Posted on November 3, 2017

House leaders took a significant step forward with tax reform efforts on Thursday with the release of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, H.R.1, which includes an expansive set of proposed changes to the corporate and individual tax system.

As promised in my previous messages to you on this topic, our legislative team and I are committed to keeping you informed on tax reform developments affecting the commercial real estate industry. In this proposal:

• Section 1031 like-kind exchanges are preserved for real estate.
• Current tax treatment of carried interest is preserved.
• Deductibility of interest on debt is maintained for those involved in real property trades or businesses, including commercial real estate development.
• Current eight individual tax brackets are condensed into four brackets: 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and 39.6 percent. The top rate of 39.6 percent would apply to income levels of more than $500,000 for an individual and $1 million for couples.
• Corporate tax rates are reduced from the current 35 percent to 20 percent.
• Pass-through businesses (such as partnerships and limited liability companies) will pay a new, lower top rate of 25 percent on their business income, subject to certain restrictions.
• Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is eliminated.
• Estate tax threshold is doubled (from the current $11.2 million for married couples), and phased out entirely by 2024. The step-up in cost basis on assets is retained.
• Deduction for state and local taxes limited only to property tax and capped at $10,000. (Currently, state and local income and sales taxes can also be deducted.).
• The Historic Preservation Tax Credit and New Markets Tax Credit are discontinued, with transition periods provided. As legislation moves forward in the House and Senate, NAIOP will advocate for the continuation of these important incentives.

Starting next Monday, the House Ways & Means Committee will begin marking up the legislation. The president has expressed his desire to accelerate tax reform and sign a bill before the end of the year.

Posted on October 25, 2017

By: James M. Mulligan

Public-private partnerships are emerging as a mechanism that marries the funding of public facilities like courthouses, libraries, government offices and more with private commercial development.

From its earliest colonial days to its reign today as the world’s largest economy, the U.S. has seen tremendous evolution in how it develops its infrastructure: from the bones of its communities to connections between its population centers, to the very buildings it constructs to serve public needs. Approaches to financing and delivering the nation’s infrastructure are more dynamic now than ever, with a renewed focus on how both the public and private sectors can contribute to infrastructure development.

This article explores the nature of public-private infrastructure partnerships and highlights changing opportunities for private commercial developers in providing the infrastructure that U.S. communities depend on for continued economic growth.

Click here to read the full article.

Posted on October 24, 2017

Recruiting and retaining top talent has become essential in today's highly competitive marketplace.

Is your 2018 salary and bonus package competitive? Find out with the 2017 NAIOP/CEL Commercial Real Estate Compensation and Benefits Reports.

These valuable reports enable commercial real estate businesses to stay current on salaries, bonuses and benefits for CRE professionals from executive to entry-level positions. The reports include submissions from 400 companies; salary, bonus, incentives, and benefits for 200 positions; and data from 120,000 distinct jobs in the office/industrial, retail and residential property sectors.

Posted on October 23, 2017

REBIC has put together an Election Guide to help you cast your vote for candidates who support the real estate industry.

See which candidates REBIC has endorsed

View the Report

Posted on October 13, 2017

A recent survey conducted by construction management firm Structure Tone found green building is still a major market differentiator, and employee wellness is increasingly important to tenants. Structure Tone sent its “Client Sustainability Survey” to a nonscientific sample of corporate real estate and facilities management professionals. Questions centered on participants’ opinions on third-party certification systems like LEED, challenges to building green and the newer pressures of wellness and climate change in the built environment. Findings indicated that 62 percent of respondents agreed that LEED is a valuable market differentiator, but cost is the primary barrier to adopting sustainable building practices. Over 80 percent of the respondents consider employee wellness essential to their retention and recruitment; more than 50 percent reported they plan to seek external expertise to incorporate wellness into their buildings.

