Corporate

Because it’s expensive to heat and cool outdoor air drawn into a building, workspaces tend to be ventilated only enough to meet ASHRAE minimums or achieve a LEED credit. But air quality profoundly affects workers’ cognitive performance, and even modest increases in ventilation can yield productivity and health benefits that far exceed the cost, says Joseph Allen, assistant professor and director of the Healthy Buildings Program at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Mary Kay broke ground in September of 2016 on a $125 million research, development, and manufacturing facility in Lewisville, Texas. Designed by Jacobs Engineering, the 480,000-sf facility will support the creation, testing, and production of cosmetics and skin care products. Completion is expected in early 2018. The general contractor for the project is Beck Construction.

Mary Kay will begin construction in July of 2016 on its global research, development, and manufacturing campus in Lewisville, Texas. Featuring advanced production technologies for cosmetics, the $100 million facility will accommodate 600 employees, including both researchers and manufacturing staff. Completion is expected in early 2018.

CBRE Group announced in late March of 2015 that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Global WorkPlace Solutions (GWS) business of Johnson Controls. GWS is a market-leading provider of Integrated Facilities Management solutions for major occupiers of commercial real estate and has significant operations around the world. GWS will operate as part of CBRE’s Global Corporate Services (GCS) business, providing clients with a full range of combined occupier services including CBRE’s leasing expertise and GWS’s engineering technologies.

Apple is planning to build a four-story, 269,000-sf research and development facility in Yokohama, Japan. Constructed on the site of a former Panasonic factory in Tsunashima-higashi, the sustainably designed project will feature highly efficient building systems, water recycling technologies, and a green roof. Construction is expected to commence by the end of 2015 with completion in 2016.

Apple has initiated site work for the Apple Campus 2 in Cupertino, Calif. The new headquarters will provide 3.42 million sf of office and R&D facilities on a 176-acre campus designed to accommodate 14,000 employees. The project centerpiece is a four-story, 2.8 million-sf circular building with a glass curtainwall and 700,000 rooftop photovoltaic panels, the construction cost of which is $5 billion. A 120,000-sf auditorium, a 100,000-sf fitness center, 100,000 sf of utility plant space, and parking structures will also be built.

How many facilities management and corporate real estate editorials and articles have been written over the past five years championing the cause that facilities management and corporate real estate need seats in the C-suite Club? Many, but probably about the same number written in any five-year period since the 1970s, when facilities management and corporate real estate began to emerge as unique business functions. It’s an old lament.

Hewlett Packard broke ground on an 89,000-sf R&D facility in Ballybrit in the Republic of Ireland in February of 2014. Designed by Taylor Architects, the building will house 700 employees engaged in software research and the development of cloud computing technologies. The project team includes general contractor M.J. Conroy Group, engineering consultants Arup and RPS, and project manager AECOM. Completion is expected in February of 2015.

The Federation of Korean Industries opened its 50-story headquarters in Seoul in early 2014. The facility features an advanced solar electric façade and has received the highest sustainable design rating from the Korean Institute of Construction Technology. The spandrel panels in the exterior walls are angled at 30 degrees upward toward the sun, maximizing the amount of energy collected, while the vision panels are angled at 15 degrees downward toward the ground, minimizing the amount of direct sun radiation and glare.

Bayer HealthCare opened its new headquarters in Hanover Township, N.J., in October of 2013. The two-building, 700,000-sf office project consolidates operations from four separate locations and will accommodate 2,400 employees. The headquarters was constructed by transforming two obsolete structures into a spacious and sustainable facility featuring a five-story glass atrium.

Samsung Research America broke ground in October of 2013 on its new research and development campus in Mountain View, Calif. The 385,000-sf project includes two six-story office buildings and will be constructed to attain a minimum of LEED Gold sustainable design certification. Occupancy is expected in December of 2014. Samsung Research America is a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Non-residential construction volumes and pricing continued their upward trend in the second quarter, with prices increasing an average of 2 to 4 percent in the first half of 2013. These factors, along with growing market confidence and a narrowing labor supply, will continue to push new construction costs closer to the trend line for the near to medium term.

Continued signs of stable economic growth indicate that the recovery is gaining momentum in many parts of the United States and Canada. Construction selling prices for institutional projects grew at a 6 percent annualized rate in 2012, on top of a 3 percent increase in 2011. Construction costs are expected to continue stabilizing and rising in many regions as market confidence and capital spending increase.

The average lifespan of a building is 60 years, but the forces that drive the workplace may change as often as every six months. The challenge, whether for new construction or renovation, is to design a workplace that will adapt to a fluctuating timetable of changes in technology, business goals, and the workforce. The keys to success are a flexible workplace and a strong change management process.

Creating an "agile workplace"—by determining the overall business goals of an organization, making an in-depth appraisal of how employees work, and creating an efficient, cost-effective workspace that satisfies various work requirements—can save money in the long run by providing a satisfying workplace designed around employee's work activities.