Raleigh's 1st Guide to Real Estate & Developments  |  By Thomas Kenna

8/29/2017

Trepidation regarding the suburban office market has risen in recent years as a number of the country’s largest corporations have fled their suburban headquarters for urban office space. Millennials are thought to be the driving force behind this migration as companies continue to find top talent in larger, urban environments. Businesses want to either hire or sell to millennials, which is why more firms are beginning to relocate.

8/24/2017

Great takeaways as Raleigh and the Triangle grow at over 63 people a day. Add as many lanes as you like, you’ll just get more traffic and congestion.  To toll or not toll? This and more transit thoughts.

8/16/2017

Popular global co-working space provider WeWork has confirmed plans to plant a flag in downtown Raleigh.  WeWork will be the new anchor office tenant at the 10-story One Glenwood building breaking ground in the fall. The company confirms it has signed a lease for 81,032 square feet.

8/2/2017

Action and activity has returned to the hulking, seven-story, historic Chesterfield building on Main Street in downtown Durham.   Duke University started moving its first wave of research scientists and staffers into the former cigarette manufacturing plant’s newly renovated space in late July.

8/1/2017

The secret to a great workplace? Think of it as a people place first. To be successful, workplaces must promote human connections and nurture employee pride.

4/29/2017

To attract affluent professionals with a mobile lifestyle, architects and developers are adding high-tech communal work spaces and flex rooms to their designs.

4/27/2017

In Raleigh’s arsenal of incentives to help entice companies to relocate or expand in the city, there are funds for big companies bringing millions in new investment dollars, but not much for the small business owners that make up a big piece of the city’s economy. Under a new grant policy proposed, called jobsRaleigh, the City Council is considering setting aside $100,000 in its budget to specifically target small businesses seeking to grow.

4/25/2017

Private developers in downtown Raleigh delivered more than $205.3 million in new building projects in 2016. And according to the newly released State of Downtown Raleigh 2017 report there’s at least another $1.2 billion in both public and private investment that’s planned or already under construction over the next three to four years.

4/19/2017

The U.S. office market became more tenant-friendly in the first quarter in many big cities as a seven-year expansion slowed.

4/14/2017

Growing companies in search of young talent have had to look to new markets to access young talent pools and take advantage of better economics, like lower salaries and real estate costs.

4/1/2017

Today’s industrial users are looking beyond rental rates to consider transportation and inventory carrying costs when making location decisions.

3.24.2017

While urban office markets continue to be popular with Millennials, employers, including technology companies, are luring young talent to the suburbs with creative office campuses that provide lots of amenities, along with the greater housing affordability.

3.22.2017

At this point in the cycle, office tenants who may be seeking shorter-than-traditional lease terms may find themselves in difficult negotiations with landlords, who themselves are facing close lender scrutiny. But this trend may be changing.

3.20.2017

About 150 people gathered with stakeholders from Longfellow Real Estate Partners and Duke University to launch the first phase of new construction on the Durham Innovation District.The event marked the start of $100 million in new construction at the corner of Morris and Hunt streets for two seven-story office buildings one of which has been fully preleased to Duke Clinical Research Institute  and a 1,200-vehicle, eight-story parking deck.

3.17.2017

A newly formed New York investment firm has made one of its first big real estate acquisitions with a $45 million deal near Research Triangle Park. An affiliate of Innovatus Capital Partners bought two Class A office buildings in Durham's Keystone Park at 430 and 530 Davis Drive.

3.14.2017

On the surface, suburban office rental rates look attractive, but there are advantages to an urban setting for the employer as well as the employee. Read more for Colliers insights.

3.10.2017

Landlords with big traditional office buildings are looking to increase their appeal, so they are taking small chunks of space and putting some hip tech start-ups there to give their buildings a cool vibe. By doing so, they are hoping to attract bigger, creditworthy tenants—the Googles, Amazons and Facebooks of the world.

3.3.2017

The Triangle region’s office market right now has the widest variety of new Class A building offerings under construction from downtown Raleigh to downtown Chapel Hill than the market has seen in more than a decade.

2.27.2017

Corner offices are a coveted piece of corporate real estate, but they probably shouldn’t be.

