Thursday, September 09, 1999
INDUSTRY NOTES: REAL ESTATE
GE tax break good for Brendamour
BY JOHN J. BYCZKOWSKI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
GE Aircraft Engines last week was awarded by Hamilton County a tax break worth $1.85 million over 10 years to relocate 225 employees from Springdale to Evendale.
That's a pretty good prize for Brendamour Warehousing. In 1996, Brendamour bought the former Cincinnati Electronics factory, a huge building built in 1953 by Powel Crosley Jr. as a radio factory.
It had been vacant for four years when Brendamour bought it in 1996, for use as a public warehouse. The company left one part of the building as office space. GE took most of it, 105,000 square feet.
The tax break will enable GE to take another 60,000 square feet there, converting warehouse space to office space.
Brendamour finds itself landlord of about 200,000 feet of office space in the building. It plans to add parking and a deli to the building, said President Doug Brendamour.
Corporex to break ground on office space
Corporex will break ground in a few weeks on a new office building at Circleport, at Mineola Pike and Interstate 275 near the airport in Boone County.
Olympic Corporate Center II, a 90,000-square-foot building expected to open next summer, joins the identical Olympic I, which opened about five years ago.
Robert MacLachlan, Corporex's vice president for sales, leasing and marketing, said no tenants have been signed for the new building, but he's not worried.
Olympic I houses offices for xpedx, Toyota and many Toyota suppliers. He said there's little competing office space in the area, and “I don't have any space out there for the smaller suppliers. We think there's a market for this,” he said.
Typical is a company that wants an office near Toyota's North American headquarters and that needs 1,000 square feet of space for five or six employees.
“If you don't build, you never get deals,” Mr. MacLachlan said.
Duke-Weeks signs tenants to new building
In a tough market in the Mason/Deerfield Township area of Warren County, Duke-Weeks Realty Corp. has signed a slew of tenants for its new Deerfield Crossing I building:
• Aerotek, an engineering firm, 12,500 square feet.
• NVR Mortgage, 2,913 square feet.
• The communications company Teligent Inc., 7,161 square feet.
• Cognos, a software firm, 7,622 square feet.
• Software consultants Solutech, 4,763 square feet.
Despite the high vacancy rate in the area, Senior Vice President Ken Schuermann said Duke-Weeks remains committed. “You have all the hotels and the amenities and the restaurants. Once people have moved into our office buildings out there, they never leave,” he said.
DCI relaunches survey of downtown business
There's nothing like knowing the results of a survey before it's even been done.
That was the expectation when Downtown Cincinnati Inc. launched a survey to show that it's no more expensive to do business downtown than anywhere else in the region. The survey was dropped when the task proved too complicated.
David Ginsburg, who recently stepped up in DCI to be executive vice president for business retention and recruitment, has relaunched the survey.
And, he promised to release the results even if they're not complimentary to downtown.
The survey is being conducted with the help of Deloitte & Touche's local real estate practice and the University of Cincinnati's Norm Miller, director of the real estate program. Results should begin to be seen at the end of the month, in time for an Urban Land Institute seminar at UC Oct. 1.
The problem with surveys by advocacy groups is that the results rarely contradict the groups' goals. Would the Dairy Council ever report milk is bad for you?
Mr. Ginsburg doesn't expect the survey to show downtown is a good location for all businesses. “There are going to be things there that are going to look more favorable for downtown than anybody thought. There are going to be other things that are going to look less favorable,” he said.
“Our job is finding the facts and working with them, not manipulating them. If there are certain things that give you a disadvantage, that tells you where you need work.”
Get your suggestions and news to John Byczkowski at 768-8377 or e-mail him at johnb@enquirer.com.
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