Last week, the White House issued an outline containing a three-phase approach for states to follow as they move to restart activities following the coronavirus pandemic. Before a state moves forward, the administration said it should be seeing a downward trajectory of influenza-like illnesses and COVID-like syndromic cases reported over two weeks.

As states reopen, the plan recommends they have plans to:

• Protect the health and safety of workers in critical industries.
• Protect the health and safety of those living and working in high-risk facilities (e.g., senior care facilities).
• Protect employees and users of mass transit.
• Advise citizens regarding protocols for social distancing and face coverings.
• Monitor conditions and immediately take steps to limit and mitigate any rebounds or outbreaks by restarting a phase or returning to an earlier phase, depending on severity.

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NAIOP is proud to honor up-and-coming commercial real estate professionals, 35 years of age and under, for their valued contributions and commitment to the industry with the annual Developing Leaders Award. The award is presented to those who have shown exemplary achievements and demonstrated outstanding professional accomplishments in the commercial real estate industry.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2020 NAIOP Developing Leaders Award.
Deadline: June 26, 2020

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Originally published on April 28, 2020 by Mecklenburg County

Mecklenburg County, the City of Charlotte and the six county towns, have agreed to follow the State of North Carolina's Stay at Home Order starting April 30.

Mecklenburg County Manager Dena R. Diorio announced the agreement to the Board of County Commissioners at its public policy meeting Tuesday afternoon, one day before the county's current order was set to expire.

"The unified coalition of the County, the City, and the towns that began working together when this crisis started will stay together," said Diorio. "We have agreed to proceed like the rest of the state as the phased reopening proceeds."

Mecklenburg's Stay at Home Order began March 26 and is more restrictive than the state order regarding certain businesses—including car dealerships, landscaping services, real estate brokerage, and other businesses not considered essential.

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Originally published on April 14, 2020 by Marc Rapport for MillionAcres.com 

The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on Americans' health and on their businesses. April 1 marked the first major due date for rent for millions of enterprises large and small, and reports from around the nation show that many simply couldn't make do.

Unlike the morbid updates from Johns Hopkins University, there's no daily body count of lost businesses, but reports of unpaid April rent have popped up around the country, along with accounts of how landlords and tenants are dealing with the sudden collapse of a huge chunk of the American economy.

The news reports recount the good, the bad, and the opportunistic -- including tenants reportedly seeking the help they may not need and landlords taking advantage of the situation to run-off long-term tenants in favor of new businesses with deeper pockets and expansion plans.

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A Forums favorite is back: Economist Mark Dotzour, Ph.D., will talk exclusively with the National Forums to illustrate how the CRE industry and global economies will emerge from the pandemic. Dotzour sees today’s environment as a blend of national unity from the age of World War II, the immediate lifestyle changes that followed 9/11, and the financial catastrophe of 2008. He’ll take on the big topics on everyone’s mind: Will this be another jobless recovery? Are the stimulus packages enough? Where are interest and cap rates headed? And what does all of it mean for commercial real estate?

Submit your questions early and login to the call ready to take a journey as Dotzour synthesizes global, social and economic trends and provides you a tool kit of factual information to help you make sound investment and business decisions moving forward.

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• Cabarrus County Order
• Mecklenburg County Order
• Clarifications for Essential Businesses
• Clarifications for Real Estate
• North Carolina Order

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Originally published by Heath Abramsohn in the Spring 2020 Issue

The Rockefeller Group Logistics Center in Piscataway, New Jersey, opened in October 2019. It marked the culmination of four years of collaboration between Piscataway Township, Middlesex County and the companies involved with the project. With five buildings totaling 2.1 million square feet across 228 acres, the effort transformed a former brownfield site into a productive asset that should create more than 1,500 permanent jobs.

However, for the commercial real estate industry, an especially newsworthy aspect of this $250 million project could be the introduction of a concept that has the potential to revolutionize the way developers and users approach industrial space.

One of the park’s five buildings will not only be LEED Platinum but will go a step beyond by seeking WELL certification. Once certification is complete, it will be only the second WELL-certified U.S. industrial building, and the first such building in the world to achieve both LEED Platinum and WELL certifications. That means that the facility is not only energy efficient and environmentally friendly; it is also healthy for the people who work there.

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I want to take a moment to reach out to see how you are doing. During these challenging times, I want you to consider NAIOP Charlotte as part of your team, helping each other get through things together.

 

If you haven't already seen some of the great work NAIOP is doing to keep commercial real estate flowing, I am happy to share some quick items, all offered to NAIOP members at no cost:

• Periodic virtual Lunch with Leaders (April 27), Developing Leaders Happy Hour (April 24), and more being planned;
• Twice weekly NAIOP webinars on CRE Response to COVID-19
• Advocacy locally to keeping commercial construction operating in the Charlotte region;
• On-demand courses for members through June 1 (typically $795 per course).