Posted on October 12, 2017

Amazon’s search for a second headquarters has North American cities scrambling for ways to attract the world’s fourth-largest corporation. However, jurisdictions, even those not in the running, should take their economic development cues from Amazon’s HQ2 Request for Proposals (RFP), according to Brookings Institution’s Amy Liu and Mark Muro. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, “What Amazon’s HQ2 Wish List Signals about the Future of Cities,” Liu and Muro’s advice to cities that want to attract high-tech industry is “not to just polish up branding and marketing materials and wait for the next Amazon-scale business attraction opportunity,” nor rely on assembling parcels and offering generous subsidies. Rather, cities need to examine the criteria outlined in the RFP and “ask whether they’ve done enough to build up the fundamental assets prized by innovative firms and industries.” Those assets include:

• Capacity to produce skilled technical talent, including partnerships with higher education institutions along with science programming in K-12 education.
• Modern infrastructure. The presence of highway networks, international airports, and high-speed broadband to reach global and domestic markets.
• Connected and sustainable placemaking. Amazon’s RFP emphasizes its “interest in promoting walkability and connectivity between densely clustered buildings through sidewalks, bike lanes, trams, metro, bus, light rail, train and additional creative options.”

Localities that invest in people, infrastructure and quality places rather than offering only traditional incentive packages, according to the authors, will attract the attention of forward-thinking firms.

Posted on October 11, 2017

According to a report by the National League of Cities, U.S. cities’ revenue growth will shrink for the second consecutive year in 2017. The findings in “City Fiscal Conditions 2017,” based on a survey of finance officers from 261 cities, “signal a trend that was last seen in 2006 before the Great Recession.”

Key discoveries include:

• “General Fund revenues are slowing. General Fund revenues grew by 2.61% in 2016, and revenues are projected to stagnate with just 0.9% growth in 2017.”
• “Property tax revenue growth is budgeted much lower than in 2016. Finance officers have budgeted for 1.6% growth in property tax revenues in 2017, compared to 4.3% in 2016.”
• “Finance officers project a decline in sales and income tax revenues for 2017. Both sales and income tax revenues grew in 2016 (by 3.7% and 2.4%, respectively), but finance officers project a decline in 2017 (by 0.2% and 2.7%, respectively).”
• “Confidence of municipal finance officers has waned. Although the majority of finance officers (69%) are confident in the fiscal position of their cities, widespread optimism hit its peak in 2015.”

Posted on October 10, 2017

Is your 2018 salary and bonus package competitive? Find out with the 2017 NAIOP/CEL Commercial Real Estate Compensation and Benefits Reports.

These valuable reports are the national standard allowing commercial real estate businesses to stay current on salaries, bonuses, and benefits for CRE professionals from executives to entry-level positions.

The reports include:

Posted on October 9, 2017

Below are some details on the recently released Unified Framework for Fixing Our Broken Tax Code, in which the Trump administration and congressional Republican leadership have outlined chief areas of agreement for tax reform legislation.

While House and Senate GOP leaders and members of President Trump's economic team left many details of the legislation for the tax-writing committees in both chambers to resolve, there are several agreed-upon major provisions of interest to CRE:

• Reduction of the number of tax brackets from seven to three: 12, 25 and 35 percent, leaving open the possibility of an additional higher bracket for the highest-income taxpayers to ensure the share of taxes paid by the wealthy remain the same.
• Reduction of corporate tax rates to a maximum of 20 percent, down from the current rate of 35 percent.
• A top rate of 25 percent applied to the business income of small and family-owned businesses conducted as sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations (pass-through entities). The framework contemplates that the committees will adopt measures to prevent any recharacterization of personal income taxed at ordinary rates into business income taxed at the lower pass-through rate, done solely for purposes of avoiding taxation.
• Immediate expensing for new investments in capital assets, not to include structures, but leaving open the possibility for increased expensing for small businesses and modernizing current depreciation schedules for assets not provided immediate expensing.
• Partial limitation for deductibility of interest expenses for C corporations, asking the committees to consider the appropriate levels of deductibility for other types of businesses.
• Elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax.
• Repeal of the Estate Tax.

