 m. It had a net loss of $4.5m or $0.30 per share. Is has, however, continued with its offshore expansion by adding over 300 full-time equivalent agents to this segment during the third quarter, a growth rate of 24 per cent over the prior quarter. Meanwhile, North American agent headcount continued to decline due to lower call volumes from the company's largest wireless customers, as well as site consolidation and optimization efforts.

Revenue in the third quarter of 2010 was $65.6m, a decrease of 3.1 per cent compared to the second quarter of 2010, and a decrease of 9.5 per cent compared to the third quarter of 2009. Revenue in the offshore segment grew by $1.7m from the second quarter of 2010 due to the ramp of new programs in the Philippines and Costa Rica. The offshore growth was offset by lower revenue in North America resulting from lower call volumes from both the wireline and wireless customers.

$152m Buyout For Wireless Virtual Office Technology Firm

november 21, 2010

Juniper Networks, a virtual office network company is to buy Trapeze Networks form Belden, St. Louis office firm Belden.

Trapeze Networks, a wireless solutions company based Pleasanton offices in California, is a technology leader in enterprise wireless local area network (WLAN) systems and management software. In an all cash transaction valued at approximately $152m, the acquisition is anticipated to close in the fourth quarter of 2010, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and applicable regulatory reviews.

The acquisition will make WLAN infrastructure a key part of Juniper's portfolio, accelerating the company's growth in the enterprise market and advancing its vision for the new network. Trapeze Networks provides WLAN reliability, performance, security and management for today's most demanding mobile applications.

Juniper says Trapeze fits well with its campus and branch switching, routing and security business. Customers will be able to build new networks based on Juniper's end-to-end routing, security, wired and wireless switching infrastructure that improve users' experience and increase their productivity regardless of location, while delivering lowest total cost of ownership.

Today's increasingly converged networks demand that network connectivity be available anytime and anywhere for users. The explosion of mobile devices is further fuelling the unprecedented need for connectivity, regardless of location or device. A recent report1 by Dell'Oro Group estimates that the enterprise WLAN technology market will grow from $2.2 bn in 2010 to $3.4bn in 2014. As the fastest growing Ethernet switching provider in 2010 to date,2 Juniper now adds Trapeze's WLAN products to Juniper's routing, security and switching portfolio, and will be well positioned to deliver the most scalable, secure and highly-available wired and wireless infrastructure for the enterprise market.

"With the acquisition of Trapeze Networks, we extend our industry leading routing, security and switching portfolio with proven and innovative WLAN technology that will enable our customers to provide a seamless, high-quality, secure experience to their users regardless of where and how they access their network," said David Yen, executive vice president and general manager, Fabric and Switching Technologies at Juniper Networks. "Juniper's strong history of technology execution combined with Trapeze's accomplished team ideally positions the company to deliver end-to-end high-performance networking for the world's most demanding networks."

Atlanta Office Occupancies Increase

november 18, 2010

An Atlanta office-based firm has increased occupancy of offices in a difficult market that has seen collapse.

Cousins Properties Incorporated completed office and retail leasing totalling 645,000 square feet and sold two assets for $88min. The proceeds eliminated near-term maturities of $122m with sales and new financings Posted leasing improvement across all asset classes

Funds from operations (FFO) were $886,000, or $0.01 per share, for the third quarter of 2010 compared with $41.9m, or $(0.71) per share, for the third quarter of 2009. FFO was $22.8m, or $0.23 per share, for the nine months ended September 30, 2010 compared with $99.3m, or $1.83 per share, for the same period in 2009.

Net Income Loss was $8.4 million, or $0.08 per share, for the third quarter of 2010 compared with $57.1 million, or $0.96 per share, for the third quarter of 2009. Net Income Loss was $(18.6) million, or $0.18 per share, for the nine months ended September 30, 2010 compared with $22.2 million, or $0.41 per share, for the same period in 2009.

The company sold 8995 Westside Parkway, a 51,000-square-foot office building in Atlanta, Georgia, for $3.2 million, generating an estimated net gain of $700,000. Received a $1.1 million payment from the Company's partner in the Oklahoma City predevelopment project representing a partial recovery of amounts previously written off. It also sold San Jose MarketCenter, a 213,000-square-foot power center located in San Jose, California, for $85 million, generating a net gain of $6.6 million. Obtained a new 10-year, $27 million mortgage loan with an interest rate of 6% secured by Meridian Mark Plaza, a 160,000-square-foot medical office building in Atlanta.

At September 30, 2010, the company's portfolio of operational office buildings was 90% leased, its portfolio of operational retail centers was 86 per cent leased and its portfolio of operational industrial buildings was 90 per cent leased.

"The third quarter results illustrate significant progress in our continued efforts to lease vacant space, sell non-core assets and generate additional fee income," said Larry Gellerstedt, CEO of Cousins. "We are particularly pleased with the disproportionate share of leasing we've achieved in our core markets in the face of challenging market conditions."

Deal On Philadelphia Office Blocks

november 11, 2010

One of America's largest real estate firms has closed on a deal on Commerce Square offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Commerce Square, with its two tower blocks of One and Two Commerce Square, has two identical 41-story office towers which are 565 feet (172 m) high. Architecturally, the granite-clad towers feature setbacks on the north and south sides of the building and are topped with a pair of stone diamonds and were built as part an office-building boom Philadelphia was experiencing on West Market Street in the late 1980s.

Thomas Properties Group and Brandywine Realty Trust have announced today that they have closed on the investment by Brandywine in the Commerce Square project in Philadelphia. In connection with the closing, Brandywine has contributed an initial $5m, out of a total of $25m of committed preferred equity, to the two partnerships that own the 943,000 square foot One Commerce Square building and the 953,000 square foot Two Commerce Square building.

Thomas Properties Group, with headquarters in offices in Los Angeles, is a full-service real estate company that owns, acquires, develops and manages primarily office, as well as mixed-use and residential properties across America. The company's primary areas of focus are the acquisition and ownership of premier properties, property development and redevelopment, and property and investment management activities

Brandywine Realty Trust is one of the largest, publicly traded, full-service, integrated real estate companies in the United States. Organised as a real estate investment trust and operating in select markets, Brandywine owns, develops, manages and has ownership interests in a primarily Class A, suburban and urban office portfolio comprising 318 properties and 34.4 million square feet, including 238 properties and 25.9 million square feet owned on a consolidated basis and 49 properties and 4.6 million square feet in 15 unconsolidated real estate ventures.

Virtual Office Firm Benefits From North Carolina Office and Research Park

november 11, 2010

Virtual office company 6fusion, which has developed a system to take control of third party computing resources and create a single utility to meet the needs of the IT Service channel, is the latest company to become a partner on North Carolina State University's Centennial Campus.

The company is occupying space in the Venture IV building on the research park and technology campus.

"We are delighted to have 6fusion on campus," said Dennis Kekas, associate vice chancellor of the Centennial Partnership office. "With their background in cloud computing and our research in that area, we think they are an ideal partner going forward."

6fusion, with offices in Delaware has developed an algorithm that radically simplifies the metering, consumption and billing of compute resources, called the Workload Allocation Cube (WAC).  The company also has developed a platform called UC6, which provides a single pane-of-glass user interface for customers to dynamically provision cloud workloads internal or external to their organization.

“We spent a considerable amount of time with the team at Centennial Campus after we completed our relocation to the Research Triangle,” said John Cowan, CEO of 6fusion.  “Centennial Campus is not only an exciting, intellectually stimulating place to locate an entrepreneurial venture – it’s also a unique venue that allows us to partner on research and development facilities in a campus atmosphere that is more than just office space.”

Centennial Campus is an internationally recognized 1,314-acre North Carolina office and research park and technology campus owned and operated by North Carolina University. Home to more than 60 corporate, government and non-profit partners,

California Office Real Estate Firm Takes Over Large Distribution Centre

november 11, 2010

A leading American office and real estate firm has taken control of a Californian office and distribution centre.

American Realty Advisors announced today that it has acquired Jasmine Distribution Centre, a soon-to-be-renovated 402,539 square feet industrial warehouse and distribution property in Fontana, California. The property is located in the heart of the Inland Empire, widely considered to be the logistics capital of North America. The property features 30-foot clear heights with 50 dock-hi doors, excess trailer parking and 22,000 square feet of office space.

The property will initially be managed under the firm's value-added investment strategy with the end goal of repositioning the property into a stabilised income-producing core asset. American Realty will initiate the first phase of rehabilitation shortly, which will largely consist of addressing immediate deferred maintenance needs and the installation of an EFSR fire sprinkler system, which will enhance the property's curb appeal and marketability to tenants. The transaction was executed on behalf of one of American's commingled funds and represents a joint venture with BlackRidge Real Estate Group, LLC.

Kirk Helgeson at American Realty, stated: "The Jasmine transaction provided us with a prime opportunity to buy into a rising market at an attractive price. Once the rehabilitation program is completed, we believe that the property will be solidly positioned to compete with other Class A industrial assets in the Inland Empire West submarket and to garner interest from potential tenants."

American Realty Advisors, a California office based corporation, is a leading provider of real estate investment management services to institutional investors. With more than $3.3 billion in assets under management, American has provided innovative real estate solutions to institutional investors for over 22 years utilising core and value-added commingled funds and separate accounts. The firm's portfolios include office, industrial, multi-family, retail and other properties nationwide.

US Office Firm Named Best Female-Owned Business

november 06, 2010

A US office and commerical property firm has been named one of the best female-owned businesses.

Coldwell Banker Commercial TradeMark Properties, based in Raleigh offices in North Carolina, has announced that the firm has been named one of the top Women-Owned Businesses by Triangle Business Journal. This is the fifth consecutive year that the firm has been acknowledged by Triangle Business Journal’s list of women-owned businesses. This list takes into account the number of employees at property management firms that are fully owned by women. Under the leadership of Billie Redmond, TradeMark Properties has grown into the area’s largest commercial real estate firm, with 71 full-time employees in the Triangle. Redmond accounts for a portion of the 40 percent of firms in the U.S. privately held by women.

“Having our firm ranked as a top women-owned business by the Triangle Business Journal is always rewarding, as it serves as a testament to the collaborative efforts of our entire staff at TradeMark Properties,” said Redmond. “We hope to continue to grow and expand as the economy and real estate markets pick up momentum. I am truly excited to see where we will be even a year from now.”

According to Triangle Business Journal Women-Owned Business list statistics, women-owned businesses number 7.2 million firms in US offices that employ 7.3 million people and generate $1.1 trillion in sales.

Coldwell Banker Commercial TradeMark Properties offers a full range of real estate and investment advisory services and has more than 200 years of combined real estate experience. For the past four years, Triangle Business Journal has ranked the firm as the number one commercial real estate company in the Triangle, and the same publication has named the firm among the area’s Best Places to Work. TradeMark is also recognized as one of the Top 25 Women-Owned Businesses in North Carolina.

Commercial Crane Company Offers Recovery View Of Office Market

november 06, 2010

A US crane rental company's positive financial results gives an unexpected view of US office and commercial property construction.

Essex Rental Corp, headquarted in offices near Chicago, announced its unaudited results for the third quarter 2010.

Ron Schad, President & CEO of Essex, stated, "Third quarter results were consistent with our expectations, and we continued to see some of our end markets recover and, accordingly, demand for our heavy-lifting equipment increase. During the quarter, we witnessed the continued stabilization of rental rates. However, our average monthly rental rate declined marginally primarily due to the mix of cranes on rent. More importantly, on a sequential quarter basis we experienced a meaningful increase in utilization rates when compared to the three months ended June 30, 2010."

Mr. Schad continued, "Rental related revenues increased sequentially by 18.5%, or $1.3 million, to $8.6 million for the three months ended September 30, 2010 from $7.3 million for the three months ended June 30, 2010. We are optimistic that the benefit of the cyclical upturn that we are experiencing will exceed the slight seasonal downturn usually experienced during the fourth quarter. We have significant projects scheduled to start in November which provides some assurance that utilization will continue to climb through the fourth quarter, which would put the Company in a position to substantially increase utilization as the spring construction cycle begins in early 2011."

Essex Crane Rental Corp, with offices in Florida and California, is one of North America's largest providers of lattice-boom crawler crane and attachment rental services. With over 350 cranes and attachments in its fleet, Essex supplies cranes for construction projects related to power generation, petro-chemical, refineries, water treatment and purification, bridges, highways, hospitals, shipbuilding, offshore oil fabrication and industrial plants, and commercial construction.

North Dakota Offices In Major New Lease

november 04, 2010

A major North Dakota office and real estate company has signed major new leases.

Investors Real Estate Trust has annonced that Hess Corporation and Trinity Health have signed long-term leases with IRET's operating partnership, IRET Properties, to occupy commercial space at IRET Corporate Plaza located in Minot, North Dakota.

IRET Corporate Plaza complex is a three-story building completed in 2009 containing over 250,000 square feet of space including commercial office space and retail space as well as 71 luxury apartments and approximately 145 underground, climate-controlled parking spaces.

