SCM Real Estate Services

Making Places Better

Realcomm Upcomming

Jun 14

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I am going to Realcomm this year, I try to go every few years since I got hooked on the tech conference for the real estate business. This year its in Orlando, and this year boasts a spin-off like a 70′s sitcom. The spin-off is a conference focused exclusively on smart buildings technologies. Called IBCon – I get to go there too with my registration fee. I’m such a nerd.

Anyway, I have started checking out the Realcomm magazine ahead of the conference, and have already noticed a couple of trends I guess could have been expected. I’m looking forward to finding out how other companies are getting these done:

1. Lease signing on the Ipad – where do I sign?
2. 3D portfolio visualization – I can see that
3. New Job Title: Strategic Data Analyst – Chief Innovation Officer – I want one of these jobs

And the learning tracks I’m on track to learn:

Mobile development – That whole Ipad thing I guess
Company Portals – It takes the Intranet page to a whole new level in the cloud
The Innovation Threshhold – I’m already over it!

By the time you read this I will already be back and ready to share what I learned. Get ready to be informed.

Enlisting the Aid of Shade

May 31

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It’s an old technology, the awning.  But it is getting a new look from architects and designers looking for ways to reduce energy costs.  In Dallas, the Original Parkland Hospital conversion to an office building to become the office home of Crow Holdings now sports a high tech awning on its west-facing elevation that adjusts ever so slightly to provide precise shading just when and where its needed.  That property has the highest rents of any office property in Dallas, and is 100% occupied.

Old photos of the office home of SCM, the Vandergriff offices, shows awnings when the property was operated as a car dealership.  I can imagine awnings providing targeted shade for the property today, given the sun in Texas all summer.    We’ve already done a lot to tackle the issue, we added window film and roll down shades.

Apparently awnings today are seen as a way to stretch the cooling dollar, and improve the sustainability of a property.  Most applications today are done on new property projects, where the concept of the awning can be designed in.  it’s hard to add an awning to a building not designed for it.  Even the awning Crow Holdings installed at the old Parkland Hospital is attached to a new addition.  Check out a photo of the high tech awning at http://www.oldparkland.com/?page_id=26

 

Remember the color “Avacodo?” It’s back

May 17

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At least in appliances, that is.  What I find so interesting about this trend in colors is that so many colors that once seemed dated and obsolete in a commercial property are now fresh and exciting.  Like the “avocado” color in refrigerators, the color green is getting a workout with our design professionals these days.  Furniture reps are telling us the same thing.  Grass cloth wall covering and brown accent colors.  Can you imagine?

If you were around a very long time ago, you remember the “cove” base that gave way to carpet base.  Guess what, cove base is back as a design staple.  It’s a better looking cove base, wood grained, thicker, more substantial, but still it is rubberized vinyl, not carpet.

There really is nothing new under the sun, or so it seems.