Thursday, April 23, 2020, at 2:00 -3:00 p.m. ET

For NAIOP Developing Leaders, the effects of the current pandemic are creating their first career downturn. Whether professional- or career-related, the questions surrounding it are significant:

• What kinds of transactions are happening, or have deals stopped?
• Will remote working, office shifts and coworking be the new norm to reduce exposure, particularly in the next year? 
• How can industrial/logistics tenants prepare for supply and delivery challenges during future potential pandemics?
• How are companies handling the financial crunch, and should we expect furloughs or layoffs? 

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A key element of the $2.3 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act may run short of funding as soon as this week. Lawmakers initially allocated $349 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) run through the Small Business Administration. In its first week, PPP spent more than $100 billion of that, and could spend the rest by Friday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asked Congress to add an additional $250 billion to the fund last week. Democrats blocked that attempt in the Senate; they are demanding additional provisions they said would help hospitals and state and local governments.

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The federal government is scrambling to deliver economic help to the American economy under difficult circumstances. A key step is getting the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) up and running. SBA posted its interim final rule to govern the program last Thursday. There have been some glitches, but the SBA began granting loans last Friday, and banks are continuing to work this week to process additional loan applications. Information on the SBA’s loan programs and application information is located here.

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Bisnow interviewed Michael Kloppenburg, senior consultant for flexible office solutions at Avison Young, and Daniel Levinson, chairman, CRE Holdings, subject matter experts for NAIOP’s new Real Estate as a Service course on the REaaS model.

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As workers largely operate remotely during the COVID-19 crisis, will the shift out of the traditional office permanently change the sector? Register for the next Advantage Series webinar, April 8, 2 p.m. ET, to hear two experts share their perspectives on how the pandemic and its ripple effects have impacted office leasing activities and rates. 

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Originally published on April 1, 2020, by ED KLIMEK, AIA, NCARB

Commerce had begun to change before the outbreak of COVID-19; from the exponential trajectory of e-commerce to the rise in consumer demand for more immediate goods to the rise of urban industrial development to fulfill last-mile needs. The unknowns of this novel virus have accelerated that change to a tipping point at which the structures of commerce, and the development that supports it, maybe altered for good. This crisis has exposed the strengths and weaknesses of the market, and in doing so proved the necessity of a resilient supply chain. What will new commerce look like and what will be the industrial development response to support it? Some of this answer may lie in examining the world’s largest commercial enterprise, a company that had already set change in motion, and the one company that may have grown the most as a result of demand driven by the impact of COVID-19: Amazon. Through the lens of Amazon’s keys to success, we can see a path forward for industrial development to be part of the resilient supply chain.

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NAIOP commends the U.S. House for today's passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), following the U.S. Senate's passage on Thursday. We expect President Donald Trump to sign it into law shortly.\

The CARES Act will provide critical relief as businesses and individuals strive to manage the economic challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. We look forward to continuing our work with elected leaders on next steps, as well as supporting our members and the industry as we weather this crisis and plan for the future. 

Items in the legislation important to NAIOP members and commercial real estate include:

• An aggressive loan program for small businesses, many of which are commercial real estate tenants, that is designed to help them meet their financial obligations and keep their employees on payrolls over the next few months. The loans, which are forgivable, will provide many of our tenants with needed liquidity to keep them operating during the crisis.
   
• A much needed technical correction in the tax code for leasehold improvements, or Qualified Improvement Property (QIP). The Tax cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) mistakenly made QIP depreciable over 39 years instead of 15, and ineligible for bonus (100% depreciation). The CARES Act fixes that, ensuring that those who made these investments in 2018 and 2019 can file amended returns and recover any overpaid taxes.
   
• Net Operating Loss (NOL) rule changes allow businesses to carry back for 5 years any losses from 2018, 2019 and 2020, and losses carried forward can offset 100% of taxable income.

Additional provisions in the CARES Act and other federal actions already taken will be much-needed help for our economy.

Hone your professional skills and gain new insights with NAIOP's on-demand courses. These online courses provide maximum flexibility for commercial real estate professionals to learn from home from the best in the business.

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Hello fellow NAIOP members,

We know most of you are working from your new home office and trying to keep life moving forward as normal as possible. While we are in very interesting and ever-changing times, we also want to do all we can to keep the commercial real estate market moving in a positive direction, albeit in a manner that makes sense and keeps people safe and healthy. This is so important to our state and local economies and, more importantly, to the many families that depend on the paychecks that our industry provides.

We have been very fortunate to have our local leadership continue to work keeping things open for business. We ask you to support our leadership, both locally and statewide, as difficult decisions are being made but done so in an effort to best fight the coronavirus. With most of us working from home, hopefully, it will help keep the spread to a minimum thus allowing us to get back to business as usual sooner rather than later. In the meantime, your NAIOP Charlotte leadership is discussing virtual learning opportunities to discuss best practices for dealing with this so that we can all share and learn in order to benefit all of us. This situation is one where we are all in it together and so anything we can share and learn will benefit all of us.

Our NAIOP staff is also working to put together conversations, that will be shared via webinars, within the next week. We see great opportunities to both keep our members informed, learning and connected. We are missing the comradery that we love to share and so, hopefully, any forums or virtual meetings we can have will help to meet some of that connectivity.

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