posted on March 23, 2010 18:38
The recession's layoffs and closings have created a lot of empty space in office and commercial buildings.
So the people who own and manage the structures are keenly interested in bringing the nation's jobless rate back down.
That was a major message Wednesday by the leaders of the Building Owners and Managers Association International.
Chairman Jim Peck, who manages 27 million square feet of commercial real estate in Albuquerque for C.B. Richard Ellis, and president/chief operating officer Henry Chamberlain spoke to nearly 100 people attending BOMA's Memphis chapter meeting at Opera Memphis.
"We're really focusing on jobs creation," said Chamberlain, who leads a staff of 33 in Washington.
"The federal government isn't really good at creating jobs," he said. "But what they can do is create incentives that we can invest in our businesses to grow them to create jobs."
Peck is no stranger to Memphis. He was operations manager in 1982-83 for the Mall of Memphis, which was closed in 2003 and demolished in 2004.
Peck described the employment bill Congress just passed as a "good start." It provides tax credits to businesses that hire unemployed workers.
The bill's passage is "an example of the federal government beginning to work just a little bit," Chamberlain said.
Republicans and Democrats have battled so much that little has been accomplished, he said.
"The number of filibusters and nonvotes has just skyrocketed. So we really haven't gotten a lot of work done," Chamberlain said.
A $1.4 trillion federal budget deficit and $120 billion collective deficit among states are the 800-pound gorilla in the room, Chamberlain said.
"There's a tremendous need to begin to pay those bills and close that gap. And the case we're making is real estate is the area that creates value and jobs, and locally we're already paying 70 percent of the taxes.
"Our pockets are pretty much tapped out. It's important to have those incentives ... to help this economy recover," Chamberlain said.
The good news is there are signs the economy may have bottomed out, they said. Retail sales rose 3.5 percent last month, rented-but-unused space, called "shadow space," is starting to stabilize, and far fewer jobs are being lost than during the depths of the recession.
"Those little green shoots are starting to pop up a little bit," Peck said.
For office jobs, December was the fourth consecutive month for job growth, netting 48,000 more workers, Chamberlain said.
The financial sector posted its first net increase in employment since July 2007, adding 4,000 jobs, according to a Jan. 27 CoStar report.
"There's some hiring going on," Chamberlain said.
In Memphis, the managers and owners of office and commercial buildings pump $117 million a year into the local economy just to operate the buildings, Peck said.
They also employ 2,254 people to help run the buildings.
"These are pretty powerful numbers," Peck said.
-- Tom Bailey Jr. | The Commercial Appeal | March 18th, 2010