Archives for July 2019

Santa Fe is the biggest “boomtown” in the state of New Mexico, according to a self-described “money lifestyle website.” But cities like Rio Rancho, Carlsbad and Hobbs may be more deserving.

GOBankingRates released its list of the fastest-growing cities in each state on Wednesday, using five- and 10-year U.S. Census data to measure population growth, as well as increases in occupied housing units and per capita income. But the study doesn’t factor in Santa Fe’s annexation of 4,100 acres of land in 2014, which resulted in a population increase of 13,250 and more than 4,400 new housing units.

The study says Santa Fe’s population increased 21.5% in five years from 2012 to 2017, exceeding the national average by 17.7 percentage points. Annexation increased the city’s population by 16%, from about 59,000 to close to 82,000, in just one year.

The study measured the city’s 10-year population increase at 27.3%. It says the change in owner-occupied housing units increased by 19% over five years and 31.3% over 10 years.

Contrary to what the study may suggest, arguably the biggest issue Santa Fe is facing today is a housing shortage. Mayor Alan Webber has made increasing the inventory and diversifying housing options a high priority. Some estimates peg the shortage at as many as 5,000 units.

The GOBankingRates study also used five- and 10-year changes in per capita income as part of its analysis.

The public relations manager for GOBankingRates defended the validity of the study when contacted by the Journal.

“The data we used supports our findings,” Rob Poindexter wrote in an email. “We typically try not to delve so much into the ‘why,’ we just use the available data to reach our conclusions.”

In response to a request for comment on the study, Mayor Webber acknowledged that annexation should be factored into the data. “But the larger story continues to be that Santa Fe is a great place to live, work, learn, start and grow a business, and raise a family,” he said in a statement. “Our aim is to preserve and protect what makes Santa Fe special and continue this pattern of smart and sustainable growth.”

On the New Mexico page that lists the statistics for Santa Fe, GOBankingRates says, “If you live in Rio Rancho, Carlsbad or Hobbs, you’re also living in a boomtown.”

A spreadsheet provided by GOBankingRates shows those three cities, respectively, with the next best combined scores behind Santa Fe.

The study looked at data from 1,600 cities with populations of less than 500,000 people.

By: T.S. Last (ABQ Journal)
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As malls search for innovative ways to draw in shoppers and fill empty storefronts, they are turning to unexpected partners: health clinics.

In recent years, new office designs have encouraged employees to get moving. Cafes and lounges beckon workers when they need a break. Open staircases spur them to climb floors rather than take the elevator. Sit-stand desks offer them a chance to stretch while continuing to work.

Now, the offices themselves are on the move.

M Moser Associates, a design firm in New York, calls its office “a living lab.” Green walls of plants are set on casters and can be used to block off one end of the 6,000-square-foot open space for private meetings, or they can be pushed against other walls to make room for large gatherings. And custom birch-topped work tables have wheels on back legs so they can be tipped and easily rolled elsewhere.

M Moser continually tinkers with its office, seeking new ways to support its staff and offer a “proof of concept” to visiting clients, said Grant Christofely, a senior strategist and associate at M Moser, who led a recent tour of the firm’s office in the historic Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan.

The desire to be able to switch things up at a moment’s notice has spread to companies in other fields, too. “Businesses are changing at a rate architects almost can’t keep up with,” Christofely said.

The flux is a result of many factors, including wave after wave of technological change that has prompted repeated adjustments to office designs. (Remember the need for a 150-square-foot room for the computer servers? Now, data is likely to be stored off-site or in the cloud.)

More collaborative ways of working have also been a driving force. A growing emphasis on teamwork often requires temporary settings for groups working on short-term projects.

And there is always economic pressure to keep real estate costs down. Many companies have done away with private offices in favor of more efficient open plans, but some are shying away from long-term leases at permanent addresses altogether. The alternative: renting instant offices often called, appropriately enough, flex space.

Flex space represents 5% of overall office space in the 18 cities around the world surveyed for a recent report from real estate services company Instant Group. Demand for short-term offices in flex-space facilities and other venues increased 19% last year.

“It’s a systemic shift in commercial real estate,” said Tim Rodber, chief executive of Instant, which procures space for Amazon, among other companies, and has an online platform listing more than 14,000 flex-space locations for rent, including about 4,000 in the United States.

CBRE, another real estate services company, said that three-quarters of its large-scale clients were looking to add flex space to their real estate portfolios. Those findings are behind a new venture for the company: Hana, a flex-space subsidiary.

Hana’s first project has been leasing 67,000 square feet on 2 1/2 floors in a recently constructed building in Dallas. The company is outfitting the space for rentals that can range from hours to years, according to Andrew Kao, Hana’s vice president for product and design experience. Kao said the new space is expected to open in August.

But even some companies that sign traditional long-term leases are building kinetic elements into their designs to provide workplace flexibility.

Digital content provider Wiley has a banquet-size space at its headquarters in Hoboken, New Jersey. When folding wall panels are pulled open, the expanse can be divided into three conference rooms.

