According to Colliers International’s 2009 Parking Rate Survey, Garages Manage to Hold Rates Steady Amid Economic Woes

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FirstService Commercial Real Estate announced today that Dylan E. Taylor has joined as President of its rapidly growing USA operations, including the largest independent firm of Colliers International, FirstService Williams, PGP Valuation, MHPM Project Management and PKF Hospitality Consulting.

Taylor comes to FirstService Commercial Real Estate from a major global commercial real estate service organization, where he was President of global client services.

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Learn about which U.S. hotels were able to achieve an increase in profits in 2001 despite the poor market conditions.  Is there a chance any hotels will be able to improve their profits in 2009? To learn more click here

Once a year, Colliers collects and releases our statistics on revenues, number of employees, number of offices and more. The stats for 2009 have been released. Some of the highlights of these statistics include:

Annual worldwide revenue of $1.6 billion

• 294 offices in 61 countries
• 12,749 employees
• 4,660 brokers
• 1.1 billion square feet of managed property
• 44,405 sales/lease transactions
• $48.1 billion total transaction value

To read a breakdown of these stats by region/country, click here.

In May 2009, Canada's Environment Minister, the Honorable Jim Prentice, announced the appointment of Franklin Holtforster, President and CEO of Colliers' partner, MHPM Project Managers Inc., to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE). 

NRTEE's members are drawn from distinguished leaders in business and labor, universities, environmental organizations, Aboriginal communities and municipalities who offer different perspectives on issues of environmental concern. Franklin believes that a major contribution to environmental sustainability can be achieved through improvements in building performance. He has actively championed LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for building performance in more than 50 projects across Canada, and encourages all MHPM professional staff to obtain LEED Accreditation.

Please join Colliers and MHPM in congratulating Franklin on his appointment to this influential group. To read more about the NRTEE and the new members, click here for the entire story.

Our partners, PKF Consulting have released their most recent hospitality market update for 2009. Included are a number of informational reports to download, including Caribbean Trends in the Hotel Industry, Hospitality Investment Survey, Trends in the Hotel Spa Industry and more. They've also included "What's on the Horizon?" - special forecasts for airport, highway, urban, surburban, rural and resort hotels, and an article about fixed costs in 2009. To read all the above information and more, visit PKF's online hospitality market update here.

Listen to Steve Forbes' market presentation to CEO’s across USA and Canada, from the annual Colliers client event- Knowledge Forum. His speech covers trends, economic pit fills, reviews the possible turn in our economic situation and more. Forecasting Opportunity: Doing Business in a Turbulent Economy Steve Forbes, President & CEO, Forbes, Inc. (The video is in a three-part series).

Shirlaws (an awesome business coaching firm), recently wrote a great, upbeat article, comparing the recession to energy cycles.

“The recession is nothing more than a cleansing period - it gets rid of all the unproductive processes, businesses and people, a bit like a detox. This provides a strong fresh foundation for new growth.”

To read the entire article, click here. Shirlaws is also hosting a conference, "The Opportunity is Now | Shirlaws International Conference 2009" on April 1 & 2 in San Francisco. You can find the registration form here.

NAIOP recently released a study on levels of achievable energy efficiency in standard office buildings. According to their press release, the study takes an important step forward in presenting realistic economic data and practical information into what developers can do to increase efficiencies while maintaining a 10-year payback.

Using a recently completed four-story, 95,000-square-foot, Class A office building as the prototype, the research modeled the prototype in three climate zones represented by Chicago, Ill.; Baltimore, Md.; and Newport Beach, Calif.

Findings show that although significant energy efficiencies can be achieved (varying by climate zone), reaching a 30 percent reduction above the ASHRAE standard is not feasible using common design approaches and would exceed a 10-year payback. The study concluded that achieving a 50 percent reduction above the standard is not currently reachable.

To read the entire report, click here.

Simon Carter, Colliers' Regional Head of Sustainability in Singapore was interviewed last fall on a radio station program from 938Live in Singapore, which has now been made accessible online for our readers interested in global green building. Carter is also the writer behind R.E.Design - Colliers Green Real Estate Guide. To listen to the podcast, click the image below.

"Buildings have an enormous impact, and so the way in which we manage those buildings, we operate them, the way in which we transact them, can have an enormous effect. We think of real estate, in some ways, as a demand and a supply market. In particular, if we can create the demand for green buildings, then we can certainly accelerate the supply of them." --Simon Carter