Hess Corporation is a leading global independent energy company engaged in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. It operates the Tioga Gas Plant and has additional operations in Williston as well as other communities throughout western North Dakota.

The company will now occupy approximately 48,500 square feet of office space in Minot at the IRET Corporate Plaza and has the option to lease additional space as it becomes available.

IRET's senior vice president and chief operating officer, Tom Wentz, said: "This is a very exciting real estate transaction not only for IRET, but also the community of Minot and Hess. We are very pleased with the outcome and how IRET's decision approximately four years ago to develop IRET Corporate Plaza in Minot has not only grown the city's property tax base but has provided Minot with the type of office space necessary to allow an international energy company such as Hess to locate a significant number of jobs into our community."

As part of the transaction, Trinity Health, a community-based, non-profit healthcare organisation, has agreed to occupy a new 22,000 square foot, one-story medical clinic to be built by IRET on land located in the northwest area of the IRET Corporate Plaza parcel. Construction of the new facility is scheduled to start yet this fall, with completion and occupancy by Trinity expected early summer of 2011.

According to IRET's president and chief executive officer, Tim Mihalick, "being headquartered in offices in Minot, IRET is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the real estate opportunities afforded by western North Dakota's energy development and resulting growth. Our focus is on making investments in quality real estate occupied by tenants with strong commitments to the communities where we invest. These two transactions are an excellent fit as both Trinity and Hess have a long-standing presence offices in Minot and western North Dakota respectively and both have now confirmed that commitment with their agreement to occupy over 70,000 square feet of office and medical space in Minot on a long-term basis."

Virtual Law Firm Adds Top Virtual Patent Agent

may 30, 2010

Virtual offices would do no wrong to follow their own ways and save money on virtual lawyers. Virtual Law Partners LLP (VLP), the California-office-based company has announced a new top patent lawyer to join its intellectual property practice.

VLP's Intellectual Property practice has announced noted patent attorney Richard Bone, whose expertise includes pharmaceuticals, chemistry, biotechnology, has joined the firm as a partner. He was named a Northern California "Rising Star" in Super-Lawyers magazine for 2009. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, American Bar Association, and the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and is also a faculty member of Patent Resources Group (PRG).

Like all good virtual businesses, they can afford cost-effective rates, particularly important for SMEs that require patents and are looking to save on start-up costs. VLP already cover a range of industries, including biotechnology, high technology, clean technology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, software and other cutting edge technologies. Virtual attorneys provide counselling, strategic advice and specific protection in all areas of intellectual property, including patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret.


Founded in 2008, VLP is a virtually connected and geographically distributed law firm with 40 attorneys. It operates virtually on VLP's proprietary technology platform, which allows the firm to collaborate easily and to operate with a small, highly specialized staff, passing the savings to clients through substantially lower rates or flat fee arrangements (generally 50% out of the cost of traditional legal services).

Practice Leader David Roise says "Dr. Bone's extensive experience representing both large and small clients in fields ranging from biotechnology to computer software enhances our ability to support innovators across a wide array of technologies. His international experience is also extremely valuable in helping our clients protect their patent rights worldwide."

US Office Vacancies To Peak In Early 2011

may 27, 2010

Vacancy rates continue to rise in most American real estate commercial sectors and are not expected to level out in most markets until early 2011.

The latest US office and commercial property outlook is according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), America's largest trade association which represents residential and commercial property sectors. The Chicago-office headquartered organisation's Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said there is one bright spot in commercial real estate. "The multifamily sector can expect increased demand as the economy creates jobs and new households are formed, likely in the second half of this year.

But he says offices in America, as well as, warehouses and the retail sector continue to experience delayed recovery. Offices throughout America are seeing an elevated level of sublease space available. Vacancy rates in the office sector are projected to increase from 16.9 percent in the first quarter of this year to 17.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011, but should ease later next year.

Annual office rent is also likely to fall 2.3 percent this year and decline another 2.1 percent in 2011. In 57 markets tracked, net absorption of office space, which includes the leasing of new space coming on the market as well as space in existing properties, is forecast to be a negative 24.6 million square feet this year and then a positive 25.5 million in 2011.

Yun says “these sectors should see gradual improvement after jobs pick up and create additional demand for space, meaning a broader improvement in commercial real estate is likely in 2011."

The Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, in its SIOR Commercial Real Estate Index, an attitudinal survey of nearly 700 local market experts, also confirms that significant fallout from the recession remains, but to a lesser extent. The SIOR index, measuring 10 variables, increased 2.7 percentage points to 38.2 in the first quarter, compared with a level of 100 that represents a balanced marketplace. This is the second gain following nearly three years of declines. The last time the market was in equilibrium was in the third quarter of 2007.

Development activity remains at a standstill reported by nine out of 10 respondentsto the SIOR survey. Looking at the overall market, commercial vacancy rates appear to be approaching a plateau, according to NAR's latest Commercial Real Estate Outlook.

NAR also has offices in Washington DC.

Are Virtual Office Users Still Willing To Go Green?

may 10, 2010

If you thought green technology for the office was dead in the recession, iGo's eco-friendly laptop chargers are making a comeback. US giant Office Depot is adding iGo's laptop chargers to its 1,100 locations across US office superstores. Combined with the more than 900 OfficeMax locations that began carrying the chargers in the fall of 2009, iGo now has a substantial presence in two of the largest office superstore chains.

Virtual office workers will often leave their laptops plugged in for long periods as they work from one main location, whilst still retaining the requirement to go mobile. But this will waste electricity. The Slim iGo and iGo Green Technology both eliminate wasteful vampire power (electricity that is drawn by electronic devices when they remain plugged into an outlet or charger, but are not in use). In addition, the Laptop Wall Charger with iGo Green(R) Technology also includes a built-in USB port so that two electronic devices can be powered simultaneously.

The test will be whether green tech can still draw people's money in a recession. iGo's laptop chargers lead the market in terms of size, price and feature set, but will retail at $79.99a and $99.99. iGo continues to innovate and set new standards for the industry.

"We are very pleased that our direct sales efforts have produced a strong presence for iGo products in the small- and medium-size business market," said Michael Heil, president and chief executive officer of iGo. "We also believe the office superstore channel will greatly extend our reach into the consumer market as well. We are steadily building our distribution network and increasing our ability to reach our targeted customers."

Plug-and-play Office Space Manchester Services

may 05, 2011

When you run a business, or any kind of operation for that matter, what's most important is communication. And when we say communication, we really imply all that there is possible to imply about the term and concept. Of course, on the surface of your office space Manchester, there is the information technology. What sort of tools in terms of computing hardware and sophisticated information services are you going to be making use of, in order to run your operation? The fact of the matter is that, today, you don't have to lay out all that capital that you may had to, say, 10 or 20 years ago.

Today, especially with cloud computing being such a huge thing today, not only are the costs and the other financial commitments less intrusive than they were, but it's also a lot easier to set up a so called virtual office space Dallas today. In the past, what you may have had to deal with were a myriad of things. Let's start by applying for a lease, and shopping for the commercial space, from which you plan to run and operate your business. That, in and of itself. used to require a full team. In fact, full teams of real estate specialists used to be involved in this. But today, all you really have to do is subscribe to a virtual office Vancouver services firm, and you can literally be up and running in a matter of minutes. It's quite plug and play, as they say.

Catch A Real American Deal On A US Office Whilst The Market Looks Shaky

march 09, 2010

SMEs looking to expand into the American market may do well to snap up an office in the United States. The US office market is set to be hit by rising vacancy whilst rents continue to fall according to the National Association of Realtors.

Annual office rent is projected to decline 7.2 percent in 2010, following a drop of 12.7 percent last year. In 57 markets tracked, net absorption of office space, which includes the leasing of new space coming on the market as well as space in existing properties, should be a negative 27.3 million square feet in 2010.

With a lot of sublease space currently on the market, vacancy rates in the office sector are forecast to rise from 16.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 17.6 percent in the fourth quarter of this year, with only a minor improvement in long-term outlooks which estimate 17.4 percent in 2011.

Although the economy had been growing commercial real estate sectors were negatively impacted by economic aftershocks in the fourth quarter of 2009. There is hope for some improvement next year, according to the Washington DC based National Association of Realtors.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says commercial real estate will recover, but at a slower pace. "With the job market expected to turn for the better later this year, we'll see rising demand for office and warehouse space, but that isn't likely before 2011."

"At the same time, improved consumer confidence would help sustain the retail sector and encourage more people to enter the rental market."

Yun notes that commercial vacancy rates remain high in most market areas and are depressing rents, whilst also saying the American commercial real estate almost always lags the wider economy.

The Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, in its Commercial Real Estate Index, an attitudinal survey of more than 700 local market experts, suggests a flattening level of business activity in upcoming quarters with 55 percent of members expecting the market to improve in the second quarter. The SIOR index rose 0.2 percentage point to 35.5 in the fourth quarter, compared with a level of 100 that represents a balanced marketplace. This is the first gain following 11 consecutive quarterly declines.

According to the SIOR survey nearly 90% questioned said new commercial development is virtually non-existent in their market areas, and rent concessions are reported almost everywhere.

If You Need Office Space Dallas Has Answers Today

march 07, 2011

Commerce is getting faster and companies are spreading out more today than ever before. In efforts to meet customer demands, a lot companies are now on the look out for the kind of quality office space Dallas area businesses have been using for some time now. This is a very good location for businesses, especially those that are part of a variety of industries that do big business in the Dallas Fort Worth area. You can even find a variety of serviced offices that might just be perfect for your companies needs. The key here is that you want to first have a good sense of your options so that you can choose what is going to work out best for your particular company. Once you do, choosing the perfect set of choices for your company needs will go much more smoothly.

When it comes to getting the very best deals, there are a number of different choices that are far easier to make once you have the right assets in place. You might be thinking of expanding to the UK, for example, and once you have the office space Manchester businesses benefit from, it could be easier for you to decide on doing that. By making smart choices in where you invest, you make further expansion easier to do. In today's world, it is definitely necessary to try to find the right kind of choices that will make things easier for you to expand because doing business worldwide is the way of the future.

San Diego Office Investment Marks Entry Into Promising US Commercial Property Location

june 27, 2010

Stoneridge Capital Partners, the Californian office-based global real estate investment company, has acquired the 46,620 square foot Four Governor Park office in San Diego.

The all-cash acquisition marks Stoneridge’s entry into the San Diego market and continues “the firm’s aggressive portfolio expansion strategy focused on opportunistic investments”, according to the company.

The multi-tenant San Diego office property is currently 90 percent leased to a diverse mix of tenants. Suites within Four Governor Park range from approximately 700 square feet to 3,500 square feet.

“Four Governor Park benefits from a historically high occupancy rate, central location near regional housing and built-in demand generated from the surrounding employment center,” said Greg Merage, CEO of Stoneridge Capital Partners. “These variables made Four Governor Park an ideal acquisition to mark our entry into the San Diego market as we leverage our strong cash position to increase our presence within the region.”

Four Governor Park is centrally located in San Diego’s “Golden Triangle” area, immediately south of the La Jolla office and retail district. This company says its location provides excellent access by road for employees commuting from residential communities within the region and convenient proximity to a range of nearby amenities, including some of the area’s top restaurants and hotels.

Brian Driscoll of Cassidy Turley/BRE Commercial, which represented the seller in the transaction, says the San Diego commercial property market can return long term growth for investors.

“We are eager to find more opportunities in all property types, including office, retail, hotel and apartments, in key San Diego sub-markets. We believe they will provide exceptional long-term growth potential,” said Merage.

California Offices Starting Point In Race To Green-Up A National American Portfolio Of Offices

june 24, 2010

A major US office developer has revamped a large office complex to follow the sweeping trend to sell old office space on green credentials.

City National Plaza, a downtown Los Angeles office complex, has received Gold certification from the United States Green Building Council. A 38-year-old twin-tower complex with 2.5 million square feet of office and retail space, City National Plaza is one of the largest and oldest properties to earn the award.

Owners Thomas Properties Group (TPG) and the California State Teachers' Retirement System have worked in partnership to upgrade and green the project since acquiring it in 2003. TPG, which has regional offices in California and Philadelphia, says the revamp is saving the company millions of dollars.

"City National Plaza increased occupancy by 58 percent in the last six years while electrical consumption went up only 11.8 percent," said James A. Thomas, Chairman and CEO of Thomas Properties Group. "We are saving an average of $1.35 million a year in electric bills, primarily due to key energy-saving capital investments such as chiller replacements, lighting retrofit and exterior wall sealing. With an Energy Star score of 83, City National Plaza is 33 percent more energy efficient than the average U.S. office building."

Achieving gold for City National Plaza is part of TPG's goal to be the first major property owner to convert its entire national portfolio to LEED-rated "high performance" properties by the end of 2011. Four properties already have LEED certifications, seven more are on track in the LEED program and four planned developments have achieved LEED pre-certification.