According to newly published research from office design company Steelcase, corner offices meet only a small percentage of modern CEOs’ needs.

2.10.2017

Due to rapid growth, the Southeast is emerging as an economic powerhouse with a diversifying base. With two international gateway markets in Atlanta and Miami and strong growth and educated work forces in smaller cities the Southeast region would form the sixth largest country in the world.

1.24.2017

What do millennials and suburban office buildings have in common? Many of them were born in the 1980s. While the 2 billion millennials globally are entering their prime working years and growing in influence, the office buildings of this era are increasingly growing out of date and in desperate need of facelifts.

1.20.2017

INC Research (Nasdaq: INCR), the global contract research organization that recently announced plans to expand and add 550 new jobs, has committed to a deal to build a new headquarters building for its expansion in Morrisville.

1.13.2017

Life sciences real estate is currently in that sweet spot of having strong occupancy and rental rates throughout the country, while also being just enough of a niche property type that overbuilding is nowhere close to a threat.  Among the cities that serve as major life sciences hubs are primary markets including Boston, San Francisco, New York and the Washington, D.C. suburbs, as well as Seattle and San Diego.

1.11.2017

A Durham commercial real estate investment firm has bought two of the largest office buildings at Cary’s Regency Park corporate center, bringing the two Regency Lakeview buildings back under local ownership for the first time in more than a decade.

1.9.2017

Coworking represents a huge shift in how office space is leased, and creates new questions for owners and brokers. Once long term in nature, office leasing is now based on a subscription model in which monthly fees allow tenants to move about with greater flexibility as well as access to more amenities.

1.3.2017

Raleigh, NC has hopes for turning 300 acres of land near its downtown into a beautiful park. Elite landscape architecture firms are eager to help, and selecting the right one for the job won't be easy.

12.1.2016

Commercial property has been a big winner from years of ultralow interest rates around the world. Now markets are signaling that change might be in the air. Investors have been dumping government bonds in Europe, Asia and the U.S., sending prices tumbling. When bond prices fall, real-estate values often follow.

11.31.2016

Workplace design is a complex process. Workplace acoustics is one aspect of the process that is frequently overlooked and regularly a major reason for disappointment in the office place.

11.15.2016

As the industry mulls “what inning we’re in” one thing is sure: eventually every commercial real estate cycle winds down. But while no property type can be 100 percent recession-proof, certain assets are better positioned than others to weather an economic downturn. Click for the top six.

10.24.2016

Technology and data are changing commercial real estate, and corporate real estate is no exception.  Sort of. Scott Nelson, president of corporate solutions at Colliers Intl. explains in depth.

10.13.2016

The technology revolution has delivered Google searches, Facebook friends, iPhone apps, Twitter rants and shopping for almost anything on Amazon, all in the past decade and a half. What it hasn’t delivered are many jobs.

10.11.2016

Months after confirming an expansion in Paris, Cary analytics giant SAS Institute is expanding in Europe again. The company has leased 50,225 square feet at Avenida de Valdebebas in Madrid, Spain.

10.8.2016

The corporate campus' of old are changing. With little open land left to pave, nightmarish commutes and a severe housing crisis, our economic future, enviable lifestyle and long-standing value system hang in the balance.

9.28.2016

Highwoods Properties has finalized its much-anticipated purchase of the 11-story Charter Square office property in downtown Raleigh, with an announcement late Tuesday that it had sealed the deal. Highwoods disclosed that it plans to invest a total $83.5 million in the purchase of Charter Square, which includes $5.1 million in planned near-term building improvements and additional capital set aside for new tenant improvement inducements.

9.21.2016

Building off the success of the recently completed 105 Friendly apartment building on Hillsborough Street, the same development team is now working with Raleigh real estate veteran Todd Saieed to duplicate and improve the plan at another Hillsborough Street site down the road. Saieed confirms he is working to buy the J&J Automotive site at 2812 Hillsborough St. with plans to build a new apartment building with street-level retail.

9.20.2016

Bad news for car owners: Developers in more U.S. cities are reducing the amount of parking spaces included in new projects as local authorities seek to encourage the use of mass transit and free up space for parks, housing or other uses. Cities are follow New York, San Francisco in opting to bypass building garages.