“It can accommodate a 225-person town hall or be broken up,” said Joseph Orrico, Wiley’s director of real estate and facilities for the Americas.

Law firm Nixon Peabody achieved flexibility in a different way in its midtown Manhattan offices, designed by architecture firm Perkins and Will. Its reception area is backed by a pivoting 12-foot-wide custom media wall that incorporates screens displaying branding content and company stats. When the wall pivots, reception and the cafe behind it are merged into one big space that can accommodate a crowd.

“We open it mostly for different events,” said Joseph J. Lynch, managing partner of the law firm’s New York office.

Elsewhere, companies have turned to movable pods — boxlike mini meeting rooms on wheels — to add flexibility to open plans and, maybe, recapture some of the privacy that open plans eliminated when they knocked down all those walls.

For the Pixel Factory, Hyundai’s financial tech workplace in Seoul, South Korea, architecture firm Gensler designed pods clad in plywood and outfitted with upholstered panels for acoustical absorption, cushioned benches and lighting. There are two sizes: A cube with a 6-foot-square footprint can accommodate four people, and a slightly larger one can hold six.

The pods allow employees to carve out space for meetings in Pixel’s open plan, said Philippe Paré, a Gensler design principal and director in London.

“It gives them a sense of control over their environment,” he said, adding that such pods were part of “the next chapter in the evolution of the open workplace.”

Gensler is also among the companies that have been working on collections of mobile office furniture designed to support teamwork. It collaborated with Italian company Fantoni on a modular line called Atelier, which was introduced in April.

Brick-and-mortar renovations focus on experiences and flexibility to attract customers and maximize profitability.

Not so long ago, retail space would get a facelift every five to seven years, but the influence of the digital world and the culture of automatic updates have changed expectations of how shopping in the real world looks and feels, making the old renovation timetable essentially obsolete, says Jennifer Nemec, principal of Chicago-based Ideation Studio, a multidisciplinary design firm that creates brand environments for retail and restaurant spaces (above, an Asian gastropub concept from Ideation). Once design gets static, consumers start to look for what’s new. “It’s [currently] three to five years, and the refresh cycle keeps speeding up,” says Nemec.

Facing the rising tide of online sales— e-commerce racked up 14.3% of total retail sales in 2018, nearly doubling its share from 2012—brick-and-mortar retailers are looking for new ways to bring customers to their stores. What’s needed is more than a fresh coat of paint and new light fixtures. Real estate pros can partner with owners and tenants to complete upfront preparations that enable them to keep up with current design trends.

New Ways In

Traditionally, tenants start with a space landlords and property owners call a “vanilla box” or “white box,” which means that the HVAC is working, the space is painted white, and it’s in move-in condition. But that definition has evolved, in part because of the need for upgraded digital infrastructure. “Brands and property owners want to be able to access data and learn from the environment,” says Melissa Gonzalez, founder of The Lion’esque Group, retail strategists and architects for “pop-up” stores. “Brands want more technology to be able to bridge the gap of online and offline, and property owners want insights into every floor and wing—who’s getting more traffic. By creating these turnkey platforms, owners are getting insights on how stores perform on their properties. It’s beneficial to both sides.”

Gonzalez says that real estate developers and mall operators in particular are reevaluating how they offer space. “They understand that traditional deals—here’s a space, sign a ten-year deal, give me rent and a percentage of sales, and fend for yourself—won’t work,” she says. Not only are they making bigger investments in tenant improvements, they’re “divvying up spaces in creative ways and investing in programs that allow people to test the waters on their property in more of a turnkey way to get them to sign long-term leases.”

Her company recently did a project called “IRL” (In Real Life), partnering with mall operator GGP (now Brookfield Properties) to launch a revolving store concept in Chicago, introducing e-commerce brands to consumers in a physical setting. “It enables the brand to learn about its consumers and see if a new location is viable longer-term,” Gonzalez says. In this revolving scenario, GGP could also learn which brands had long-term tenancy potential.

Another example that Gonzalez consulted on is Shop Lab, a 528-square-foot space inside the Easton Station building at the Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, that retailers can rent for stints from a few weeks to a few months.

Plan It First

There’s no hard-and-fast rule for what a property owner pays for and what a retailer tenant pays for when it comes to design changes and upgrades. “Every lease is different,” Ideation’s Nemec says. “A landlord might give a renter a square-foot allowance—for example, if they’re renting 2,000 square feet, the landlord might give them $50 a square foot for construction. Anything else on top of that is out-of-pocket for the renter.”

Retailers seeking a refresh are often scrambling when they approach Nemec. They come to Ideation with no real budget and little time. They have a “champagne taste on a beer budget,” she says. The biggest trend in construction is that costs are escalating. Trades are demanding more money for their services, specifically millwork, which is a key component to customizing any environment. “Store owners should expect to pay $50 to $250 per square foot for construction,” she says.

