Bookmarks: 5 Interesting Articles That May Help You This Week

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners:" corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. I welcome your comments on these articles.

1. The Koch Brothers Are Sitting on a Real Estate Empire Worth Hundreds of Millions

Pictometry

Billionaire brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch became known for their financial support of conservative and arts causes. But they, and their two brothers, Bill and Frederick, quietly built another legacy: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of high-end real estate.

The four brothers have amassed some of the world’s most spectacular private homes, including a large waterfront compound on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod once owned by Bunny Mellon, sprawling Palm Beach estates, a replica of an old Western town in Colorado and an Austrian castle once owned by Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The estates are a far cry from the roughly 160-acre property on the outskirts of Wichita, Kan., where the brothers grew up. They spent their summers in bunkhouses while working on cattle ranches owned by their father.

2. Cool Offices Remain Hot Property in New Year in Atlanta

FCP

Investor demand for cool office buildings in Atlanta remains high in the new year, with the latest buy coming from a New York firm that snapped up a collection of historic warehouses that have been converted to workspace desired by tech and creative firms.

Clarion Partners of New York paid $69.7 million for Stockyards, a mixed-use development on Brady Avenue in midtown Atlanta's upper westside neighborhood. The seller was a partnership between real estate investment firm FCP of Bethesda, Maryland, and Westbridge Partners, the development firm that spearheaded the project.

Westbridge, co-founded by Chris Faussemagne, converted the former stockyard and meatpacking plant built in the early 1900s into 142,478 square feet of creative office and entertainment space about three years ago. In June 2018, Faussemagne merged Westbridge into Third & Urban, an Atlanta investment and development firm that focuses on adaptive reuse and urban infill projects across the Southeast and Texas.

3. How to Safeguard Against Cyberattacks on Utilities

HBR Staff/Rawin Tanpin/EyeEm/Getty Images

Last fall, in Northern California, the United States experienced its first-ever long-lasting and deliberate, large-scale blackout. Fueled by increased fears of devastating fires due to its century-old equipment, the region’s utility companies shut off power to more than 1.5 million people forcing many evacuations. The impact was devastating; Michael Wara, a climate and energy expert at Stanford University, estimated the cost to California as up to $2.5 billion. For cybersecurity experts like myself, the blackout was a signal of just how precarious our reliance on electricity is, and how much we have to fear in cyberattacks.

Think about what would happen if a cyberattack brought down the power grid in New York or even just a larger part of the country. As we saw in California, people could manage for a few hours — maybe a few days — but what would happen if the outage lasted for a week or more? If a utility in a high-density population area was targeted with a cyberattack, is an evacuation of millions of people feasible or desirable?

Questions we should all be asking include: What do we do if the power grid is breached making electric-start backup generators unusable? What’s the backup plan for the backup plan? What happens to our food supply? Our water supply? Our sewer systems? Our financial systems? Our economy? Answering these questions requires systems-level thinking about how everything is connected and consideration of the interdependencies. For example, hospitals might have backup generators. But, what about the supply line for refueling? If the refueling stations need electricity to operate pumps, what is the plan?

4. Recession? What recession? Builders have high hopes for 2020

Steve Brown

Homebuilders are headed into 2020 in the best mood in years.

Low interest rates and good economy are driving more buyers to their doors, and worries about a possible recession have subsided.

“What a great time to be in our industry,” said Sheryl Palmer, CEO of Arizona-based Taylor Morrison Homes, a major builder in North Texas. “Each year we think we only have another year or two because a recession is looming.

“I just don’t see that,” Palmer said. “We are going to have some bumps. But I think we have a long road ahead.”

Just finishing the housing industry’s best year since the Great Recession, builders have some reason to be more upbeat.

5. This map shows how Amazon’s warehouses are rapidly expanding across the country

Amazon has transformed online shopping by making the delivery process fast, cheap and relatively painless for consumers.

One major way Amazon has been able to achieve this goal is by building out a sprawling network of warehouses around the country. These facilities are typically at least 100,000 square feet in size and house all kinds of product inventory.

Amazon launched its warehouse network in 1997 with two fulfillment centers in Seattle, Washington and New Castle, Delaware. The company began adding new locations at a rapid pace in 2005, according to MWPVL International, a supply chain and logistics consulting firm.

Your success blesses others. I wish you a great a hugely impactful week!