"We view green as a competitive advantage for our firm," said Thomas. "No other real estate company has our 20-year history of developing and operating environmentally-friendly projects that create healthier and more productive workplaces for tenants, cut energy and water use and save money."

Washington DC Proves Itself Robust In American Office Property Market

june 24, 2010

The sale of four major commercial properties has boosted the robust credentials of a Washington DC firm as a key surviving market for offices in America.

Washington Real Estate Investment Trust (WRIT) has completed the sale of an industrial complex and three offices in Maryland for $23.4m. The properties, Lexington Building, Saratoga Building, Parklawn Plaza and Charleston Business Centre together total 229,000 square feet.

The sale of the four properties has netted a gain of $7.9 million for the Washington DC office based investment company.

The Washington, D.C. metro area amply demonstrated its stability and resilience in 2008. The region experienced positive job growth, an increase in gross regional product (GRP) and the lowest unemployment rate among the major markets in the nation. For the year, the Washington, D.C. metro region remained one of the top-performing real estate markets in the US.

"These four properties have proven to be solid performers in our portfolio. We identified these assets as disposition candidates to continue our strategy of recycling capital into more modern assets inside the Beltway, near major transportation nodes, or with BRAC or other significant employment drivers in the greater metro area, such as our recent acquisition at Quantico Corporate Center," said George McKenzie, president and chief executive officer of WRIT.

WRIT is a self-administered, self-managed, equity real estate investment trust investing in income-producing properties in the greater Washington metro region. It owns a portfolio of 88 properties totalling approximately 11.1 million square feet of commercial space and 2,540 residential units. 26 are office properties.

Major US Commercial Insurer Expanding To Meet Growing Demand In The Sector

june 21, 2010

One of America's largest commercial insurers is reporting large growth in the property sector with the expansion due of two large offices in the US.

CNA Select Risk, one of America's largest commercial insurers is announcing new growth in its casualty unit with the opening of new offices in New York City and Los Angeles. Housed within existing CNA branch offices, the two locations will help CNA Select Risk extend its geographic reach with greater accessibility to distribution partners, and continue to provide a customer-focused approach to writing wholesale casualty business.

Serving businesses and professionals since 1897, CNA, with head offices in Chicago, is America's seventh largest commercial insurance underwriter and the 13th largest property and casualty company. CNA's insurance products include standard commercial lines, speciality products, surety, marine and other property and casualty coverages. CNA's services include risk management, information services, underwriting, risk control and claims administration.

Sean McPhillips, who recently joined CNA Select Risk as regional assistant vice president, will lead the New York office and focus on developing CNA's north-east presence. McPhillips has 23 years of casualty insurance experience, mostly as an E&S underwriter. He most recently served as manager of the First Mercury Emerald office in New York City.

Jim Faley, CNA Select Risk's newly-appointed regional assistant vice president, will lead the Los Angeles office. Faley joins CNA with diverse insurance industry experience that includes serving as vice president for XL Re; and, most recently, managing Excess and Umbrella as Western region manager for First Mercury Emerald.

Major Online Banking and Virtual Office Finance Conference Backed By Big Bank

june 18, 2010

A huge banking technology conference seen as a major marketplace to strike deals on virtual banking and remote office in the financial industry is being backed by a major Silicon Valley bank.

Bridge Bank, National Association, a full-service professional business bank with head offices in Silicon Valley, California announced its sponsorship and participation in the Annual AlwaysOn Venture Summit East Conference. This two day conference will be held June 21-23 at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.

"Bridge Bank continues to make a name for itself as a source of innovative banking solutions as well as being a key partner to their companies," said Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn. "We are happy to provide our attendees and Bridge Bank with this premier opportunity to meet and work together."

Like its sister event in Silicon Valley, Venture Summit East is a two-day gathering that highlights the significant economic, political and technology trends impacting the global growth investor. The attendees for Venture Summit East will include the most influential institutional investors, venture capitalists, corporate buyers, investment bankers and research analysts in the Eastern U.S. in keynote presentations and panel debates. Venture Summit East will also feature the AlwaysOn East 100 Top Private Companies list, and play host to CEO Showcases from qualified companies seeking later-stage capital or potential acquirers.

Five hundred institutional investors, venture capitalists, investment bankers, research analysts, and corporate buyers will attend Venture Summit East. The most influential members of the financial and technology media and blogging community will also be on hand to moderate debates and cover the conference, and it will be webcast to over 40,000 people world-wide. Executives attend Venture Summit East to identify and debate emerging investment opportunities in venture and private equity funds and private growth companies, and to build high-level relationships with technology and greentech CEOs and corporate buyers.

"Companies are beginning to grow again in many fields and we look forward to addressing their demands for innovative and creative credit, banking, and partnership solutions," said Paul Gibson, senior vice president of Bridge Bank's Technology Banking East Coast office. "We look forward to meeting them and their investors and to once again partner with AlwaysOn for Venture Summit East at a landmark venue."

Global Launch of Office 2010

june 17, 2010

Microsoft announced the worldwide availability of the long awaited Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010. Consumers can now purchase Office 2010 at more than 35,000 retail stores across the globe, but the headline hitter has been the new downloadable versions designed to combat threats from Google through online downloads from Microsoft at Office.com.

From a survey of Office 2010 beta users, Microsoft found that 75 percent say they plan to buy Office 2010 within six months. The Office 2010 beta program had more than 9 million downloads — more than six times the size of the 2007 Microsoft Office beta program — indicating strong consumer interest in Office 2010.

The Washington software giant, with its headquarters office campus in Redmond, says more than 100 million PCs will ship with Office 2010 preloaded with one of the three versions, Office Home and Student 2010, Office Home and Business 2010, or Office Professional 2010.

“Working with major retail partners and PC makers, we’ve made dramatic changes in the way we deliver Office 2010 to give consumers more buying choice, making it easier than ever to unlock the power of Office on new and existing PCs,” said Stephen Elop, president, Microsoft Business Division.

“For the first time, people can purchase a Product Key Card at retail to activate Office 2010 preloaded on new PCs. For those who want to download Office 2010 direct from Office.com for an existing PC, the new Click-to-Run technology will have them up and running in a matter of minutes.”

Office 2010 Represents a Great Growth Opportunity for Microsoft and Its Partners
“Recent comScore Tech Metrix™ data confirms that more than 1 billion PCs worldwide have Office software installed, making it the most widely used productivity suite in the world,” said Mike Hurt, senior vice president of comScore. “This milestone helps illustrate the importance that software products like Microsoft Office have played in shaping the digital world to date.”

Huge Joint Internet Fraud Initiative Launched in America To Help Online Business and Virtual Offices

june 17, 2010

A huge joint effort between major companies and US agencies has develop a centralised alert system for internet identity fraud. It is designed to combat the relatively new criminal activity, and is hoped to reinforce confidence for virtual office-based and online businesses in America.

The National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA), Accuity, the American Bankers Association, Anti-Phishing Working Group, Citizens Bank, eBay, Microsoft, Federal Trade Commission, National Consumers League and PayPal are to release a new program that will help mitigate potential losses due to online fraud and account compromise.

Launched today, Internet Fraud Alert will offer a trusted and effective mechanism for participating researchers to report stolen account credentials discovered online — such as username and password login information for online services or compromised credit card numbers — to the appropriate institution responsible for that account. Through a centralized alerting system powered by Microsoft technology, Internet Fraud Alert will quickly inform companies about compromised credentials, allowing them to take the appropriate action to help protect their customers.

The program will go into effect immediately. The first of its kind, Internet Fraud Alert represents an important step forward in fighting online fraud. It will serve the much-needed purpose of enabling security researchers and investigators to more securely and systematically share information with service providers, retailers, financial institutions and government entities about incidents where compromised account credentials have been discovered.

Until now, when the security community uncovers compromised credentials stemming from phishing attacks, for example, there has been no simple mechanism to warn the service provider or bank about the exposed credentials. Phishing and malicious code attacks pose a serious threat to consumer identity and account credentials. In 2009, the Anti-Phishing Working Group received more than 410,000 unique phishing e-mail reports, and recent data from the group show that the number of brands being exploited by phishers is at an all-time high.

Washington D.C. Office Market Looking More Confident As Large Rental Rises Take Hold

july 30, 2010

Occupancies remain little changed for offices in Washington D.C., while rents are showing large increases according to new figure released from a major commercial property firm. It may indicate a confidence in the US office market.

First Potomac Realty Trust reported rental rates per square foot increased 12.7 per cent for new leases and 1.7 per cent for renewal leases in the three and six months ending June 2010. The company has a consolidated portfolio totalling 12 million square feet and whose largest tenant is the U.S. Government, which along with government contractors, accounts for over 20 per cent of the company's revenue.

Borrowing in the US seems to be gaining confidence, the company reports expanded unsecured revolving credit facility from $175 million to $225 million. But with its portfolio 86.6 percent leased and 84.0 percent occupied in Q2 2010 compared with 86.3 per cent leased and 84.2 per cent occupied in Q1 2010, there appears to be an air of solidity around the market.

The company has acquired a 129,000 square foot office building in Washington D.C. for a contractual price of $67.8m. It also bought a 174,000 square foot offices in Fairfax County, Virginia for a contractual price of $13.7m.

Douglas J. Donatelli, chairman and CEO of First Potomac Realty Trust, stated: "We are very pleased with our second quarter results as our positive momentum continued in both operations and acquisitions. Our same-property NOI was up for the fifth time in six quarters, and we signed 400,000 square feet of leases, generating positive net absorption. We also completed two attractive acquisitions in the quarter, including our first purchase in Washington, D.C. The strength of our reputation, our long-standing relationships and our deep market knowledge, combined with our solid balance sheet, position First Potomac to continue executing our strategy to become one of the largest and best owners of commercial properties in the greater Washington region."

Florida Offices Receive a Total Virtual Office Data Backup Solution

july 25, 2010

Safe Technologies International, a disaster recovery data backup provider, is to provide backup solutions for 19,000 sq ft of Miami offices.

Quest Workspaces, a leading provider of South Florida office space, has selected the company's SDS data backup, disaster recovery and remote IT support services as the in-house solution for over 65 businesses located in their 19,000 square foot Miami facility.

Recent years have brought billions in natural disaster-related losses to the South Florida business market placing data loss prevention and business continuity planning at center stage. SDS offers real-time backup of data together with a company's operating system environment, making complete business process functional restoration, or "disaster recovery" possible in hours instead of days, weeks or months.

"Regulatory challenges like Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, along with speed-of-technology-related challenges imposed on small-medium sized companies (SMBs), have made 24/7/365 IT support essential to business survival", commented Laura Kozelouzek, CEO of Quest Workspaces.

Ms. Kozelouzek, a 20 year office space industry senior executive continued: "SDS offers cutting edge solutions to both everyday technology issues and once-in-a-lifetime crisis situations. Our clients really notice the difference SDS brings to the IT support equation. They are a valuable part of the Quest team."

"As a leading provider of fully-staffed, Class "A" office space in the South Florida market, our companies truly complement each other," commented Christopher Kolb, president of Safe Technologies, headquartered in Boca Raton offices in Florida. "Bringing world-class IT support and resources to SMBs is the primary mission of the SDS business model, and we are proud to have Quest as a partner."

US Real Estate Analysis Firm Ship Shape After Nokia Dispute

july 22, 2010

A US company has posted strong financial results after settling a dispute with Nokia UK.

CoStar Group, the leading provider of information, marketing and analytic services to the commercial real estate industry, has announced that revenues for the second quarter of 2010 were $55.8m

The company, headquartered in offices in Maryland, accrued $2m in anticipation of the favorable resolution of a dispute with its former UK landlord, Nokia UK Limited. It was concerning the termination of a lease agreement for its former London offices. The Company's decision to terminate its lease with Nokia UK Limited and sign a new lease for offices located in London's West End is the most recent in a series of moves made as part of an overall strategy to consolidate its London locations and open a research center in Glasgow offices that has substantially reduced occupancy costs.

Income showed an annual increase of $5.7m, a solid growth indicator compared to revenues of $50.1m in the second quarter of 2009. But 2010 showed slow growth in its quarterly increase of $0.7m compared to revenues of $55.1m in the first quarter of 2010. Subscription-based revenue accounted for approximately 94 per cent of the company's total revenue in the second quarter of 2010.

CoStar Group founder and CEO Andrew Florance said he was very pleased by the continued improvement in the company's sales, revenue and renewal rates over the first half of this year. "There is no stronger testament to the overall value and utility of CoStar's services than the satisfaction of our clients as demonstrated by the exceptionally high renewal rates for our services."

CoStar also has offices in France.

Stock Market Trading Software Companies Burned By The Financial Meltdown

july 22, 2010

Stock market traders are no stranger to rocky times, while the virtual office technologies software companies they rely on have also been hit hard by the financial meltdown.

TradeStation Group, which provides an electronic trading platform, has reported 2010 second quarter net revenues of $36.1m and net income of $3.5m. Earnings per share (diluted) of 9 cents, compared to 2009 second quarter net revenues of $35.2 million, net income of $4.7 million and earnings per share (diluted) of 11 cents.

