Winners of the CoreNet Global Innovator’s Award are Sprint Nextel, CB Richard Ellis and the U.S. General Services Administration. Gensler Inc., the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and UGL Equis co-sponsored the event. Right to left: Prentice Knight, CEO, CoreNet Global; Joe Brancato, principal, Gensler; Hans Gant, senior vice president, Metro Atlanta Chamber; Faye Davis, vice president for enterprise property services, Sprint; David Harris, chairman, CoreNet Global; Kristen Beatty, associate director, consulting, CBRE; Greg Schementi, senior vice president, UGL Equis and Charles Matta, GSA

Expert panelists highlighted many international cities as lesser-known but potentially profitable markets at an Atlanta summit on corporate real estate development that drew 2,200 executives, about 20 percent of whom came from abroad, Richard Kadzis, director of special projects at CoreNet Global, told GlobalAtlanta.

The CoreNet Global Summit was hosted Oct. 29-30 by CoreNet Global, a 7,000-member professional organization in the corporate real estate field that provides knowledge-sharing and informational resources for its members through its headquarters in Atlanta and regional offices all over the world.

In addition to an opening keynote session and four large-group sessions, attendees could choose from about 30 educational seminars during the two-day convention.

During one, titled “Around the World in 90 Minutes,” panelists pointed out that corporate real estate developers might be better off shifting focus from traditional hotspots like Shanghai, China, and Bangalore, India, to cities around the globe where economic growth looks poised to take off. 

David Harris, CoreNet Global Chairman and a senior vice president at Sun Microsystems Inc., welcomes more than 2,200 corporate real estate professionals to the CNN Omni and Georgia World Congress Center.

Author Daniel Pink opens the summit by talking about how younger workers are seeking relationship-centric and socially responsible organizations to work for. The summit’s theme was “Finding, Getting, Keeping Talent: Defining the Future Face of Corporate Real Estate.”

“Emerging markets have become one of the major opportunities for companies to globalize more, and it turns out that corporate real estate people are very well-positioned to help that entry into the emerging market,” said Mr. Kadzis.

He added that companies looking to expand in these emerging markets want to keep their operations consistent across the globe, and CoreNet Global’s network provides the knowledge necessary to help them overcome hurdles when customizing their facilities and finding the right employees.

CoreNet represents “the ability for companies to fan out around the world in a globally consistent fashion,” and still comply with regulations in different countries, said Mr. Kadzis.  In Germany, for instance, cubicle units have to be near a window, an ordinance that might sound strange to American companies.

Panelists listed cities in Asia, Europe and the Americas as “sleeper” cities, those that are beginning to catch the eyes of savvy investors but have yet to be overrun with developers.

René Buck, president of Netherlands-based Buck Consultants International, spoke on Europe during the panel discussion.  Mr. Buck, whose firm is involved in site selection consulting all across Europe, said that three critical criteria—talent, technology and creativity—should be considered when selecting a site.

While he said that Istanbul, Turkey, as well as Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland, are the premier sites for future development in Europe, he added that Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, is “on the rise.”

Dennis Meseroll, director of Tractus Asia Ltd., a location consulting firm with offices in China, Thailand and Vietnam, highlighted a number of Asian cities investors should consider. 

Chengdu, China, a city that has forged business and cultural ties with Atlanta through the sharing of giant pandas, Orissa, India as well as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, Vietnam were all among the areas Mr. Meseroll recommended.

A third panelist vouched for continued promise in the North American and Latin American markets. Dennis Donovan, principal of Wadley-Donovan-Gutshaw Consulting LLC, said that sites in the Western Hemisphere from North Dakota down to Chile remain ripe for investment.  He also urged attendees to consider Honduras as an alternative to China because of comparative labor costs and greater bilingualism.

Richard Kadzis

All the panelists urged caution for companies looking into overseas markets, saying that the obvious advantages of doing business in these places shouldn’t blind companies to their possible pitfalls.

CoreNet Global holds five summits per year, rotating them among cities worldwide to accommodate members from the 25 countries represented in CoreNet’s network.  The global summit has not been held in Atlanta since 2003, according to Mr. Kadzis.

“We were glad to get it back to Atlanta,” said Mr. Kadzis, who works in the Atlanta office. “It’s another home game for us.”

He added that the Atlanta summit was a great venue to help Atlanta become more international.

The summit “was a superb opportunity to showcase itself in a global sense to decision-makers from around the world,” who came not only for the knowledge disseminated at the seminar, but also to make valuable international contacts in the corporate real estate business, he said.

The next CoreNet event, the CoreNet Global Asia Summit, will be held in Mumbai, India, in March.

CoreNet partnered with the premier economic development associations in the state to bring about the Atlanta summit, according to Mr. Kadzis.

CoreNet’s regional offices are located in Brussels, Belgium; Hong Kong; London; Melbourne, Australia; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Shanghai; Sydney, Australia and Toronto.