9.20.2016

The Raleigh office for national accounting firm BDO USA has outgrown its fourth office space of the past five years and will be relocating this time to downtown Raleigh. Colliers represented the tenant in a 19,000 SF expansion.

9.16.2016

MED-EL, the Durham-based developer of a next-generation cochlear implant device, celebrated Wednesday the start of construction for the company's new U.S. headquarters at the Meridian business park in Durham. MED-EL will be the anchor tenant for the three-story, $18 million office building at 2645 Meridian Pkwy.

9.13.2016

The Triangle’s commercial real estate capital markets logged more than $1 billion in major property acquisition deals in the first quarter 2016, a 56 percent increase compared to the year prior. Let that sink in. This is truly a booming market. What’s driving this demand for CRE in the Raleigh-Durham market? Click to find out.

9.9.2016

Highwoods Properties, Raleigh’s largest owner and developer of office buildings, has finalized its acquisition of the 0.62-acre Edison lot on Wilmington Street in downtown Raleigh that’s already zoned and ready for new tower construction.

9.07.2016

Peak Demand, a unit of Chinese manufacturer Nanjing Zhida Electric Co. Ltd., plans to invest nearly $2.6 million in a new headquarters and manufacturing facility in Wilson County. The 37 new jobs will average about $65,714. Compare that to the current county average of $40,812.

9.07.2016

With Kane Realty Corp. coming close to maxing out its development potential at North Hills over the next few years, developer John Kane is working out a way to buy more land fronting the I-440 Beltline for future mixed use development.

8.31.2016

Durham is in the running for 102 new jobs as a company considers Bull City for an expansion. According to a proposed incentives agreement, the company is a “contract development and manufacturing organization that provides an extensive range of integrated services to companies within the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors."

8.30.2016

Atlanta real estate investment firm The Simpson Organization has expanded its portfolio in the Triangle with the recent acquisition of the Carolina Corporate Centre office building on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh. The Simpson Organization paid $12.1 million for the five-story building to an affiliate of Brookwood Real Estate Partners of Beverly, Massachusetts.

8.29.2016

In today’s economy, it helps to be a city or region that is smart and tech-savvy. And cheap. What may be surprising are the places making the top 10 list that lie outside the traditional tech clusters of the west coast and the northeast: places like Baltimore, Dallas, Raleigh-Durham, and Atlanta.

8.29.2016

Towns, sometimes miles apart, adopt starkly different strategies, reflecting the profound changes under way in suburban areas across the U.S. A growing body of survey research suggests millennials intend to gravitate to suburbs just like earlier generations did, but that they prefer a higher-density, more walkable version than the cul-de-sac communities of their parents.

8.24.2016

The “new era” tech and creative companies—defined for our purposes as firms that have come online in the last 20 or so years, and have grown at substantial rates while subsequently expanding their office footprints—have affected arguably the two most significant components of the commercial real estate business today: the leasing of office space, and what that leased space looks like.

8.19.2016

The 2016 CIO Awards featured a technology panel featuring North Carolina Technology Association CEO Brooks Raiford; Lou Valentino, TierPoint's vice president and general manager of North Carolina; and Jeff Henderson among others. The big takeaway? That the Triangle’s biggest asset – talent – is also among its biggest challenges.

8.15.2016

Beacon St Development has released drawings and details for his next big project. The Wade will be a five-story, classic-style building, located at 620 Wade Ave. and will have 27 condominium residences targeting Raleigh’s luxury home buyers. Unit prices will start in the low $700,000s. Penthouse units are expected to sell for $1 million or more.

Big banks have long been the standard “go to” source for construction financing. But their diminished appetite for those loans is sending developers scrambling to secure other sources of capital to fund new projects.

8.2.2016

The owner and developer of the long-proposed 19-story Edison Office tower in downtown Raleigh is in talks now to instead sell the high-profile corner site to the Triangle's largest office property owner, Highwoods Properties (NYSE: HIW).