The company, based in offices in Plantation, Florida has seen $100m in software sales since its initial release in 1991. But drops in brokerage commissions and fees 2010's second quarter at $30.5m as compared to 2009 second quarter brokerage commissions and fees of $31.9 million. Brokerage commissions and fees are the largest component of the company's net revenues.

Interest income historically accounted for a large component of the company's income before income taxes until short-term interest rates fell under 1 per cent per annum 19 months ago.

Its TradeStation Prime Services division, based in New York offices, seeks to provide prime brokerage services to small and mid-sized hedge funds and other firms. The company's technology subsidiary, TradeStation Technologies, develops and offers strategy trading software tools and subscription services. Its London office based subsidiary, TradeStation Europe Limited, an FSA-authorized brokerage firm, introduces UK and other European accounts to TradeStation Securities.

Ontario Capital Firm To Buy Virtual Office and Banking Facility

july 16, 2010

AllCom, the Nevada office based global technology company behind Universal Office and Virtual Merchant, is to sell major intellectual property rights to Schwabo Capital.

Shwabo based in offices in Ontario, Canada, have announce that it has entered into a letter of intent whereby the parties have agreed to complete negotiations for the $23m purchase IP for AllCom's "Universal Office" platform, "Genie" and "AllCom".

That will buy them 52,600,000 shares in the company which has created a proprietary hardware and software platform (the "Universal Office") integrating telecommunications, electronic banking, and the internet.

AllCom's proprietary Universal Office soft switch integrates those three key elements on a single platform, running over GenieNet, a global private voice-over-IP network. Genie is the personality of the Universal Office on the phone and online.
From New York City to Seattle, from Miami to San Diego, from Houston to Minneapolis, from Boston to Salt Lake City, AllCom provides Local Service in over five thousand cities and communities, approximately 85 per cent of the people in the United States can reach Genie – and AllCom subscribers - with a local call.

AllCom users can also access Virtual Merchant, a tool subscribers use to accept electronic payment for their goods and service. The free to use Virtual Merchant can make peer-to-peer payments in the Genie Cloud, paid in real time, at no charge to the buyer or the seller. Once the account is set up, buyers can call the subscriber's Universal Office, press the pound key and start using their new Virtual Merchant.

Cloud Computing and Virtual Office US Army-Style

july 16, 2010

Cloud computing for the US Military is a different kind of virtual office enviornment, and has landed TeleCommunication Systems, the Maryland office headquartered company. $2.2m of business.

The world leader in secure mobile communication technology, with its offices in Annapolis, has announced the continued supply of equipment to the UAS Project Office which includes Reconnaissance Surveillance and Target Acquisition (RSTA) Digital Data Link (DDL) Kits and Software Licenses.

The U.S. Army project manager for the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical Commercial Satellite Terminal Program (CSTP) is funding the order through the Army's $5bn World-Wide Satellite Systems contract vehicle.

The work to be performed will require the fabrication, testing, delivery, set up, checkout, operation, and maintenance of satellite terminals and related equipment. This contract provides users with a single-source, turn-key, rapid response solution for DoD communications requirements, including homeland security and disaster relief.

TCS has proven itself as a provider of communication technology solutions to solve the government's toughest technical challenges, under conditions that demand the highest level of security. To ensure mission continuity, TCS offers a family of deployables Swiftlink communication solutions over military internet for voice, video and data solutions to provide seamless, highly secure connectivity between fixed sites and remote operations.

TCS provides new mobile cloud computing services providing wireless applications for navigation, hyper-local search, asset tracking, social applications and telematics.
TCS solutions on thought leadership and industry involvement have a portfolio of over 100 granted patents and over 300 pending applications. The company is a driving force in developing products and technologies that solve communication challenges around the globe for governments, corporations, and ordinary people. It's emergency services communication technologies set up multi-data facilities for ambulances and fast response teams to pass sensitive information securely and reliable.

3 Million Square Feet Of Las Vegas Office Management Acquired

july 08, 2010

An Las Vegas office and commercial property firm which manages nearly 3 million square feet of commercial property has been aquired by its Chicago office headquartered affiliate.

Grubb & Ellis Company, a leading real estate services and investment firm, announced yesterday that it has strengthened its presence in the western United States by acquiring a 100 percent interest in its Navada office based affiliate, Grubb & Ellis Las Vegas. The acquisition marks the third owned office the company has established during 2010.

"The acquisition is consistent with Grubb & Ellis' growth strategy to bolster its full-service capabilities throughout the country," said Thomas D'Arcy, president and chief executive officer of Grubb & Ellis. "We believe Las Vegas offers significant opportunity, and Grubb & Ellis Las Vegas is a recognised leader in the region. They have been one of our most productive affiliate offices, and there is no question that they best represent our company and our clients in the market."

The change in ownership structure adds around 30 experienced brokerage professionals who specialise in all aspects of commercial real estate, including office, industrial, retail, investments, multi-family and land. In addition to leasing, acquisition and disposition services, the office manages nearly 3 million square feet of commercial property.


"Over the past decade, we've built a solid relationship with Grubb & Ellis and look forward to working even closer together in the months and years ahead," said Joseph Kupiec, managing director of the Las Vegas office. "We're excited about the progress the company has made over the past two years and believe that there is long-term benefit for our employees to be part of Grubb & Ellis."

Jack Van Berkel, chief operating officer of Grubb & Ellis and president, Real Estate Services says the Las Vegas office is a critical move to secure the company's presence.

"Our affiliate platform remains an important component of servicing the company's clients in a number of secondary and tertiary markets throughout the country; however, there are certain markets where we believe it is critical to have an owned-office presence."

During 2010, Grubb & Ellis opened owned offices in San Diego and Phoenix, and announced similar plans for Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, and Charlotte, N.C.

America's One Giant Leap Towards Electric Commuting

july 08, 2010

America's Car Charging Group has taken one step further towards a nationwide network of charging stations for electric vehicles (EV) in office and commercial parking facilities in the hope to make electric commuting more viable.

Car Charging Group, the Florida-office based provider of electric vehicle charging stations, has announced an agreement an Orlando International Airport parking facility to provide charging facilities for jetting customers.

"With a ubiquitous electrical grid already in place, creating a charging infrastructure for electric vehicles is a much smaller challenge than delivering a new alternative fuel over a new network. As the number of electric cars on U.S. roads expands, the emergence of an open system of cost-efficient charging stations in numerous locations - home, office and places with long visits, such as airport parking lots," said Car Charging Group CEO Michael Farkas from its office in Miami Beach.

"As part of our agreement, we will share a percentage of the revenue derived from the charging stations," said Bob Stout, Managing Partner of Park, Bark & Fly, the car park operator in one of the nation's busiest airports. "We consider electric car charging stations to be yet another in-demand service that will continue to expand our customer base."

The mainstreaming of electric cars is getting a boost from U.S. utilities pledging to increase their efforts to expand the use of plug-in electric vehicles. the Obama Administration has committed billions of dollars to the proposition that electric cars will become a meaningful segment of the U.S. auto market and carmakers taking applications for delivery in 2010 of new-generation electric vehicles, such as the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt, the Fisker Karma, and the Tesla Roadster.

Google, Amazon and Nokia US Office Portfolio Bought For $1.3bn

july 02, 2010

A Denver commercial property trust has bought a large US office portfolio which provides offices for the likes of Google, Amazon and Nokia.

Dividend Capital Total Realty Trust, a diversified Denver office based real estate investment trust, has completed the acquisition of a portfolio of 32 office and industrial properties.

The sale by iStar Financial was for a purchase price of the properties was approximately $1.3bn. Included in the acquisition are 21 office properties located in 10 markets totalling approximately 4.6 million net rentable square feet. The portfolio consists of 32 office and industrial properties located in 16 markets within the United States totaling approximately 11.3 million net rentable square feet.

"We are extremely pleased to acquire this high-quality portfolio of office and industrial buildings," said Guy Arnold, president of the Colorado office based Dividend Capital Total Realty Trust. "We feel the acquisition is a valuable addition to our portfolio, further diversifying our commercial real estate holdings by property type, tenant base and geography."

Select tenants include Amazon.com, Sybase, FedEx, Unisys, Goodyear, Nokia Siemens, Avis Budget, DirecTV and Google, among others. The portfolio is showing a very healthy 99 per cent occupancy and the large majority of the properties are leased to single tenant corporate users. 95 per cent of the portfolio's tenants are public companies, offering transparency into tenant operations and financial statements.

"We believe the contractual cash flow of the portfolio is stable due to quality tenants and the long-term nature of the remaining lease terms," said Greg Moran, chief investment officer for Dividend Capital. "Additionally, the portfolio contains a substantial amount of corporate and regional headquarter locations and distribution facilities that are critical to the ongoing operations of each tenant's respective business platforms, further supporting our belief in the sound fundamentals of the properties in the portfolio."

Dividend Capital Total Realty Trust secured approximately $859m of senior and mezzanine financing on the portfolio with a combination of fixed and floating interest rates. The weighted average interest rate of these loans is approximately 5.4 per cent.

Houston Green Glass Office Development - A Rarer Sight In The Current Climate

july 02, 2010

Wells, an Atlanta office headquartered real estate company is to take over Energy Centre I, a new, environmentally certified 13-story office building in Houston.

Energy Center I is fully leased, despite being a new development, probably one of the last major developments before office constructions ground to a hald.

The 332,000-square-foot glass tower, completed just two years ago, is certified LEED Silver, under Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a national benchmark for green buildings. The property also has won ENERGY STAR(R) designation.

Part of a two-building campus, Energy Center I is located in west Houston's Energy Corridor submarket, along Interstate 10. The area is one of the top 20 US office submarkets and is in three-year rent growth trends.

"This is an excellent new property in a well-performing market," said Don Henry, chief real estate officer, Wells Real Estate Funds.

Wells REIT II acquired the building from the building's owner and developer, Trammell Crow Company, in joint venture with Principal Real Estate Investors. Wells specialises in office properties, with a portfolio of 92 buildings in 23 US states, Washington, D.C., and Moscow, covering more than 21 million square feet. Since its founding in 1984, Wells investment programs have invested more than $12 billion in real estate for more than 250,000 investors.

Developer Trammell Crow Company is a leading American developer and investor which has developed or acquired over 500 million square feet of buildings with a value exceeding $50 billion. As of March 31, 2010, Trammell Crow Company had over $5.6 billion of projects in process or in its pipeline.

Largest Online Commercial Marketplace Expands Massive Database

july 02, 2010

LoopNet, the largest online commercial real estate marketplace, has launched a national property database has expanded 50 per cent with more than 7.5 million property records. The company has netted virtually all of the top commercial real estate firms in the US office market including CB Richard Ellis, Cassidy Turley, Century 21 Commercial, Coldwell Banker Commercial, Colliers International and Cushman & Wakefield.

The company with offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles, now runs a database with approximately 750,000 listings, but the recently introduced database has bolstered the content to contain 10 times the number of properties and represents a more holistic view of commercial inventory on the market.

Not all of the added properties are on the market, but research is aided by included histories for offices and commercial properties, such as owner details and history, tenant rosters, mortgage and lender histories tax records and assessed values. Historical sale and lease listings are also on the database.

"Our objective is to help our customers make better decisions, save money, and work more efficiently by providing them with the most affordable and comprehensive database of commercial properties in the industry," said Thomas Byrne, LoopNet's President and COO. "To enhance that objective, we have chosen to make the property database available for free to all of our premium members."

"Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Customers have told us that the new property database will streamline and simplify several of the tasks they perform regularly today. We are also encouraged by the opportunities we see to expand and customize the tools we offer our customers, increasing the ways in which they will be able to access and interact with the wealth of information that we are providing. Additionally, we remain focused on continuing to expand the overall property and information coverage beyond 7.5 million property records."

Denver Firm Holds Healthy In US Market

july 02, 2010

A Denver based commercial real estate firm is holding a healthy credit balance in a difficult market.

A $17.3 million debt investment in a 616,000 square foot, grade A office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has been repaid.

Dividend Capital Total Realty Trust, a a Denver office based firm, says it has yielded an approximate return on the investment of 13 per cent. Through a joint venture partnership with Pearson Partners Inc., a real estate investment banking and advisory firm, $21.3 million was invested in September 2008 in the 32-storey office building.

The Trust has now announced that it has secured $35 million of fixed rate financing on a Princeton, office property in New Jersey. Acquired by the company in November 2009 for approximately $51 million in an all-cash transaction. The property is leased to Novo Nordisk, a leading healthcare company with 13 years remaining on the lease term. The financing proceeds, provided by a life insurance company, should give Dividend Capital Total Realty Trust the ability to redeploy the capital at a time when commercial real estate property prices are lower, which has the potential to be further accretive to the company.

"The Liberty Avenue investment contributed an attractive return to our portfolio over the term of the investment, yielding approximately 13 per cent on our investment in less than two years," said Guy Arnold, president of Dividend Capital Total Realty Trust. "Similarly, the Princeton, NJ financing shows the strength of this property as well as our balance sheet and gives us a great opportunity to make additional investments that should be beneficial to the company and its investment strategy."

