In the United States today, trucks play a major role in business. The country’s industry and culture are all impacted by trucks and new trends are emerging that will change the US commercial scene forever.

As technology continues to advance at never before seen rates, the rise of electric trucks and autonomous vehicles is upon us. Self-driving, chargeable, and motorized vehicles are the future and Giants like Rivian, Tesla, and Ford all have electric trucks coming.

So what happens when they hit the market?

One thing’s for sure: big changes will come along with them. These developing technologies present new opportunities for businesses and all the pros are anticipating huge developments to start taking place in the next few years.

These new transportation technologies will change the way business gets done and its long term impact on industry can’t be ignored. Let’s look at 5 ways that electric trucks and autonomous vehicles will change industries forever.

Shipping, Delivery, and the Future of Warehousing

Autonomous vehicles will bring about a huge shift in CRE’s industrial sector.

The entire warehouse module will need to adjust to fit these self-driving vehicles into the equation. First of all, experts are anticipating a mass migration towards suburban areas. Since self-driving electric vehicles can travel farther without losing money or pressuring the driver, there’s no issue in moving warehouses to far-off locations that have lower rents.

Besides changing their location, self-driving trucks will alter the shipping/delivery process by handing over the reins to AI. Instead of being operated by a person, these trucks will be ready to go on-demand. Self-driving trucks can travel longer and farther than a man-operated vehicle, and their load capacity is larger than that of a traditional semi-truck.

These trucks can travel all night, which will cut down on delivery times. Warehouses will need to be ready to handle orders around the clock to keep up with the new load capacity. Since more items will be handled in warehouses, the industrial sector will need to employ a wildly efficient system of packing, tracking, and loading.

Self-driving trucks are set to boost productivity for industrial spaces and big companies like Tesla had already begun taking orders for their autonomous semi-trucks in 2018.

Charging Infrastructures Added to Multifamily and Retail

To accommodate the new wave of electric vehicles, commercial properties are going to need specialized charging areas.

This is especially important in multifamily and retail. We’re already seeing this today as many retailers, such as Whole Foods, have one or two electric-car charging stations. But, just a couple won’t be enough to power up the number of electric vehicles that will be hitting the roads in 10 to 15 years. The momentum will need to increase if commercial properties are going to keep everyone charged up and ready to go.

Multifamily and retail properties will need to adopt the necessary electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure as charging stations grow in demand. Besides adding in the actual charges and hooking them up to the properties’ power source, these buildings will need to manage the increased electricity usage.

According to the Alternative Fuel Data Center, it costs about $3 in electricity to fully charge an electric vehicle. While this may not seem like much on its own, multiplying this cost can hike up the property’s energy bills. Property managers need to start budgeting for the added expense once EVs expand in popularity.

The Demand for Metropolitan Office Locations Will Dwindle

The workspace will also need to prepare for electric and autonomous vehicles.

Since AVs will become a norm for workforce commutes, offices can move away from the busy cities and into the suburbs. Another thing we’ll see is the addition of specialized waiting areas for AV pick-ups and drop-offs, which is an entirely new addition to workspace designs.

Parking Lots and Garages Need to Evolve, Too

Something we’ll see across all industries is a need for new parking garage layouts. Whether it’s retail, office, multifamily, or industrial; self-driving vehicles will require specially-designed parking areas.

EV charging areas need to be high-powered to eliminate lines and traffic jams for cars waiting to power up. In addition, the average building’s wireless connectivity needs to increase immensely for it to seamlessly power autonomous vehicles. 5G and IoT integrations are imperative to power AVs.

A New Horizon Will Line the Highways

As the need for gas stations decline across the country, the highways will take on a completely new face.

Vacancies left by gas stations will open up a new arena for commercial real estate and the possibilities are endless. Investors and developers should keep an eye out for roadside locations opening up throughout the next decade.

Autonomous vehicles and electric trucks will be a top disruptor for commercial real estate over the next decade. If you want to get a head start on cultivating success, start considering the new era of vehicles into your commercial strategies for 2020 and beyond.

For more commercial real estate news, updates, and trends keep following my blog!

The Las Vegas office scene is heating up.

Besides being a hub for entertainment and commerce, Las Vegas is growing into a hotspot for office buildings – and it’s easy to see why. Workplace culture is becoming more diverse than ever before as global professionalism takes on a new face.

Today’s business arena is characterized by experience, mobility, and strong company cultures. In response to these changes, the evolving workspace is adopting new trends to attract and retain contemporary tenants.

One such way we can observe this evolution is through the lifestyle office trend. While big cities around the country have been embracing the lifestyle office module for quite a while, Las Vegas is just starting to see it happen.

Let’s take a deeper look at the lifestyle office trend and how it’s beginning to take off in Las Vegas.

What Exactly Are Lifestyle Offices?

Though you’ve likely heard this trend being thrown around in industry conversations or on the headlines of web articles, you may not be completely sure what the term ‘lifestyle office’ is referring to. To clear up any confusion, let’s define this term first.

Lifestyle offices refer to office locations that have popular amenities nearby. Things like restaurants, fitness centers, shopping, and entertainment are all popular highlights that transform a traditional office location into a ‘lifestyle’ one.

Even though the office space doesn’t have these amenities on-site, they’re in a close enough vicinity where tenants can easily incorporate these metropolitan elements into their day-to-day work schedule.

By being located in a centralized area, these commercial properties can position themselves as fun, entertaining, and convenient. Lifestyle offices have incredible leverage in the office market since they boost tenant appeal and the property’s overall desirability.

More Lifestyle Offices Emerge on the Vegas Scene

Although the lifestyle office trend has been prominent in the United States for years now, it’s just starting to make its way into the Las Vegas business districts.

