estlé Waters North America in September announced that its headquarters (pictured) in Stamford, Conn., had received LEED-Gold certification, marking the 10th Nestlé Waters facility to be LEED certified. Since 2003, Nestlé Waters' additional LEED-certified facilities have helped the company reduce energy use by 1.5 million kWh, carbon emissions by 2.1 million pounds, and water use by nine million gallons. More than 500 employees moved to the facility in October 2010. CPG Architects did the re-design and Pavarini, part of the Structure Tone organization, led the construction effort.

his summer the southwest bay of the L-10 hangar at the Lockheed Martin facility in Marietta, Ga., opened. Aircraft 0035 (above) tore the ribbon as the first aircraft to be modernized in the bay. The new facility is the third of four bays in the hangar to be utilized for the modernization of the C-5 Galaxy. Also this summer, the U.S. Army and Lockheed Martin launched the first-of-its kind High Altitude Long Endurance-Demonstrator (HALE-D) airship (pictured) from the historic Akron Airdock in Ohio. Opened in 1929, the Airdock features 364,000 sq. ft. (33,800 sq. m.) of unobstructed floor space — an area equivalent to eight football fields.Photos courtesy of Lockheed Martin

n September DEXUS Property Group announced the leasing of a nearly 1.7-million-sq.-ft. (157,930-sq.-m.) rooftop space at an industrial property (shown) occupied by Whirlpool in Perris, Calif., to Southern California Edison (SCE) for the creation of the largest individual rooftop solar project in the United States. The 20-year rooftop lease will see SCE install a solar power system encompassing approximately 36,000 solar panels. The new solar station will be part of a network of solar plants SCE is building throughout Southern and Central California.

n conjunction with the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County, Thermo Fisher Scientific announced its plans to expand operations in Asheville, N.C., with the creation of 110 new positions within the next seven months. The new positions strengthen the company's significant presence in Buncombe County, with 580 employees in its Aiken Road plant, over 200 employees in its technical customer service center in Biltmore Park, and additional sales and service professionals throughout the region. 

" 'Actionable.' That is the word I would use to describe the information and people that I am exposed to in IAMC. From Site Selection magazine, to the Professional Forums, to follow-up connections with incentives professionals, I derive benefits from my membership with IAMC. I appreciate the mix of roles attending the working sessions, the open and friendly information exchanges, and the 'inform' versus 'sell' approach of the attendees. This all reflects the insights of the organization's leadership."

— Steven W.  Bonine, Manager, Global Grants & Incentives, DuPont

onald J. Vitek of Whirlpool Corp. was the recipient of the first Mac Conway Excellence in Corporate Real Estate Award, announced September 13 at the IAMC Fall 2011 Professional Forum in Philadelphia. Vitek is director, global real estate program management, at Whirlpool where he reports to Lee R. Utke, MCR, senior director, global corporate real estate.

The award, named in honor of the late Mac Conway, founder of IAMC and Site Selection magazine, is a joint initiative of the two entities that recognizes excellence in one or more of these arenas: overall project return, innovation or process improvement, alignment of the real estate function with corporate strategy, managerial leadership or sustainability. A committee of past IAMC chairmen and Site Selection's editor in chief, Mark Arend, conducted due diligence and reviewed materials submitted by service providers, peers and colleagues of individuals nominated for the award, which is presented annually at IAMC Fall Professional Forums.

"Donald Vitek brought strategic and managerial excellence to several projects at Whirlpool in recent years," said Arend, "including Project Zenith, a re-tooling of the company's supply chain and distribution center network across North America; a new manufacturing plant in Cleveland, Tennessee; and Project Everest, Whirlpool's new North American operations campus in Benton Harbor, Michigan."

"It is with great honor and humility that I accept this award, which is especially meaningful because it comes from peers in our profession," said Vitek. "I have been fortunate in my career at Whirlpool to have been surrounded by smart, talented, unselfish and supportive people, including key service providers like Jones Lang LaSalle, who work as a team in every sense of the word. Without these great relationships, none of our collective successes would have been possible."

"IAMC continues to provide me with the opportunity to interact with fellow corporate real executives to understand trends and happenings in the industry. The discussions are great for sharing information and allowing us to be as efficient as possible in our real estate roles."

— Bill Jenkins, Vice President, Real Estate & Facilities, Thermo Fisher Scientific Co. LLC

AMC recently published the report "Resourcing Critical CRE Activities within Large Scale Manufacturing and Consumer Packaged Goods Industry Sectors," the product of a benchmarking project initiated by the Large Scale Manufacturing Industry Group. "CRE units at large manufacturing companies employ outsourcing for a wide variety of activities," concludes the report. "However, the extent of outsourcing is considerably less than was initially assumed and less than what is typically found in the service and financial sectors." In fact, among the sample of 30 respondents, most of whom work for large manufacturing companies, the outsourced portion of corporate real estate work averages just 27 percent of total allocation of full-time equivalents.

The top five tasks, rank ordered by the total allocation of FTEs, (in-house plus outsourced), for all 30 respondents were: 1) facilities management, 2) transactions, 3) space planning, 4) strategy development and 5) tenant fit-out and support. Strategy development and lease administration were the top tasks conducted primarily by employees, while property management and database management were the tasks most frequently outsourced.

On average, the 14 smallest companies outsource about twice as much of their corporate real estate work as the 14 largest companies.

The full report and other IAMC research reports and white papers are available at iamc.org.

"As a new member of IAMC, I attended the Fall 2011 Forum with some skepticism about the added value that the conference would provide. I could not have been more pleased with my experience, and found that the opportunities to learn, network, and grow professionally exceeded my expectations. As corporate real estate leaders, too often our busy schedules do not afford opportunities to seek and learn about trends in the industry and the tools available to assist our workplace initiatives. IAMC provides the perfect platform for such interaction, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be associated with this beneficial organization."

— Mike Reid, Director, Global Facilities, Mylan