Dividend Capital Total Realty Trust, a Denver-based REIT, invests in a diversified portfolio of commercial real estate assets. The company currently owns 79 properties totalling approximately 13 million square feet in 27 geographic markets.

Massachusetts Firm Suggests Healthy Commercial Investments for US Property Market

july 01, 2010

A Massachusetts property firm has said commercial and office property investments are in the healthiest state for several years, implying strong recovery in pockets of the US office market.

Franklin Street Properties, the Massachusetts office based investment firm, has announced branching out to purchase two office buildings in the central business district of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The adjacent buildings, totalling approximately 470,000 rentable square feet of space, were acquired for a purchase price of $40.5m. They are 90 per cent leased to a diverse group of over 40 tenants with staggered lease expirations. The largest tenant, TCF National Bank, leases approximately 98 per cent of one building, a 4-storey Minneapolis office-block containing approximately 170,000 rentable square feet of space. TCF also leases approximately 30 per cent of the adjacent 17-story building containing approximately 300,000 rentable square feet of space, which is commonly known as the TCF Tower.

The acquisition brings a total portfolio of 33 directly-owned properties. A statement released by Franklin Street Properties said they continue to be very optimistic about the opportunities “to acquire commercial properties at better pricing and value metrics than we have seen in the last several years.”

Franklin Street Properties Corp., based in Wakefield, Massachusetts, says it is focused on achieving current income and long-term growth through investments in commercial properties. FSP operates in two business segments: real estate operations and investment banking/investment services. The majority of FSP's property portfolio is suburban office buildings, with select investments in certain central business district properties. FSP's subsidiary, FSP Investments LLC (member, FINRA and SIPC), is a real estate investment banking firm and a registered broker/dealer. FSP is a Maryland corporation that operates in a manner intended to qualify as a real estate investment trust (REIT) for federal income tax purposes.

Virtual Town Hall in Dallas

january 28, 2010

A Dallas company has released a virtual Town Hall. Got your attention? It sounds like a huge leap towards public virtual offices. Dallas may not be the place you would expect great strides in utilising virtual office for new applications, and actually, it isn’t. The Town Hall turned out to be a standard videoblog of Dallas office-based technology company China Crescent set against blue background.

But, aside from being interesting that large company would use a virtual office tool to deliver its annual company report, it does go to show that virtual is catching people’s imagination, if not a little bit of daydreaming too. With a strategy to triple their revenue to $100m this year, which might be imaginative enough in the current financial meltdown, they clearly feel the need to show their doing something virtually exciting. Does this mean that virtual is becoming popular enough to use as a PR and marketing tool? China Crescent seemed to think so.

China Crescent Enterprises. reported over $40m in profitable revenue in 2008. The company is a technology leader in the rapidly developing Chinese market headquartered in Dallas with offices in Shanghai and Beijing. They specialise in software engineering, development and digital multimedia outsourcing services. At the same time, the firm is a systems integrator and reseller of major hardware brands in the Chinese domestic market.

China Crescent claims to bridge the gap between Western and Eastern business cultures in assisting Western companies to take advantages of high quality, low cost technology products and services available from China.

Cushman & Wakefield Announce Expansion Of North Carolina Office

january 20, 2011

Cushman & Wakefield, the world’s largest privately-held commercial real estate services firm based in New York offices, has announced the expansion of its alliance with Thalhimer, a leading mid-Atlantic commercial real estate firm.

In a strategic move to provide its industry leading commercial real estates services and global platform to the Charlotte marketplace, Thalhimer will open a new North Carolina office in Charlotte that will serve to strengthen C&W’s presence throughout the region.

Paul F. Silver, President & CEO of Thalhimer states “Cushman & Wakefield is a global and recognized leader for supplying services and strategic advice to many of the most well-known companies in the world. We are delighted to strengthen our partnership with a global leader with a proven record of performance. Our firms share a culture of providing exceptional client services and meeting all aspects of our client’s real estate needs.” Thalhimer has as been a member of the Cushman & Wakefield Alliance Program since 2002 servicing the Commonwealth of Virginia.

“Our strong relationship with Thalhimer in the state of Virginia led to this expansion of our alliance to the Charlotte marketplace,” said Jim Underhill, CEO, Americas of Cushman & Wakefield. “Our central focus is premier client service in the markets where we have a presence, and we believe our clients will benefit from the entrepreneurial and localized influence of this strong alliance partnership. Thalhimer is highly qualified to help us grow our presence in the State of North Carolina.”

Joining Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer’s brokerage group as a senior vice president is Warren M. Snowdon, SIOR. Warren is a veteran real estate professional in the Charlotte area, specializing in assisting national and international companies with site selection and disposition strategies to rationalize supply chain networks. His areas of focus include both acquisition and disposition of land, office and warehouse facilities, manufacturing, and bulk distribution in North Carolina. Also joining the Charlotte office are Patrick R. McCoy and Ralph V. Oldham.

US Commercial Property Giant Adds $700m To Office Portfolio

january 20, 2011

A US office giant has announced 2010 as an aggressive office buying year despite ongoing recession.

Cole Real Estate Investments (Cole), one of America's most active buyers of commercial real estate assets has announced it successfully completed $2.5 billion of real estate related acquisitions in 2010. The announcement was made by Marc Nemer, president of Cole Real Estate Investments.

“Cole expects to maintain an aggressive acquisitions pace in 2011, targeting more than $3 billion in additional commercial real estate”

Cole added over $700 million of single-tenant office space and industrial properties, which are subject to long-term net leases with creditworthy tenants, as well as $62 million of mortgage notes receivable investments.

The most notable acquisitions included the Microsoft Bing headquarters in Bellevue, WA, for $310 million, one of the largest property acquisitions in the country in 2010; the HealthNow New York office building in Buffalo, NY, for $85 million; and a portfolio of office and industrial properties purchased from USAA totaling $98 million. The USAA acquisition included a Home Depot distribution facility in Tolleson, AZ, and the AT&T regional headquarters and the Igloo distribution facility, both in Texas offices.

“Acquiring $2.5 billion of quality, core real estate assets is a significant achievement in today’s market, especially in light of where commercial real estate valuations were in 2010 and where most experts see them going over the next several years. We can attribute this accomplishment to our fine investment team, our success in raising capital, and our deep relationships across the commercial real estate brokerage community,” explained Nemer. “Our conservative investment strategy and our diligent underwriting standards ensure we buy only high quality properties leased to leading tenants. It also supports our financing activity – we are considered a borrower of choice within the lending community given the credit quality of our tenants and long-term nature of our assets.”

Major Virtual Office Apps Launched Worldwide By Major US Software Company

january 20, 2011

Rapidsoft Systems has completed the custom development of a series of mobile social networking platforms and applications for virtual office.

The applications allow virtual meetings, dating and informal socialising using mobiles, while others combine entertainment and infotainment. When released to consumers in the next few weeks, they are expected to touch the lives of millions of people around the world.

The applications are designed for virtual office users in different geographical area due to certain cultural aspects. iPhone, Android and Blackberry platforms will be delivered in the US, while Brew Applications are being delivered to mainly Asian users from Indonesia to India. All applications are built to scale from thousand of users to millions of end users. Rapidsoft Systems' highly experienced web scalability team spent many months architecting systems so that these systems can scale from thousands of users to millions of users in a gradual way. Rapidsoft IT integration team will be maintaining the entire systems for two of its customers during deployment phase and beyond. The formal launch for these systems is expected in Q1, 2011.

Commenting on the development, Dr. B. Kumar, CEO, Rapidsoft Systems said, " Anyone can build simple mobile or web applications, but creating modern applications with backend platforms that can scale to the large number of users requires skill that are often not present in the typical outsourcing companies. On top of that you need to take care of security issues and disaster planning for running such systems." Rapidsoft has expertise and technical knowhow to architect systems and deploy them that can scale. "We are very proud of the end results and truly believe what we produced will be touching the lives of many users. Our aim was to create tools for better connected mobile world for our clients and we are verge of achieving those goals. ", added G. Mavi, VP of Sales and Marketing.

Rapidsoft Systems is a corporate level approved developer for iPhone applications with Apple, and is member of Blackberry Development Alliance with Research in Motion (RIM). Rapidsoft Systems, Inc works closely with NSTL for CDMA Brew Application in arranging True Brew Testing (TBT) certifications. Rapidsoft Systems, Inc has proven experience and skills in whole Brew application development and distribution cycle.

Rapidsoft Systems has its main office in Princeton, New Jersey and Mercerville New Jersey. It also has support and development offices in California, Singapore, Dubai, Bombay and Noida in India.

AOL Gets Exclusive Rights To Virtual Office Property Search

january 16, 2011

Move, America's largest virtual office real estate listing, has given exclusive rights to power the AOL Real Estate homes for sale search. The agreement delivers an advertising network for agents to expand their reach and visibility to AOL.com's millions of monthly visitors.

The AOL Real Estate Experience will deliver a user experience customisd for AOL, according to Move, the virtual company based in Campbell offices in California. It woill offer a site with instant access to accurate property listings, neighborhood and school content, and connections to real estate experts. Leveraging Move's ListHub network, Move will syndicate millions of listings to AOL Real Estate and power the home buyer's search experience using their proprietary search technology launched in late 2010.

While Move will begin powering the AOL Real Estate homes for sale listings search experience later this year, Move and AOL Real Estate will soon begin coordinating sales efforts to benefit agents, brokers, and advertisers.  Agents and brokers syndicating to AOL Real Estate through Move can receive greater efficiency by extending their reach in the online marketplace with one easy-to-manage data feed.

"Our new relationship with AOL Real Estate is an exciting opportunity for Move to once again deliver on our commitment to connect agents with large, high-quality audiences of potential buyers," said Move, Inc., Chief Executive Officer Steve Berkowitz. "By remaining focused on delivering an exceptional user experience, accurate data, and high value products, Move continues to build our category leadership to the benefit of consumers, agents and brokers. We're excited to move forward with AOL and use our combined strengths to help agents and advertisers grow their businesses."

"AOL will be doubling down on our strategy in 2011," said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, AOL Inc. "As part of that effort, we will be partnering with companies in areas that add strength to the consumer experience and drive profitability for AOL." 

California Newspaper Firm Manages Pension Plan With US Office Assets

january 16, 2011

The McClatchy Company, America's third largest newspaper firm and owner of the largest virtual office job seeking site, has announced it has contributed certain company-owned US offices to its defined benefit pension plan.

The real estate, including certain land and office buildings, is located in Bradenton, Fla.; Charlotte, N.C.; Lexington, Ky.; Macon, Ga.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Olympia, Wash.; and Rock Hill, S.C., and has been valued by independent appraisals at approximately $49.6 million in total.

The company, headquartered in Sacramento offices in California is leasing back the property from its pension plan for 10 years and will pay aggregate annual rent of approximately $4.0 million to the pension plan. The contribution of the property will not have any impact on the company's day-to-day operations at its newspapers in these locations.  The property will be managed by WhiteStar Advisors, LLC (WhiteStar), an independent real estate advisory firm engaged by the pension plan.  WhiteStar hired independent real estate appraisers to determine the value of the real estate contributed to the plan.

As previously announced, McClatchy expects its required pension contribution under federal law to be approximately $50 million in 2011. The contribution of real estate is expected to satisfy virtually all of the company's required pension contribution for the year.  The final amount of the 2011 contribution is expected to be determined in the third quarter of 2011 when the company's actuaries complete the annual valuation of the pension plan. The remaining required contribution, if any, will be made in cash.
"We view this as a win-win transaction for both the pension plan and the company," said Pat Talamantes, McClatchy's chief financial officer. "Our pension plan will benefit from rental income from the company and from price appreciation as these properties hopefully gain in value over time. The company will, in turn, preserve its cash to repay debt."

Talamantes said the company will be able to continue to use the facilities for the foreseeable future and will receive a cash tax benefit of approximately $7.2 million related to the net tax basis of the property contributed.

The McClatchy Company is the third largest newspaper company in the United States, publishing 30 daily newspapers, 43 non-dailies, and direct marketing and direct mail operations. McClatchy also operates leading local websites in each of its markets which extend its audience reach. The websites offer users comprehensive news and information, advertising, e-commerce and other services. Together with its newspapers and direct marketing products, these interactive operations make McClatchy the leading local media company in each of its premium high growth markets. McClatchy-owned newspapers include The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Kansas City Star, The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer (Raleigh).

McClatchy also owns a portfolio of premium digital assets, including 14.4 per cent of CareerBuilder, the nation's largest online job site, 25.5 per cent of Classified Ventures, a newspaper industry partnership that offers two of the nation's premier classified websites: the auto website Cars.com and the rental site Apartments.com and 33.3 per cent of HomeFinder, which operates the real estate website HomeFinder.com. McClatchy is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

US Office IT Firm Gets Larger Office To Cope With Growth

january 16, 2011

SkillStorm, a national US office IT and engineering services and consulting firm, has relocated to a larger office space in Indianapolis to accommodate its rapid growth. The new office is located at 8440 Woodfield Crossing Boulevard, Suite 320, Indianapolis, IN 46240.

