Sugarhouse Street Car Project Underway!

Ground was broken today for the new Sugarhouse Streetcar transportation corridor. The event was well attended by numerous residents, UTA and City officials along with the US Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood. This $55 million streetcar project is expected to open up in late 2013 or 2014. The ground breaking comes just a week or two after the Salt Lake City Council announced plans to fund a $6.9 million greenway as part of an extension of the Parley’s Trail Project, a paved bicycle and pedestrian network.

We are particularly excited for the street car because one of the stops will be just a block away from our office. We also have a listing at 2200 South 300 East that will have a stop directly parallel to it. To view the listing click here.

It’s exciting to see this transportation corridor become a reality. More information about the Sugarhouse Streetcar project and the Parley’s Trail Project can be found at parleystrail.org and at http://www.rideuta.com/mc/?page=Projects-SugarhouseStreetCar-Construction

SUMMIT PRINTING ANOTHER SATISFIED IPG CLIENT!

Sometimes commercial real estate transactions take substantial patience and endurance.  Case in point: the recently completed Summit Printing transactions.  Our client had been in his building for 20+ years, and what’s more he and his family lived in an upstairs penthouse apartment.  The successful sale took over 1 year in escrow, to coordinate the construction of a new home, and finding a new lease location for Summit’s operations.  One of our very smart friends likes to say “Patient Endurance Attains All Things.”  We think it is true! Congratulations to Jim and his team on the new location, and on his new home!

GO KARTS AND BBQ - AN IPG OUTING!

Every few months we like to get together as a team and have a company outing. Past company outings have included indoor skydiving, rock climbing, and spin sessions. Not only does it help us form better relationships with each other and develop team building skills, it's also a lot of fun!

Last week we went to lunch at one of Salt Lake City's greatest hidden treasures - Kaisers BBQ - www.saltlakebbq.com

If you haven't been, we highly recommend it. The food is great and authentic, the restaurant is full of southern charm, and the employees rock!

Next up we went to Fast Kart for a some go kart racing. Fast Kart is housed in a 40,000 SF industrial facility in South Salt Lake.  It's definitely a fun place to take your family.

SURVEY SUGGESTS INCREASING OPTIMISM FOR COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) released the findings of their semiannual survey on March 28 and it suggests broad optimism for the commercial real estate forecast. The survey conducted between February 23 and March 12, 2012 gathered responses from leading real estate economists and analysts. 

 Highlights from their three year forecast:

 • Commercial property transaction volume is expected to increase by nearly 50%.

 • Rents are expected to increase for all property types, with 2012 increases ranging from 0.8 percent for retail up to 5.0 percent for apartments; RevPAR growth for hotels should reach 6.6% in 2012.

 • Vacancy rates are expected to drop between 1.2 and 3.7 percentage points for office, retail, and industrial properties and remain stable at low levels for apartments; hotel occupancy rates are expected to rise.

 •Institutional real estate assets and REITs are expected to provide returns ranging from 8.5% to 11% annually.

 http://www.uli.org/~/media/ResearchAndPublications/CapitalMarkets/ULI-Real-Estate-Consensus-Forecast-General-032012.ashx

SIGN AND SEND - OUR NEW FAVORITE APP!

One of my favorite business apps lately is Sign and Send. This app has been great. As a real estate broker I often need to get documents signed by clients and deliver a copy to several different people in a very short period of time. Sign and Send has been great for this. Almost any document I receive by email can be opened in Sign and Send right on my iPad. Once open, clients can sign the document and I can easily distribute it by email all without ever finding a printer or a scanner. I love business and productivity apps. Let me know if you have an app I should try.