Perspectives

Collaborative Design and Risk Allocation in Infrastructure Design-Build

How WSDOT Saved $89M With Design-Build Last winter, I had a chance to review a freeway interchange project that was recently completed using the Design-Build style of procurement. I assumed what I would find would be deadly dull and not suitable dinner party conversation. Instead, I found the project’s procurement and design process to be… Read more

Perspectives

Adaptive Reuse 2.0: The Neighborhood Approach

Adaptive Reuse 2.0 was listed as the #9 issue in the 2021-22 Top Ten Issues Affecting Real Estate® by The Counselors of Real Estate®. Adaptive reuse is not a new term or concept to the commercial real estate industry. It is an evolving property use trend expanding beyond the rejuvenation of single-property blight in urban… Read more

Economic Structure, Public Policy, and Private Decisions

Economic Structural Change was listed as the #8 issue in the 2021-22 Top Ten Issues Affecting Real Estate® by The Counselors of Real Estate®. The pilot of a jetliner on the tarmac has a lot of decisions to make. But, hopefully, he or she doesn’t have to guess about any of them. The cockpit instruments… Read more

Perspectives

Our Deep Divisions

Political Polarization was listed as the #7 issue in the 2021-22 Top Ten Issues Affecting Real Estate® by The Counselors of Real Estate®. There seems to be nothing new about America’s political polarization. Depending upon one’s historical perspective, this might be dated to the 1990s “Contract with America,” the 1960s Vietnam and Civil Rights movements,… Read more

Perspectives

Affordable Housing Discrimination in America

Housing Supply and Affordability was listed as the #6 issue in the 2021-22 Top Ten Issues Affecting Real Estate® by The Counselors of Real Estate®. When I wrote on this same topic a year ago, there was a shortage of 7.2 million affordable and available rental homes for extremely low-income renter households, (those whose incomes… Read more

Perspectives

New Infrastructure Imperatives Emerge

Infrastructure: New Imperatives Emerge was listed as the #5 issue in the 2021-22 Top Ten Issues Affecting Real Estate® by The Counselors of Real Estate®. The COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and heightened societal interest in social and economic equity have redefined infrastructure imperatives beyond significant ongoing necessity for improved roads, bridges, airports, ports, mass transit, and other traditional infrastructure... Read More