8.1.2016

Life science companies are leading the way when it comes to entrepreneurial financing in the first half of 2016. That’s according to Durham-based Council for Entrepreneurial Development's most recent quarterly Innovators Report, which shows 67 percent of the $425 million raised in the first half of the year went to life science companies.

7.27.2016

Barely a month after the Brexit vote, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Trade is announcing plans to expand its ties with the United States with a Triangle office.

7.27.2016

Coworking spaces are all the rave in downtown and urban office centers. But what happens when your company out grows its space? Take a look for the answers.

7.25.2016

Construction crews have completed demolition of the former Greyhound bus station on Jones Street in downtown Raleigh to make way for a new $52 million urban-style apartment building called Metropolitan. The five-story, 241-unit building project will encompass much of the block bound by Jones, Harrington, Lane and Dawson Streets, next to the Quorum Center condominium building.

7.25.2016

Getting people from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible is the basic goal of mass transit, and, generally speaking, faster is better. Much of the world, however, is far outpacing the United States in high-speed rail adoption.  

7.20.2016

Though economic boosts this week were brought on by strong corporate earnings reports, continued job growth in the high tech sector has been the main catalyst to the resurgence of the U.S. office sector.

7.13.2016

Raleigh is the third best large city to live in, according to a report by personal-finance website WalletHub. The report evaluated the 62 largest United States cities based on 31 metrics, such as health and education system quality, tax burden, and economic growth.

7.10.2016

Giant healthcare REIT Ventas (NYSE: VTR) has agreed to acquire all the life sciences and medical real estate assets of Wexford Science & Technology for $1.5 billion. Wexford will continue to operate the portfolio, which includes innovation centers in Durham and Winston Salem, NC.

7.9.2016

Second-quarter office projections should please investors, as the traditional first-quarter slide was brought back up to full performance by midyear, with no sign of abating, according to market experts.

7.9.2016

Running a new company? Expanding to a new market? Traditional office leases may not be your best bet. Luckily, we have the top flexible, short-term solutions for your company.

6.17.2016

Nonprofit research giant RTI International will add a new 190,000-square-foot building on its main campus in Research Triangle Park. RTI officials did not disclose a budget for the project, though expect construction to begin in the fall.

6.10.2016

With most all of downtown Durham's big, historic tobacco and textile buildings now back in service as new office, art, and entertainment centers, here is a list of the 10 new projects adding to the downtown district.

6.8.2016

A tremendous amount of thought (and money) goes into understanding the housing and transportation preferences of millennials. As it turns out, most young Americans want what people of all ages want. And, like everyone else, they're not getting it.

6.6.2016

On Friday, the development team from Charlotte and Triangle-based Northwood Ravin unveiled plans for its next big project in the region: A 10-story office and retail building, called 555 Mangum, which will be built in partnership with Akridge, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate development firm.

5.23.2016

when we talk about the future of office space as a service, it turns out that the future may not be about the space at all. Take, for example, RocketSpace, a tech campus for startups in San Francisco and soon — having just last week announced plans for another campus — London.

5.18.2016

North Carolina was well represented on Homes.com’s list of the country’s best emerging cities to live for tech. Durham clocked in at No. 9; Charlotte No. 17; Raleigh No. 18.

5.10.2016

Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies opened its new three-story, 62,000 square foot facility in Research Triangle Park. The new building, called BioProcess Innovation Center houses the company’s Process and Analytical Research and Development, Process Sciences, and Stability groups.

5.5.2016

A new startup accelerator focused on emerging agricultural technologies launched with $11.5 million in backing from major players in the Triangle’s life sciences industry. Called AgTech Accelerator, the group has backing from companies like Bayer and Syngenta and investment groups like Hatteras Venture Partners and Pappas Capital.

5.4.2016

Some companies give workers paid time off to devote to themselves, but skeptics say it seems like a gimmick. "Me" days are more than mental-health days, but less than vacation days. 

4.29.2016

City planners are rightly on guard for fads. Think the festival marketplaces of the 1970s, or naming neighborhoods to sound like New York’s fabled SoHo. This year’s model—the Innovation District—may be next in line for a dose of healthy skepticism.