We believe that these provisions will spur stronger economic growth and job creation, benefitting our industry in the long term, but many questions remain unanswered.

Posted on October 9, 2017

The City of Concord invites the public to get the first glimpse into the policies and maps that will guide the development of the community over the next 10-15 years. The 2030 Land Use Plan public input session is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 10 CFA Village Suite 75 located at 280 Concord Parkway N.

With the assistance of Tindale Oliver, Planning and Neighborhood Development staff have been working to update the City's Land Use Plan to provide the framework for land use and development through the year 2030. The existing Land Use Plan, referred to as the 2015 Land Use Plan, was created in 2004 and updated in 2007.

The process is updating a land use map and supporting text document that contains data, specific goals, and policy recommendations focused on land use and development. The final plan will also guide City officials as they develop future budgets, plan infrastructure and other services, make important land use decisions, and revise current policies within the Concord Development Ordinance.

Posted on October 6, 2017

Lawmakers in the House and Senate say they’re determined to pass a sweeping tax reform bill this year. But first, for procedural reasons, both houses need to pass a Fiscal Year 2018 budget. FY 2018 began on October 1.

Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee released a draft budget that it says would balance within nine years. But committee members haven’t explained where they would find $5 trillion in spending cuts. That draft budget will be voted on by the full Budget Committee this week, then go to the floor of the Senate later this month. The House drafted a budget plan over the summer and plans to hold a vote on Thursday.

After the two chambers come to an agreement on budgetary spending levels, lawmakers would be able to turn to tax reform, which is a key priority for NAIOP. Throughout the year, NAIOP has met with lawmakers and Hill staffers to deliver the message that all federal spending and tax reform bills should protect the interests of the CRE industry.

Posted on October 6, 2017

According to a recent TechCrunch article, “VC Doors are Wide Open for Real Estate Startups,” seed and early-stage investment in real estate technology have increased by $100 million over the past 12 months. Cultural and demographic shifts along with rising property and rental prices account for the rising interest in startups.

“Real estate and its adjacent industries are broadly behind in technology adoption, so many investors look at the space as low-hanging fruit,” says Constance Freedman, managing partner at real estate-focused venture capitalist (VC) firm Moderne Ventures.

The article identifies several companies that are experiencing early-stage funding:

Posted on October 5, 2017

A report by CBRE, “What’s Wrong with American Shopping Malls?” finds retailers with low-growth rates, such as department stores, occupy a majority of U.S. shopping malls’ gross leasable area compared to retailers with higher-growth categories such as restaurants and home furnishings. This disparity, according to CBRE, indicates malls should lease to different retailers to stay competitive.

However, shifting the merchandise mix will take time. The report states retail leasing structures, such as reciprocal easement agreements that require a retailer’s permission before modifications are made to the shopping center, and the overall reluctance to change among department stores will delay the process. Those who “shift the tenant mix toward higher-growth, lower e-commerce penetration spending categories can create room for revenue growth.” CBRE also notes super-regional malls, characterized by larger sizes and diverse combinations of tenants, have demonstrated a sharp increase in net operating income over regional malls during the past four years.

Posted on October 5, 2017

On September 19, 2017, NAIOP Charlotte hosted a breakfast that discussed Moving people and products into, around and outside of Charlotte with bikes, automobiles, trucks, airports, light rail, and trains.  It all impacts the future growth and development of our region.  This breakfast discussion included diverse perspectives on local, state and national policy and the priorities and challenges for the next 25 years.  Are their tools to help move the priorities forward?  How does the 2040 Transportation Plan, managed lanes, and rail impact your business and the future of development?  And, how can our industry help ensure good mobility in our region?  

A special thank you to our panel, moderated by Tracy Dodson and including Ned Curran, Northwood Office, and former NCDOT Chair, David Howard, NC Department of Transportation and former Charlotte City Council Member, John Lewis, CATS.