Another issue, Nemec finds, is that people contact a general contractor before they have a design in place. Store owners, she says, “need to have a strategic plan with a designer or architect, then send it out to multiple contractors for pricing.” Retailers want to avoid making a lot of change orders as the work is being done. “It’s easier to change a line on paper than it is to change a wall. Make the decisions before a hammer is lifted.” To that end, Nemec’s company builds 3D models and may incorporate augmented or virtual reality into the design process. “There’s no room for vague when it comes to renovation.”

Remodel for Connection

“The internet has separated shopping from buying,” says Sanford Stein, author of the book Retail -Shmetail and founder of Retail Speak, a LinkedIn group for the retail industry. “That’s forcing retailers to create flexible spaces”—for example, where furniture can be moved so a space changes from selling floor to event space. The retailer Athleta, a Gap brand that designs and sells women’s athletic and technical wear, is a good example, Nemec says. Athleta stores have fixtures on casters so they can host yoga events on site.

Gonzalez says she incorporates flex spaces into the pop-up shops The Lion’esque Group designs. One recent example is the 1,500-square-foot Stella and Dot store that opened in Dallas in late March for a one-month stint. Stella and Dot, a San Francisco–based brand, sells jewelry, bags, and accessories. The L-shaped checkout counter served as a “cash wrap during store hours and a bar during events,” Gonzalez says. An area in the back served as a lounge, where kids could play while parents shopped. During events, it was used for customized engraving.

Hosting in-store events bolsters another trend: community. “You’re seeing a lot of encouragement for people to gather, like large community tables in restaurants,” Nemec says. One manifestation she’s seeing in retail and offices: furniture that’s more residential. “It’s not the old steel box. There are warmer, smaller footprints. People are creating ‘neighborhoods’ in the office setting—and that’s coming into vogue in retail and restaurants, too.”

The other trend forced by the success of online retail is the push for more experiential shopping. “At the end of the day, our job is to find a good reason to make a person want to go to a brick-and-mortar store. For us, it’s the ability to create surprise and delight, excitement and emotion,” Nemec says. “To safeguard against things being static and boring.”

Some of that surprise is coming from the use of augmented reality, for example, where a restaurant might use projections and animation instead of menus, or a teapot on display might look as if it’s beginning to steam. Nemec says she has seen this done in Europe in stores like The White Company, a lifestyle store selling quality clothing and interior products, and says it will eventually happen on this side of the Atlantic. “We’re trying to push it because we [at Ideation] have the capability for the graphics and the animation. Things will come alive around you, no headsets required. It’s an engaging way to start to build experience in a retail environment,” Nemec says.

On a larger scale, stores like the recently opened Starbucks Reserve and Nike flagship, both in New York City, are offering personalized experiences with in-store digital shopping and immersive spaces.

Materials, finishes, flooring, and lighting play a huge role in branding retail stores. While industrial chic—featuring raw, aged woods, galvanized metal, glass, and simple design—and the clean, white modern aesthetic of an Apple store still dominate, Nemec says designers are looking for something new: “Although it feathers into industrial chic, we’re doing a lot of ‘decomposed’ looks.”

 Anthropologie is especially savvy at creating merchandising layers. “There’s a sense of a treasure hunt,” Nemec says. “Whatever’s facing out on the shelf or on the top of the folded pile, there might be something different behind or underneath it. They create a sense of discovery, and the store has an appealing vintage, reclaimed look.”

Other stores, too, choose furnishings and materials as part of their branding aesthetic, but there are a few common threads, including natural and green elements and anything sustainable, such as engineered wood flooring, which looks like wood but is durable and easily maintained.

Lighting, too, is a big factor in design. Now everything is LED. These bulbs are more energy-efficient and more controllable in terms of their color, ambiance, and integration into spaces. “Clothing retailers are even investing in lighting that changes based on the time of day you might wear an outfit,” Gonzalez says. “Brands are seeing that when they invest in that type of lighting, they actually have a lower return rate on clothing purchases. They’re getting savvier.”

However retailers choose to renovate, Gonzalez says, “it’s about developing more of an emotional connection with customers, thinking about not just store flow but design. Retailers and consumers want Instagrammable moments these days.”

Young adults, in particular, crave experiences when they shop. “Consumers want to discover and be immersed in the story of a brand. And brands are doing this with beautifully designed environments that further extend their voice through color and material choices,” Gonzalez says. “These are used to create moments that inspire user-generated content.”

For example, at NYC: The Citizenry Bunkhouse, a home furnishings pop-up shop that was extended into 2019 after it’s successful 22-day holiday run, Gonzalez’s team created what she calls “speed bumps,” places for shoppers to stop and take it all in. One such rest stop included hardwood flooring, a soft rug, and a fireplace set in a wall of white exposed brick fronted by two comfortable chairs—”like you’re in a beautiful New York City apartment,” Gonzalez says. The space drew people in, giving them a subtle excuse to take and post a photo.

At the end of the day, Nemec says, “designers are always thinking about the customer experience and not just checking off the boxes—reception desk, check; shelving, check. They’re thinking about how to immerse consumers in a space.”
By: Stacey Freed (REALTOR Magazine)
Click here to view source article.