“SkillStorm has grown, and continues to grow at a rapid pace. This move puts us in an ideal location and affords us the opportunity to grow our clientele base. We are excited for what the future holds, not only for us, but also for our customers as we continue to provide cutting-edge capabilities and services,” said SkillStorm CEO Vince Virga.

The new location enables SkillStorm to provide ongoing services and better support to existing Indianapolis-area clients and also offer their services to new customers as the company continues to grow. The new location also allows SkillStorm to tap into a diverse market and to better position itself within the Information Technology and Engineering sectors in Indianapolis and surrounding areas.

SkillStorm has received many highly regarded national and state awards.  Most recently, SkillStorm was awarded a San Diego Better Business Bureau 2010 Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics and was named to the 2010 Inc. 5000 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies in the Nation by Inc. Magazine.  SkillStorm was also ranked among the top three 2010 Best Small Firms to Work for by Consulting Magazine and ranked #6 on Florida Trend magazine’s 2010 Best Companies to Work For in Florida list.  In addition, the company has ranked among the top 2010 executive search and employment services firms for the Dallas Business Journal, San Diego Business Journal and Tampa Bay Business Journal.  In 2009, SkillStorm was named South Florida Business Journal’s Business of the Year and Best Place to Work.

SkillStorm is a national IT and Engineering services and consulting firm specializing in providing managed project services, outsource solutions, strategic consulting and staff augmentation to both the public and private sectors. SkillStorm works with scores of fine companies, including many that rank among the elite Fortune 500 and has been setting the standard for customer service in the industry since inception in 2002. SkillStorm currently has offices in Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Jaccksonville, Dallas, San Diego and Indianapolis.

New York Office Market Rebounding In Strongest Performance Yet

january 13, 2011

Newly released year-end statistics for the Manhattan office market show leasing and investment activity have rebounded sharply year-over-year following the strongest fourth quarter for leasing activity in more than four years.

According to global office services firm Cushman & Wakefield this week, new leasing activity in the New York office district, an indicator of market demand for available office space, rose 61.4 per cent for the 12 month period ending Dec. 31, 2010, compared to the prior year. Leasing activity measured 26.3 million square feet for 2010 as a whole, compared to 16.3 million square feet for 2009. In the fourth quarter, new leasing activity totaled 7.5 million square feet, the second highest quarterly total in five years and the highest since the third quarter of 2006, when it registered 8.1 million square feet.

"This is an incredible and heartening uptick in activity coming from the depths that the market touched 18 to 24 months ago," said Joseph R. Harbert, Cushman & Wakefield's chief operating officer for the New York Metro Region. "With limited new construction and modest improvements in employment in New York City, this leasing activity has produced the first clear signs that fundamentals are now on the mend."

At the end of December, the average Manhattan office vacancy rate declined to 10.5 per cent from 10.9 per cent at the end of the third quarter - the largest quarterly decline since the second quarter of 2007. The market also experienced the first year-over-year office vacancy rate decline since the fourth quarter of 2007, and the first year of positive space absorption since 2007. At the end of March 2010, the Manhattan vacancy rate hit a five-year peak of 11.6 per cent.

In the fourth quarter, all three submarkets of Manhattan - Midtown, Midtown South and Downtown - experienced significant declines in vacancy, with the largest on a percentage basis in Midtown South and Downtown. Midtown's vacancy rate declined to 10.6 percent at the end of December from 11.0 per cent at the end of September. Midtown South's vacancy rate declined to 8.6 per cent from 9.2 per cent in the same time period, which Mr. Harbert explained positions it as a market in equilibrium, which the company classifies as a vacancy rate between 7-to-9 per cent in Manhattan. In addition, Downtown's vacancy rate declined to 11.5 per cent from 12.1 per cent.

Texas Office Acquisition Brings Back Major Buyers

january 13, 2011

Crocker Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners announced they have acquired the 1.2 million-square foot Lakes on Post Oak offices in Texas.

The acquisition of the Class A office complex in the Galleria submarket of Houston, which is 89 per cent leased, is a joint venture between the two parties. It marks Crocker Partners’ re-entry into the Texas market, which has US office investments throughout the south-eastern United States. It is Five Mile Capital Partners’ first major acquisition in the Houston market. Crocker’s predecessor entity, CRT Properties owned 2.1 million square feet of office space including Lakes on Post Oak before selling CRT Properties in 2005.

The property is ideally located at the south end of the Galleria submarket providing superior access to the three major highways that serve the area, US 59, the 610 West Loop and the Westpark Tollway.  The property is also conveniently located adjacent to The Galleria Shopping Centr,e Houston’s premier shopping destination, comprised of more than 375 stores and restaurants.

“We are excited to be back in the Houston market with this property, and we hope to expand our presence in Texas,” said Thomas J. Crocker, Managing Partner.  “After remaining on the sidelines for the past three years, we are again pursuing selective acquisitions throughout the Southeast, Texas and metro Washington D.C. office markets” Crocker said.  

Five Mile Capital Partners LLC is a privately-held alternative investment and asset management company established in 2003 and based in Connecticut offices in Stamford. The firm specializes in investment opportunities in real estate, debt products, structured finance, asset-based lending and financial services private equity. Recently Five Mile Capital Partners has executed transactions involving distressed and non performing first mortgage, mezzanine loans, equity and high yield structured products. Five Mile Capital Partners’ principals have significant experience, knowledge and skills relevant to the financial services industry and believe the cyclical and dynamic nature of the sector continually provides a broad opportunity for investments across the capital structure. Five Mile Capital Partners currently manages in excess of $2.3 billion of capital.

New Blackberry App For Small Virtual Office Company

january 01, 2011

Phone.com, an innovative virtual office based phone service company, based in New Jersey offices in the US, has announced its Mobile Office for BlackBerry application.

Mobile Office for BlackBerry enables subscribers to make and receive calls, text messages, and more from their Phone.com number via their BlackBerry phone.

“As a recent Forrester survey showed, 49 per cent of small business owners currently use a BlackBerry device which makes the launch of our Mobile Office for BlackBerry app that much more important,” said Ari Rabban, CEO of the company. “ “The comprehensive capabilities of this app were only available to executives at large corporations but now we are happy to bring them to businesses of any size.”

In addition to sending and receiving phone calls and text, the app allows users to access and manage their company account voicemail, view received faxes, click and connect to their private conference call bridge, review call history, block calls from unwanted or unidentified numbers, send and receive SMS messages, and more.

“As the president of a small web design firm, I am often on the road and away from the office so it’s important to me that my business line is always accessible for inbound and outbound calls,” said Jonathan Jones, President and CEO, Jones Web Design. “The Virtual Office for BlackBerry application makes it easier to return missed phone calls, start conference calls and make calls directly from my Blackberry using my business number. We were already seeing improved flexibility of communication and increased efficiency by adding the Phone.com Virtual Office system, but adding the BlackBerry application doubled that!”

State of California To Sell $2bn Worth Of Offices

february 28, 2010

The State of California is selling $2bn in office space in a huge claw back of funds to aid public finances. The California Department of General Services (DGS) announced on Friday that 11 state office properties, totalling nearly 7.3 million square feet, are now on the market and expected to draw significant interest from capital investors. The office stock sell-off is expected to make in excess of $2 billion for the state.

“This sale will allow California to pay off debt, tap equity, and lock in some of the lowest rental rates seen in years,” said DGS Acting Director Ron Diedrich. The Department of General Services serves as the business manager for the State of California. “The short and long-term financial gains will be real to help shore up the state budget in the years to come,” he added.

Mr. Diedrich says California should not be in the volatile real estate business and says the new strategy will mean predictable budgeting of costs and shedding liability for unforeseen repair costs that are inherent in owning real estate.

In June, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the legislature authorized the sale of the properties located in Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and Santa Rosa. The purpose of the sales are is for the state to retire more than $1 billion in bond debt, saving California hundreds of millions in interest payments over the next two decades. The sale is also expected to net at least $660 million in proceeds that will be funnelled to save Californians from increased taxes and deeper cuts in state programs and services.

The broker for the offices is the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm CB Richard Ellis Group (CBRE), who's headquarters are offices in California. It has listed the properties online. The 11 state office properties are among some of California’s most energy efficient and environmentally friendly, making the properties attractive to a market that is seeking sustainable, green designs. The US Green Buildings Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification has been achieved on most of the buildings.

“What the real estate investment community is looking for in today’s market are secure, low-risk investment opportunities – occupied buildings with long term, credit-worthy tenants, as well as increasingly ‘green’ product, both of which the State’s portfolio offers,” said Kevin Shannon, Vice Chairman for CBRE and the lead broker on the sale leaseback assignment. “We are confident that the expansive global marketing campaign we’re launching today will attract strong national and international interest in this generational acquisition opportunity.”

Office Depot Are Down But Definitely Not Out

february 24, 2010

Office Depot, the global provider of office products and services, is still feeling a big bite from the recession but big reductions in its losses bode something for signs of recovery.

The Florida office company has posted Q4 2009 results of decrease in sales of 6% to $3.1 billion (£842m). This was slightly better sales than the $3 billion predicted by analysts, and despite its loss per share was $0.28 for the quarter, this versus a loss per share of $5.64 in the same period one year ago.

The company are putting some of its damage control down to a thorough restructuring plan decreasing total company operating expenses by $186 million from the fourth quarter of 2008. Restructuring is one word for store closure. Office depot reported it had 115 fewer north American stores open in the fourth quarter of 2009 versus the prior year period. Whether these company results mean economic recovery is another thing,

"Our fourth quarter operating results and cash flow performance exceeded our expectations due to stronger than anticipated sales in our north American retail and international businesses," said Mike Newman, Office Depot's chief financial officer. "We remain pleased with the execution of our strategic initiatives across the entire enterprise."

Full year 2009 sales were $12.1 billion, a decrease of 16% from the prior year, principally driven by adverse economic conditions throughout the company's sales territories. The loss after preferred stock dividends for the full year 2009 was $627 million, compared to a loss of $1.48 billion in 2008. The loss per share was $2.30 in 2009 compared to a loss per share of $5.42 in 2008.

Green Office Shoots All Over New York

february 21, 2010

Green office talk has been much in the British press recently, with rent premiums for environmentally-friendly offices being researched by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors whilst offices around the UK have been benefiting from green makeovers. Green offices in Birmingham and Edinburgh made one property fund £69m last year. The new trend has been around for a long time in America. In New York, small (you could say grass-roots) green offices are sprouting up all over the city.

One of the most interesting is Green Desk which offers two office locations in Brooklyn. Their entire electrical supply is powered by wind turbines and they also offer filtered water to save on plastic bottles, recycling facilities, free organic coffee and will plant five trees for you when you join. Each fully furnished workspace has high-speed internet access and a phone line. Utilities, copying, scanning, printing, faxing, cleaning and paperless online billing are all included. They are also looking to add a roof garden, solar panels and shared bicycle service soon. The offices over look Manhattan and are situated almost underneath the Manhattan Bridge.

A single desk starts at $199 (£129) and offices in the Brooklyn buildings start at $1000 (£646) a month. There's also the option of a green virtual office for just £79 (£51). This includes the expected use of conference rooms and mail handling. Uptake has been good so Green Desk are soon opening a new offices in downtown Brooklyn, whilst other locations across the US and internationally are planned.

New York Office Firm Posts Recovery Results

february 17, 2011

A US office firm has posted clear recovery results in its latest announcement.

Brookfield Properties, a US office property firm based in New York offices, announced that net income attributable to common shareholders for the year ended December 31, 2010 was $1,552 million or $2.73 per diluted share, compared with a loss of $220 million or ($0.52) per diluted share in 2009. Net income attributable to common shareholders for the three months ended December 31, 2010 was $971 million or $1.70 per diluted share, compared with $1,038 million or $1.76 per diluted share for the three months ended December 31, 2009.

Funds from operations for the year ended December 31, 2010 was $727 million or $1.37 per diluted common share, compared with $556 million or $1.25 per diluted common share during the same period in 2009. FFO for the three months ended December 31, 2010 was $216 million or $0.40 per diluted share, compared with $208 million or $0.40 per diluted share during the same period in 2009.

Commercial property net operating income for the year was $729 million, compared with $690 million in 2009. Commercial property net operating income for the fourth quarter of 2010 was $203 million, compared with $204 million during the fourth quarter of 2009.

Brookfield Office Properties' occupancy rate finished the year at 95 per cent, consistent with year-end 2009, and down 10 basis points from the previous quarter. Leased 2.2 million square feet of space during the quarter at an average net rent of $36 per square foot. Full year leasing totaled 6.9 million square feet, 1.5 times 2009's full year leasing activity and above the company's five-year average leasing total of 6.5 million square feet. Highlights from the quarter include:

Offices in New York, amounted to 733,000 square feet.A new 10-year lease with Societe Generale for 444,000 square feet at 245 Park Avenue A five-year renewal with Bank of America/Merrill Lynch for 111,000 square feet at Newport Tower in Jersey City offices.