Click here to view more photos from the event.

Some of the areas of discussion include:

Where do we get the funding?

• North Carolina has the second largest road system in the US (second to Texas) because there are no county-managed roads
• Take advantage of Federal Grants
• We need to find new funding sources as the gas tax is not enough.  Can counties around Charlotte use the .04 cent to fund regional connectivity?
• Tax Increment Financing
• Encourage regional conversations
• Exhaust local opportunities to fund, then go to state for help
• Old model – 50% FEDERAL, 25% STATE (now 10%)

Future Conversations

• Value Capture proposal – Blue Line extension (the incremental tax revenue not necessary new tax, allocated to future growth)
• P3 (Denver, CO example)

Public-Private Partnerships as a Powerful Tool

• To move transportation forward
• Because of the controversy of North I-77, fear to consider P3

Regionalism and Connectivity

• Need visionary leaders – need forward thinking
• Embrace the new means of mobility (fixed rail, managed lanes, etc.)
• Need multi-modal app
• CATs – support of Economic Development

Call to Action

• Get involved with the politics – know what is going on and advocate for the opportunities in our community.
• Make sure the elected officials know the issues – now
• Look bigger than your project
• Get involved – serve on a committee
• Share information with city staff
• Discuss with region about the benefit of Charlotte growth and small towns and counties connectivity

Posted on October 4, 2017

By: Todd Burns

Between rising costs, dwindling talent pools and looming uncertainty, today’s construction leaders are grappling with some seriously disruptive forces. But a closer look at each of these “disruptions” reveals some serious opportunities, too, as the sector begins to ramp up its technology strategy.

Though still in the early stages of change, the sector’s movement toward tech innovation represents a meaningful cultural shift, considering that it’s traditionally been slower to embrace technology than other industries.

Posted on October 4, 2017

Congratulations to our Tournament Winners!
Thank You to all our Participants and Sponsors!

Thank you to everyone who came out on Monday, October 2 for the NAIOP Charlotte and CRCBR Annual Golf Tournament at Carolina Golf Club. Congratulations to all of our tournament winners.

Click here to view photos from the event.

GROSS Winners

Our first place winners based on GROSS were:

Posted on October 4, 2017

We are proud to introduce our new association members! The following is a list of individuals who have joined NAIOP Charlotte since July 18th:

• Brion Blais, SpeedPro Imaging Charlotte Center
• Brian Boehm, ElmTree Funds
• Christopher Kouri, Nexsen Pruet, PLLC
• Derek Lanning, Miles-McClellan Construction

Posted on October 3, 2017

By: Richard R. Spore III

What do office and retail property owners need to know about triple net leases?

A commercial real estate project’s value is typically based on its net operating income, which equals rental income minus operating expenses. The allocation of operating expenses between the landlord and tenants is, therefore, an important factor in the project’s value. Most commercial leases use some variation of two basic operating expense allocation models:

Gross rent model: The landlord pays 100 percent of operating expenses from gross rent paid by the tenants.

Posted on October 2, 2017

After months of discussions behind closed doors, a group of six policymakers is scheduled to pull back the shades this week – perhaps as soon as Tuesday – and put out an outline for comprehensive tax reform. After the outline is released, “the tax-writing committees are going to take feedback and input, and then they’re going to go produce their bills in the weeks ahead,” House Speaker Paul Ryan says.

NAIOP’s legislative team has been working ahead of the process, meeting with lawmakers and their staff members throughout the year. NAIOP has emphasized that spending and tax reform bills should protect the interests of the CRE industry. That includes maintaining Section 1031 like-kind exchanges, protecting the deductibility of interest payments on financing and taxing real estate carried interest as capital gains instead of ordinary income.

Last week the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on the importance of corporate tax reform. “Our current business tax system and the disparity between the U.S. corporate rate and our foreign competitors’ corporate rates has created a number of problems and distortions,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch said.