JV:SVN Sustainable Buildings Initiative: Electronic Plan Check & Permitting

At the end of October, I attended the Sustainable Building Initiative launch event presented by the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network (JV:SVN).

I received an email this week indicating that they have posted all of the presentations on their website: www.jointventure.org/programs-initiatives/sustainable/index.html.

I was especially interested in the Electronic Plan Check & Permitting Initiative. (I use to be a mechanical engineer in a past life and can remember actually doing drawing with a t-square and triangles on large sheets of vellum and making numerous copies to distribute, so this was all very cool.)

The presentation was very well given by Doug Rider of CSG Consultants. (Click on the title to go his presentation.) The slides aren't as good as his live presentation, but it will give you a good idea of the process and benefits.

If you're wondering what this has to do with Sustainable Buildings, here's something to think about. Getting plans approved and permits issued typically involves printing 6-7 sets of plans weighing as much as 20 pounds each. Additional sets are required each time the plans are modified. A typical Silicon Valley city consumes around 12,000 pounds of paper per year in this process.

They have appeared to have gotten off to an excellent start with their project concept. It will be interesting to continue to monitor their progress.

Your comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Whole Foods on Blossom Hill Road

I'm just curious if anyone has heard anything about the Whole Foods Market on Blossom Hill Road. The company's stock has been taking a pounding recently (but then it seems everything I own has also taken a pounding) and I heard a rumour that they were going to slow down the construction and delay the opening.

I drive by it a couple times a month and it seems that they were going hot and heavy in the demolition phase. However, when I drove by this week, it seems that they've shut down for the winter. Has anyone heard anything?

Your comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Random Thoughts on SV Commercial Real Estate

Today has been a strange day. I started the day very positive because I won the office football pick'um pool (for amusement purposes only) and then I picked up the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal.

Out of the three articles on the front page, two of them could be viewed as "negative" commercial real estate articles. One was about Sobrato Development stopping work on their Lawson Lane - Santa Clara campus. The other was about the tough times at CBRE.

I know that negative news sells papers, but I wish that we could see some positive news once and awhile.

Your comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Basics for Greening Your Property

This is from the Green Boot Camp (presented by BB&T Insurance Services) that I attended.

It is an excerpt from the article "Ways to enhance energy efficiency and reduce your resource consumption" by Danny Murtagh of Boston Properties.

Basics for Greening Your Property

• Benchmark your building on the EPA Energy Star website.
• Preventative maintenance to improve operating efficiencies.
• Retrofit lighting to T8 or T5 technology.
• Replace incandescent lamps with screw-in fluorescent lamps.
• Consider other types of light bulbs and technology.
• Install occupancy sensors in the building.
• Consider the use of solar window film,
• Install variable speed drives on equipment.
• Install a lighting control system.
• Install a photocell operations on exterior lighting and get rid of the time clock.
• Start replacing older toilets and urinals with new low-flow technology.
• Replace your faucet aerators with 0.5 GPM type aerators.
• Retro-commissioning, especially the HVAC system.
• Be Observant.

Your comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Random Thoughts on Commercial Real Estate

My wife had to be in Honolulu for business for a couple of days, so I went along to "drive the car and carry the bags". I know it's a "tough" life, but someone had to do it.

However, I did take the opportunity to take a look at commercial real estate on Oahu while I was there.


Here are a couple of random thoughts.

• There's not a glut of commercial buildings because there hasn't been rampant building in Honolulu. I thought it was because of the amount of land available, but while it's a contributing factor, it's not the only one. The cost of bringing in the steel for the building is probably the major factor.
• There is actually quite a bit of land outside of Honolulu, but the roads and freeways (plus the tourists like myself who don't know where they are going) make it quite difficult to get anywhere quickly. The freeways in and around Honolulu are quite antiquated plus there are more "one ways" streets than I could imagine. There are actually traffic jams in paradise.
• The general consensus of the people I spoke with is that tourism is down 20 - 25% and it's going to be a tough 2 years. Of course, this means that there will probably be more retail spaces available for lease soon. However, Nordstroms just opened a huge store in the Ala Moana Shopping Center and they continue to build more condos.
• It doesn't appear that there's much of a zoning ordinance in Honolulu. There is some areas with a very interesting mix of buildings, businesses and homes.
• I wonder what the parking ratios are for strip centers. It was amazing how few spaces and how crammed together they were on some of the older strip centers.

Your comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Commercial Real Estate Markets Most Likely to Rebound

I recently saw an article on Forbes.com regarding the commercial real estate markets most likely to rebound.

The Urban Land Institute recently asked 700 real estate professionals to name the best and worst places to invest in commercial real estate in the next year.

At the top of the list were Seattle, San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York and Los Angeles.

At the bottom were Detroit, New Orleans, Columbus, Milwaukee and Cleveland.

Your comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.

CCIM CI 101 Class in Pleasanton - Dec 1 - 5, 2008

Okay, here's another plug for CCIM and it's educational program.

This is the flagship course for CCIM. It's being offered in Pleasanton (which should reduces the travel expenses) from December 1 - 5, 2008 at the CarrAmerica Conference Center (I took all of my classes here and it's a nice set up).

CI 101 offers an array of financial analysis concepts and calculations to help you make sound commercial real estate investment decisions. (It is also the prerequisite for all of the other CI courses, so you need to take it first.)

You will learn the fundamentals of profitable investing and apply these concepts to commercial properties. Advanced analyses covered throughout the course include real estate cash flow model and time value of money.

In addition, you'll learn how to accurately measure investment value and performance of a given property. (Plus you'll have a opportunity to network with other commercial real estate professionals.) CCIM courses are consistently rated as the most valuable commercial eduction in the industry.

Please click on the title for more information and to register.

Your comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Random Thoughts on SV Commercial Real Estate

I picked up this week's Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal this weekend and was leafing through it when I came across this article by Katherine Conrad titled " Tight credit brings big drop-off in commercial real estate sales". (How's that for a depressing way to start the weekend.) Click on the title to go to the compete article.


I know it's nothing new and that many of us have been saying the same thing for the past couple of months, but just seeing it in print, kind of brings it home.


I don't that it's completely dried up. There's probably still money out there, but it's going back to relationships. Like Trevor Thorpe, managing director with CBRE's Walnut Creek office said at the end of the article, "If an investor has a solid relationship and a long history, they can get credit."


Your comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.