Calgary offices totalled 330,000 square feet. A 13-year renewal and expansion with Suncor Energy for 184,000 square feet at Suncor Energy Centre A 10-year renewal and expansion with West Coast Energy Inc. for 125,000 square feet at Fifth Avenue Place. And Toronto office space reached 262,000 square feet.

More Americans Than Ever Getting Rich Through Virtual Offices

february 17, 2010

Wealthy virtual office entrepreneurs are rapidly on the increase in America after new data shows the number home-workers by nearly two million in just six years along with a host of other revealing facts about modern working.

11.3 million Americans worked from home in 2005, up from 9.5 million in 1999 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Nearly half of these home-workers had college degrees and earned in excess of $75,000 a year.

“An examination of the data shows an increasing percentage of the workforce is spending at least some time working from home,” said Alison Fields, chief of the Census Bureau’s Journey to Work and Migration Statistics Branch. “This survey provides a better picture of the attributes of these people, as well as which professions and occupations allow them to work at home.”

Virtual office workers made up 8 percent of the total U.S. workforce in 2005, an increase from 7 percent in 1999. Among those who worked at home in 2005 about 8.1 million did so exclusively, an increase from 6.7 million in 1999.

The largest percentage worked in professional and related services (32 percent), followed by business and repair services (12 percent) and finance, insurance and real estate (10 percent). The most popular occupations were professional (25 percent), executive, administrative and managerial (22 percent) and sales (18 percent).

According to the survey working remotely is widely becoming a prerequisite for high-earning salaries. 46 percent of people who said they worked at home some or all of the time earned at least $75,000 per year, compared with 34 percent working from offices in America with similar salaries. Those who worked both at home and in an office had the highest percentage of high-paying jobs — about 54 percent of whom made $75,000 or more annually in 2005.

But there is a downside - along with more money came longer hours. About 11 percent reported working 11 or more hours in a typical day compared with only seven percent of office workers. Despite the long hours, there is the obvious greater flexibility for people who worked at home. About 23 percent of home-based workers reported their weekly work hours varied, compared with only 10 percent of those who worked outside the home. This may support those bosses who argue remote working lacks discipline and efficient productivity in the virtual office versus actual office debate.

US Office Firm Bounces Back in Q4 2010 From Another Difficult Year

february 13, 2011

A US office and commercial property developer has reported a bumper recovery in the last quarter of 2010, steadying another difficult year.

Griffin Land & Nurseries reported a 2010 fourth quarter operating profit of $91,000 on total revenue of $7,782,000. It is compared to an operating loss of $971,000 on total revenue of $7,084,000 for the 2009 fourth quarter. For the 2010 full year, Griffin reported an operating loss of $3,147,000 on total revenue of $35,611,000, as compared to an operating loss of ($5,360,000) on total revenue of $39,199,000 for the 2009 full year.

The company, headquartered in Connecticut offices in Bloomfield, owns the Griffin Centre, located in the state's town of Windsor, and the New England Tradeport, a 600-acre, master planned business community.

Griffin reported a 2010 fourth quarter net loss of $545,000 and a basic and diluted net loss per share of $0.11 as compared to a 2009 fourth quarter net loss of $1,282,000 and a basic and diluted net loss per share of $0.25. For the 2010 full year, Griffin reported a net loss of $4,487,000 and a basic and diluted net loss per share of ($0.88) as compared to a net loss of $5,513,000 and a basic and diluted net loss per share of ($1.09) for the 2009 full year.

Griffin Land did not have any property sales in fiscal 2009. The increase in space leased by Griffin Land is attributable to the inclusion, for the fiscal 2010 full year, of 257,000 square feet of the 304,000 square foot built-to-suit warehouse in New England Tradeport, Griffin Land's industrial park in Windsor and East Granby, Connecticut, that was completed and leased in the latter part of the 2009 third quarter and almost eleven months of a fully leased 120,000 square foot warehouse in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania that was purchased in January 2010. In addition, despite the weak economy in 2010, Griffin Land completed several new leases for an aggregate of 81,000 square feet of previously vacant office space. However, in 2010 Griffin Land received very few inquiries for leases of warehouse/light industrial space and only leased 11,000 square feet of such space on a short-term basis, while leases for an aggregate of 76,000 square feet of mostly industrial space expired in fiscal 2010 and were not renewed.

Facebook Moves To California Offices Up The Road

february 13, 2011

Technology site CNET has reported Facebook's headquarters move to Calfornia offices in Menlo Park, just a few minutes up the road from its current Palo Alto offices.

Later this year Facebook will move into the nearly vacant office complex formerly home to Sun Microsystems near the foot of the Dumbarton Bridge, Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman announced today at Menlo Park City Hall. The first groups will make the short trek from downtown Palo Alto to Menlo Park starting in June or July, the company said in a press release, as part of a major expansion.

After Oracle acquired Sun, it laid off thousands of employees and started moving others further north to its campus in Redwood Shores, leaving a sparsely populated complex of nine buildings covering 57 acres on the shore of the bay. Sun still has a few employees in the location, but Facebook will take it over later this year. The deal is called a sale leaseback, a 15-year lease from Oracle with an option to purchase the property after 5 years, and the terms were not disclosed.

Facebook will maintain its current presence in Palo Alto, but will call the Menlo Park campus its headquarters. Facebook has 1,400 employees in Palo Alto and 2,000 worldwide, the company said in a press release.

The old Sun campus will give Facebook tons of room to expand, with 3,700 parking spaces and a total of about 1 million square feet in office space. The company looked at several different locations in the Bay Area but "the Sun campus was by far and away our first choice," Ebersman said.

It's just another sign of Silicon Valley's ability to reinvent itself every decade or so. Google's campus in Mountain View was once home to SGI, a giant in computer graphics processing that succumbed to cheaper and more powerful hardware. Tons of smaller start-ups in San Francisco have claimed the old warehouses and storage facilities in the South of Market district as their own.

One open question is whether Facebook's relatively young workforce will embrace a fairly isolated campus surrounded by one of Menlo Park's more troubled neighborhoods, but Ebersman said the company would focus on making the environment "a fun place to be."

Headquartered currently in Palo Alto, California, the company also has US offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit and New York as well as European offices in London, Milan and Madrid offices in Spain.

US Clothing Company Urban Outfitters To Move On Major US Commercial Property Investment

february 10, 2011

US clothing store Urban Outfitters is to bring 1,000 new jobs to Philadelphia within three years through a major office development.

Richard Hayne, the president of Urban Outfitters and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) announced that Urban Outfitters will acquire and redevelop two Navy Yard buildings totalling more than 100,000 square feet industrial and office space in Philadelphia. They company is investing $30m in the expansion. This transaction will allow Urban Outfitters to expand their operations—currently housed in six Navy Yard buildings—and to add an additional 1,000 permanent employees at The Navy Yard over the next three years in addition to construction positions. The company currently has 1,200 permanent employees at its corporate headquarters in Philadelphia offices in Pennsylvania.

Urban Outfitters will purchase Building 3, formerly known as The Navy Yard Cruise Ship Terminal, at fair market value and will spend $18m to $20m on building renovation and necessary infrastructure investments. Urban Outfitters will also take over operations and renovate Building 14, which is close to their other office spaces. Renovations will be completed in February 2012. Urban continues to have options on three additional Navy Yard buildings to support their long-term growth plans.

“Urban Outfitters opened in Philadelphia more than thirty years ago and remains today a model Philadelphia corporation. We applaud and celebrate their expansion at The Navy Yard as they continue to bring more jobs to Philadelphia and invest in The Navy Yard’s outstanding corporate campus,” said Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter. “This expansion is one of the most important business expansion announcements of my Administration. It emphasizes that Philadelphia has a dynamic economy and is attracting new jobs.”

US Office Vacancy Rates Fall Showing Market Healing

february 02, 2011

Vacancy rates in the US office and industrial markets continued to decline in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2010, according to the latest analysis from CBRE Econometric Advisors (CBRE-EA).

In Q4, the Los Angeles office headquartered company's national office vacancy rate fell by 20 basis points (bps) to16.4 per cent, the second consecutive quarterly decline. The national industrial availability rate decreased by 30 basis points in Q4 to 14.3 per cent, marking the second consecutive decrease in availability and providing further proof that the industrial sector continues to heal.

"The breadth and consistency of improvements are exactly what has been hoped for by those looking for a signal that the corner has been turned," said Jon Southard, director of forecasting, CBRE-EA. "However, to put this information in context, with the exception of multi-housing, several additional quarters of this pace of improvement will be necessary to bring vacancy rates back to historic norms"

CBRE-EA’s Q4 2010 analysis found that, as with previous, recent quarters, suburban office markets continue to outperform downtown areas. This is the first decline for downtown submarkets since the third quarter of 2007. The office market generally continued to make strides toward recovery in Q4. Improved leasing velocity and a depleted construction pipeline has helped push the office vacancy rate down from its cyclical peak reached during the second quarter of 2010.

Florida office markets, having been severely affected by the housing slowdown in 2008 and 2009, have recently been showing signs of stabilisation as their economies start to recover. They were among the best performers in Q4 2010, as vacancy rates declined by 60 bps for offices in Tampa and Orlando and by 130 bps in Jacksonville. Energy and other resource-driven markets of Texas offices were also among the top performers, as Houston and Fort Worth had their vacancy rates fall by 80 and 50 bps, respectively.

US Extends Green Energy Tax Break To US Office Developments

december 23, 2010

The US Congress has passed the latest tax legislation bill which saw an extension to the Renewable Energy Grant program, providing 30 percent cash rebates for green US office developments.

Adam Putter, president of Solar Roof Development, a green energy company based in New Jersey offices in Fort Lee, said the legislation was originally set to expire at the end of this year will now remain in effect at least through the end of 2011. He says it has further heightening interest in solar and other renewable applications.

"The Renewable Energy Grant has contributed to significant growth of this industry in New Jersey," Putter said, estimating that commercial solar installations have expanded by nearly 400 per cent growth since 2008. Solar Roof Development works primarily with office and commercial real estate owners. The company advises its clients on the financial benefits available through the complex maze of state and federal incentives. In addition, the firm works with owners to find the right solar installers based on their specific project requirements. "Every project has different requirements, and we find the right fit between many different financing structures, contractors and products for a solar energy installation."

"With the latest action, anyone who purchases a solar installation will continue to receive a check from the US government amounting to 30 per cent of the system's cost," he said. "In addition, banks are more willing to lend funding for solar projects with the grant as a down payment so commercial companies can purchase the equipment with virtually no money down."

Known as the Section 1603 Grant, the program was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, according to Putter. The 30 percent grant for energy property is in lieu of certain tax credits. In addition to extending the grant, the recent legislation makes projects eligible for 100 per cent accelerated depreciation of the system, less half of the cash grant or investment, in the first year, if that system is put into service between September 8, 2010 and December 31, 2011.

Maryland Shopping Deal For Major US Office And Commercial Property Firm

december 12, 2010

A major US office and commercial property firm has bought a major shopping centre in an $88m deal.

Washington Real Estate Investment Trust has acquired a 214,281 square foot class A shopping centre in Columbia, Maryland for $88.35 million. Gateway Overlook is a 528,350 square foot premier retail centre anchored by Costco and Lowe's Home Improvement. WRIT purchased 214,281 square feet of the centre which excludes the Costco and Lowe's parcels.

The property, built in 2007, is locatedin Route 108 in Columbia, Howard County, Maryland. The property is 90 per cent leased to 21 tenants, including national retailers Trader Joe's, Best Buy and Office Depot, as well as Wachovia Bank and Capital One Bank.

WRIT anticipates that Gateway Overlook will benefit from significant job growth projected in the area as a result of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) relocating 22,000 new jobs to nearby Fort Meade between 2012 and 2014. Fort Meade is located approximately five miles south east of Gateway Overlook.

"Gateway Overlook offers a rare opportunity for WRIT to invest in a superior quality retail center in an excellent location with strong demographics. We believe there is upside potential by leasing the vacant space as well as the benefit of population growth in the area surrounding Fort Meade as the BRAC initiative continues," said George McKenzie, chief executive officer of WRIT.

WRIT is a self-administered, self-managed, equity real estate investment trust investing in Washington offices in the metro region. WRIT owns a diversified portfolio of 89 properties totalling approximately 11 million square feet of commercial space and 2,540 residential units. These 89 properties consist of 26 office properties, 19 industrial/flex properties, 18 medical office properties, 15 retail centers, 11 multifamily properties and land for development.

Software Which Catches Lost Sales Opportunities For Virtual Businesses Takes Offices To America

december 11, 2010

Prospectvision, a company of website visitor tracking (WVT) software, today announces the opening of their US office in Michigan.