4.28.2016

The Triangle added more than 7,000 jobs from February to March and the unemployment rate dipped back below 5 percent. Across the state, three of the four counties with the lowest unemployment rate were all in the Triangle, according to data released Wednesday by the N.C. Department of Commerce.

4.22.2016

Real estate sources say Optum, the  technology and services arm of UnitedHealth, has been scouting the Raleigh market for months with plans to establish a new office in the region, and they say the company’s settled on a deal at North Hills in Raleigh.

4.4.2016

The U.S. office market grew at a strong pace in the first quarter, an indication of strength in the economy as employers continue to expand. The amount of occupied office space grew by 10 million square feet in the quarter, and 45 million square feet over the prior 12 months, the strongest yearlong period since 2007, according to real-estate research firm Reis Inc.

4.1.2016

Economic development firm Consultant Connect has honored the top economic development officials for the Charlotte region and North Carolina as the best in the business for 2016. Chris Chung, executive director of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, and Ronnie Bryant, CEO of Charlotte Regional Partnership, are included on the group’s list of North America’s Top Economic Developers.

3.31.2016

Venture-capital firms are raising money at the highest rate in more than 15 years, even as the values of some once-hot startups have begun to cool. With the quarter nearly over, U.S. venture funds have collected about $13 billion, which would be the largest total since the dot-com boom in 2000, according to preliminary data from Dow Jones VentureSource.

3.30.2016

Differences in the ways people manage the boundaries between work and personal life can lead to misunderstanding with bosses and co-workers. WSJ's Sue Shellenbarger discusses the different ways of managing work and home duties.

3.24.2016

As part of the planning process for Raleigh's 2030 Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2009, the City developed a map intended to highlight areas that "demonstrated a need for economic development intervention." Seven years later, that map is getting an upgrade.

3.23.2016

A Raleigh development has been picked as a national ULI case study. A staid 1960s mall and its surroundings, North Hills Mall has been transformed into a $1 billion, 94-acre urban destination—located on two major parcels separated by an arterial street—for one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the United States.

3.22.2016

History has shown that startups are highly concentrated in certain places in the U.S. But a new report finds that high-quality aka "high probability of success" startups are even more so.

3.16.2016

Raleigh is the ninth-fastest growing city in the U.S. in 2016, and Charlotte is tied for 13th, according to a new report from Forbes. The rankings are based on projections of population and economic growth as well as unemployment rates and median income.

Raleigh has long been associated with innovation thanks to corporate tech giants like IBM and Cisco in Research Triangle Park and more recently Red Hat and Citrix in downtown Raleigh, but within the last few years, Raleigh has emerged as a hotbed of innovation springing out of the local startup community.

3.9.2016

North Carolina’s real gross domestic product increased at the fastest pace in the Southeast in the third quarter last year. The 2.8 percent growth from the second to third quarter represents the 14th fastest growth rate in the nation, according to data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. None of the states with a faster growth rate had a real GDP larger than North Carolina, making this state the fastest-growing large economy in the nation in the third quarter.

3.8.2016

High-tech firms have increased Durham’s GDP per person by 28% since 2001. By the same measure, North Carolina as a whole grew by just 3% over the same period. Durham’s success reflects an emerging trend: high-flying cities, and the successful firms they contain, are detaching from the rest of the economy.

3.8.2016

The developers behind downtown Raleigh’s Charter Square mid-rise and high-rise tower projects have submitted an updated design plan for the 22-story office and apartment tower building slated for Fayetteville Street’s City Plaza.

3.7.2016

Recent trends show work output may be affected if employees don't take a "true"lunch break. The negatives attributed to the lamentable rise of desktop dining.

3.7.2016

Would you bring an important new client to your workplace to “meet the office”, or is the buzzing cafe down the block your preferred VIP rendezvous spot? Would you invite your best friend or parents to see where you work, or prefer to spare them the detail? The answers to these questions speak volumes about the current state of our workplaces — and the opportunities they offer.

2.29.2016

Raleigh real estate development firm Capital Associates has announced plans to open in 2017 what will be the first private-owned office and laboratory building on N.C. State University's Centennial Biomedical Campus. The 44,500-square-foot building project has been in the works since 2007 when Capital Associates was picked over three other bidders for the project to partner with the university.