Prospectvision, a UK offices based in Reading, develops software which recovers lost sales opportunities for virtual office businesses by analysing visitors who do not register on a website. Prospectvision's WVT solution profiles website visitors to create a sales list. Using its unique Behavioral Inference Engine, website statistics are transformed into actionable leads.

Andy Krafft, CEO of Prospectvision said: "We appeal to sophisticated marketers who understand that a large number of sales opportunities slip through their hands. They know their website has a lot of visitors but are frustrated that so few contact them. The US market is highly attuned to the new breed of WVT and Prospectvision provides the most comprehensive onboarding technology around. We already have a number of US customers using our solution and now is the right time to target the North American market."

Andrew Wise, VP Global Sales, added: "This move comes on the back of rapid sales growth in the UK and Europe. Our success has been built on providing an excellent service which in turn leads to long term relationships with our customers. The key to gaining their trust is the credibility of our advice and the new office will provide us with the opportunity to serve the US market properly."

Prospectvision recovers lost sales opportunities by analysing the behaviour of website visitors. It addresses the 60/30/1 issue: typically 30 per cent of visitors have a strong interest in the offering but only 1 per cent make contact (the rest bounce away). Prospectvision is all about increasing this low contact rate. Using its unique Behavioural Inference Engine coupled with advanced ISP-suppression techniques allows Prospectvision to increase the productivity of a sales team and deliver enhanced online marketing ROI. Leads are ranked and characterised allowing a salesperson to follow up any opportunity rapidly.

Virtual Office Goes Nuclear

december 04, 2010

An American nuclear energy company is using a virtual office training suite that mimics the conditions of working in nuclear powerplant.

Southern Nuclear, a leading global provider of real-time simulation and training solutions to the power, process, manufacturing and government sectors announces the success of its Nuclear Operator Jump Start Program. The company is headquartered in US offices in Maryland, but has global locations including offices in New York, Sweden, Stockton-on-Tees in the UK and Beijing, China.

The program, now in its fourth class, was designed to fill Southern Nuclear Company's (SNC) "pipeline" for licensed reactor operators for their new-build plants and to prepare operator candidates for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Generic Fundamentals Examinations (GFES). The program is being conducted at the campus of Augusta Technical College (ATC) in Georgia.

SNC's new-build units, Vogtle 3 and 4 must meet several key milestones in order to support the testing, fuel load and start-up. SNC's response to the challenge included developing a partnership with GSE to create a Nuclear Operator Jump Start Program for new instructors and operator candidates. "The unique aspect of the Jump Start Course is that it immerses the candidates in realistic, integrated plant operations by use of a soft panel simulator," explains SNC's training deployment manager Charlie Nesbitt.

Since the first class began in July 2009, 31 candidates have participated in the program. Of these, 21 operations instructors and 9 senior reactor operators have successfully completed the program. All 9 senior reactor operator candidates passed NRC GFES. GSE, in cooperation with ATC, is under contract to SNC to train and screen all potential training and operations personnel hired to staff Vogtle Units 3 and 4.
GSE developed the 20 week Jump Start course to include three sections; fundamentals, plant systems and operations. The fundamentals section includes, but is not limited to, the GFES materials as required by the NRC. The plant systems section teaches plant-specific systems material while the operations section provides hands-on training on GSE's, full-scope VPanel simulator running the reference plant simulation load.

US Office Firm Shows Growth In Washington DC

december 01, 2010

A US office firm solidifies the growth of its portfolio continuing a positive trend for the Washington DC office market.

First Potomac Realty Trust, a Washington DC office and industrial property firm, has announced the acquisition of a 90 per cent joint venture interest in Redland Corporate Center II & III offices near Rockville, Maryland for $12m.

Perseus Realty LLC is retaining its 10 per cent interest in the joint venture. It is First Potomac's third off-market acquisition of Class A office buildings in the Washington DC region since June 2010, consistent with the company's strategy of adding office assets to its already strong portfolio of commercial properties in the Washington market.

Redland Corporate Center III, a 139,120 square foot building, is 100 per cent leased through 2020 to BAE Systems, with estimated 2011 net operating income of $3.6 million. The 208,342 square foot Phase II building is 99% vacant. The LEED Gold buildings feature a tenant-only fitness center, on-site cafe, shuttle bus service to the Shady Grove Metro station (red line), and surface and structured parking.

"The acquisition of Redland Corporate Center in the highly desirable I-270 corridor supports our balanced approach of acquiring both stabilised and value-add Class A office properties as we grow our portfolio in the DC region," said Douglas Donatelli, CEO of First Potomac Realty Trust. "The combination of the stabilised Phase III building with the leasing opportunity at Phase II provides an attractive blend of in-place cash flow and potential upside. Based on our knowledge of the market and the success we have had with prior lease-up opportunities, we are confident we will succeed in attracting additional high-quality tenants to Redland Corporate Center."

The acquisition was financed, in part, through a new $50m secured bridge loan provided by Key Bank. The interest rate on the bridge loan is LIBOR plus 3.5 per cent. The balance of the purchase price was funded by a draw on the Company's line of credit and available cash.

Chief Investment Officer, Nicholas R. Smith, added, "Redland Corporate Centre marks the sixth acquisition we have completed since April 2010 as part of our strategy to acquire a balance of value-add and stabilised properties across the commercial property spectrum, including suburban and CBD multi-story office properties, as well as business parks and industrial properties. Four of the six transactions we have completed were sourced off-market through our longstanding relationships and our reputation for working with owners to find creative solutions to issues they are facing. We are pleased to be teaming with Perseus Realty on this transaction and look forward to working together to make the property a success."

New Retail Development To Be Sold "Aggressively" As Florida Office Markets Fair Better

august 29, 2010

Continental Real Estate Companies (CREC), one of Florida’s largest office and commercial real estate services firms, has been selected by joint venture partners Flagler and AMB Property Corporation as the exclusive leasing and marketing agent for The Shops at Beacon Lakes. The new 45-acre retail development planned for west Miami-Dade County will run adjacent to the company's 4,800,000-square-foot Beacon of Miami offices at its Lakes business park.

US retail markets have been hit harder than American offices. The company, which runs 11.4 million square-feet of retail, office and multifamily space throughout Florida, says news of the leasing assignment signals that the project’s development team is prepared to begin aggressively marketing the property to prospective tenants. This marks a bright spot in a retail sector that saw new project completions fall by nearly 50 per cent nationwide in 2009, with only 70 million square-feet of retail product slated to deliver in 2010, the lowest level on record, according to national industry research.

Upon completion, The Shops at Beacon Lakes will consist of up to 470,000 square-feet of build-to-suit retail development near the intersection of the Florida Turnpike and the Dolphin Expressway (836). The 45 acre parcel, which is fully-entitled and approved for big box retail development, will be the first major retail project to take shape in South Florida’s burgeoning West Miami-Dade submarket in more than two years. The shovel-ready property has already been outfitted with new access roads, such as the 836 Extension and NW 137th Ave., also known as Beacon Lakes Blvd.

Sabrina Meerbott, senior vice president at CREC, believes The Shops at Beacon Lakes will generate widespread interest among national anchor tenants. “The Shops at Beacon Lakes offers major national retailers an opportunity to locate in an easily-accessible, build-to-suit location proximate to a large population base,” said Meerbott. “Future tenants can commit with confidence knowing this project is backed by two well capitalised, well respected real estate developers who have depth of knowledge and years of experience, namely Flagler and AMB.”

Management Training Company Expands Rapidly Using Virtual Offices

august 25, 2010

A corporate management training company is successfully using virtual offices to rapidly expand its business.

American firm TrainingPros has opened a virtual office in Columbus, Ohio to meet the growing demands of companies that need to augment their human performance teams. The company already has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas Fort-Worth, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Washington DC area. It now has plans to continue growth into additional markets including Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Seattle.

TrainingPros provides contract human performance professionals specialising in organization development, instructional design, eLearning development, training delivery and facilitation. Alison Brown has joined TrainingPros as relationship manager for the Columbus virtual office. Alison specialises in customised education, training and development strategies and coaching for individuals. She has worked with organisations of 500 to 50,000 employees and has been featured in three books on leadership and professional development with Dr. Stephen Covey, Dr. Warren Bennis, and former Secretary of State Alexander Haig. She has written several organizational development articles published by divisions of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Alison was also former curriculum designer for Capital University’s School of Management and is an online instructor at Central Ohio Technical College, teaching management and business courses.

“I joined TrainingPros because I wanted to align myself with an organisation that continuously works to live up to its brand of utilizing local talent.” Alison said. “In these budget-conscious times, clients appreciate not having to spend organizational and professional development dollars on travel-related expenses.”

New Boston Office To Train Actual And Virtual Office Working

august 17, 2010

A hub of new Boston offices will create a Collaboration Zone to train business leaders.

Featuring a mix of group space, cafe-style seating, and a mediascape designed to promote face-to-face collaboration as well as virtual office working, the concept has been created by Boston office-based company Interaction Associates.

The company is relocating its East Coast office headquarters to Boston's Seaport district, a newly redeveloped area that is drawing a growing array of business and trade, and organisations.

Interaction Associates have been training its clients for over 40 years to improve complex problem solving skills and leveraging the power of people working together successfully. Since 1969, IA has partnered with leading companies across many industries globally.

"Our new Boston office is designed to foster collaboration by providing employees with a workspace that reflects our commitment to collaborative action," said Linda Dunkel, president and CEO of Interaction Associates. "We have developed many of the most innovative collaboration methods in business that are used by clients to develop leaders, foster great teams, and help companies achieve important strategic and competitive advantages," added Dunkel.

The new offices possess the now standard green design. Products with recycled content as well as regional materials manufactured within a 500-mile radius were used. Wood products were selected in accordance with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) principles and criteria for responsible forest management. Low-emitting materials were selected, including healthy paints, adhesives, and sealants, as well as furniture that is Green Guard certified.

In 2008, The Wall Street Journal profiled Interaction Associates in conjunction with the relocation of its West Coast headquarters to offices in San Francisco. Now Boston's Seaport District is one of the city's fastest changing and dynamic areas. Once known for warehouses, fish piers, and shipping tracks, the Seaport is in the process of re-inventing itself. It is now home to The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, The Institute of Contemporary Art, The World Trade Center, and several new luxury hotels and residences.

America And Canada Differ Over Virtual Office Explosion In The Form Of Mobile Office

april 22, 2010

Mobile office capability is being rolled out in half of American businesses according to a new survey. It captures the explosion of virtual office services as integrated technologies come onto the market.

Global business research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan has released its new report, "The New Mobile Office Market". It claims that almost half their sample of decision makers in American offices surveyed felt the need to deploy mobile office as “very necessary.” The report also found that offices in Canada feel they do not require mobile office at all.

The report also found mobile office solutions are providing significant improvements to the overall performance of businesses. An increasing number of functional enterprise applications make their way onto the market, mobile office solutions have innovatively integrated with these, forming a cross-functional efficiency.

The evolution of mobile devices into smart computing devices has added further enhancements while application design companies building their ability to tailor the application to the needs of clients.

In a North American context, the importance of enterprise mobility and the adoption is seeing a gradual, but impressive growth rate in the past five years. However, there are still certain areas where organizations feel the need to understand the positive effect of mobility. With a growing number of people working from remote locations or travelling on business, the ROI (return on investment) implications are beginning to look more impressive in terms of productivity and cost savings.

The United States proves to be a more mature market in terms of understanding and adopting wireless. The mobile operators are seeing the business segment as a growing opportunity, and with the increasing number of computable mobile devices entering the market have aggressively educated the business users about the advantage of deploying mobility.

America SMEs Can Catch A Deal On Office Kit And Help The Environment Actually and Virtually

april 07, 2010

US-based company Office Depot has launched a new technology trade-in promotion aimed at helping customers get money back for their old electronics and do a bit for the environment at the same time. In recognition of the upcoming 40th anniversary of globally recognised Earth Day, which started in America in 1970 to promote environmental issues. Office Depot is aiming to collect 400 tons of products for recycling during the month promotion.

Offices across the US can catch deals including $25 discounted off the purchase of a shredder regularly priced $129.99 and above when customers trade in their old shredder. $50 can be saved off a printer regularly priced $199.99 and above and $75 off the purchase of a notebook laptop computer when you trade in a Microsoft XP notebook or newer with the power cord.

The promotion is likely to best benefit small office-based businesses and virtual office workers in the US. "In the wake of a tough economy, Office Depot is excited to help our customers turn their old technology products into savings," says Randy Wick, vice president of merchandising for Office Depot. "Not only is this a smart way for customers to earn extra cash and do their part to help the environment, but it also provides a great opportunity for small business customers to upgrade their outdated office equipment without breaking the bank."

Virtual offices in the US can also take advantage of the deals remotely by visiting Office Depot's website to trade in their old electronics and receive a gift card. The gift card amount is determined using a generated recycle trade-in value. Through the website ustomers can also trade in LCD monitors, LCD TVs, digital cameras, desktop and laptop computers, gaming systems, MP3 players, camcorders and Smartphones/PDAs.