Big cities like New York and Los Angeles have been revered as great places to work since the surrounding amenities establish a strong work-life balance. But, it’s time to turn the attention to Vegas – one of the most fun and exciting places in the country.

As the Vegas economy matures, we’re seeing more and more lifestyle offices cropping up. Popular areas like Town Square Las Vegas, The District at Green Valley Ranch, Gramercy, and Downtown Summerlin are transforming Vegas’ office scene by incorporating the luxuries needed to establish an amenity-focused workspace.

Lifestyle Office Spotlight: UnCommons

To further demonstrate the position that lifestyle offices hold in the Las Vegas area, let’s look at a cool new local project called the UnCommons.

This massive project by Matter Realty is combining retail, health and wellness, and dining into a cohesive workspace environment. Their slogan ‘where work and life meet’ truly describes this revolutionary Vegas development. It’s taking the traditional mixed-use space and optimizing the amenities to create a new, fresh, and exciting professional atmosphere.

The UnCommons project has a unique layout that’s changing up the game for Vegas’ office sector. There are 500K sq. ft. of modern office space, 91K sq. ft. of curated experiences, 50K sq. ft. of coworking space, and 800 on-site residential units. This seamless mix is creating a community where work, life, and play happens in one cutting-edge destination.

Tom Van Betten, VP of Development for the project gives us an insiders look at the UnCommons lifestyle. “Imagine this kind of a day: an employee comes in, attends a yoga or spin class, has a craft coffee, goes to the office, has a great brainstorm session, and then attends a business lunch at the artisan food hall. Then, it’s back to the office to afterwards go to a social gathering at one of the on-site event venues before walking home to their luxury apartment.”

The Lifestyle office trend is running at full throttle with the UnCommons, where people can quite literally do everything in one space. It’s 40 acres of community, and this is what lifestyle offices are all about.

The UnCommons is found in the convenient location on the 215 Freeway accessible to Summerlin and Henderson – two of Vegas’ growing communities for commercial real estate. This successful project is serving as a major inspiration for the future of Las Vegas workspaces.

Commercial real estate professionals – keep an eye on the Las Vegas office scene as it continues to expand through lifestyle integrations. Developers and investors should consider this popular trend in their 2020 business strategies.

Keep up with the latest Vegas CRE news on my blog.

The global consumer shift towards e-commerce is changing how both the retail and warehousing industries operate. If you’ve been keeping up with CRE news headlines of 2019, this likely comes as no surprise. From the physical location of warehouses to the demand for brick-and-mortar storefronts, this trend is impacting nearly every aspect of our industry.

In the past year alone, e-commerce makes up roughly 11% of all retail sales in the United States. What’s more, experts are anticipating an increase to nearly 14% by 2021.

With growth rates this high, the industry is forced to look to the future and ask key questions. Since e-commerce is showing no signs of a slow down, can the industrial real estate landscape support the growth of e-commerce?

Growth of the Supply Chain

To understand how the industrial landscape is impacted, we have to look at how this growth in e-commerce has impacted the supply chain.

As the delivery wars rage on, contemporary e-commerce hangs its hat on being able to offer a myriad of choices, crazy-fast delivery, and flexible return options. In fact, most major e-commerce retailers are now offering next-day (if not same-day) delivery to major metros across the country.

This race has put new, unprecedented demands on the supply chain and has driven demand for industrial real estate — not only for more space but also for newer assets in untouched locations with premier technology. In order to keep pace with retail, the modern warehouse needs to be closer to consumers and also considerably bigger than what we saw in the early 2000s.

In fact, several sources indicate that the average new warehouse in the U.S. has increased by more than 100,000 sq. ft., a whopping 143% when comparing the development periods between 2002-2007 and 2012-2017. These new requirements are changing what the baseline industrial property looks like, how it operates, and also how CRE investors are navigating the market.

Las Vegas’ Industrial Boom

As the country’s industrial real estate expands in size and flexibility, the Las Vegas warehouse market is definitely one to keep an eye on. According to NAI Vegas’ 2019 Midyear Commercial Real Estate Report, the Vegas area is a hotspot for the industrial scene.

The stats demonstrate the sector’s high demand in the Las Vegas area with recorded vacancy rates as low as 4.3%. Warehouses around the Las Vegas metro area are not staying on the market for long and buyers’ competition is peaking as the volume of available spaces begins to dwindle.

However, the low vacancies aren’t necessarily resulting from a small supply. On the contrary, warehouse construction in and around Las Vegas is expanding at unrivaled rates — specifically in the Northern areas of Speedway and Henderson. The 2019 midyear report calculates over 4 million square feet of newly built industrial space added to Vegas’ warehouse arena.

If you think that’s a lot, get ready for more. Since then, the numbers have only kept growing. At the time the Midyear Report was compiled, an additional 3.7 million square feet of industrial space was currently under construction. In total, Vegas added more than 7 million square feet to its industrial collection in less than a year.

The numbers don’t lie. Taking a closer look at the data makes it clear that the demand for Las Vegas industrial assets is soaring. Low vacancy coupled with millions of added square footage to the metro’s warehouse scene means that industrial investment rates are tremendous. This marks huge gains for those savvy enough to get in now.

Taking a Closer Look: the Relationship between E-Commerce and Industrial

While the quantity of Las Vegas’ warehouse spaces is surging, quality isn’t being overlooked.

New warehouse developments all around the country are being designed with the future in mind. The latest and greatest trends in logistics and technology are being incorporated to facilitate the expected surge of business predicted for 2020 and beyond. It’s impossible to deny the connection between e-commerce and the expansion of industrial real estate. The only way for e-commerce to continue its upward trajectory is for the global warehouse scene to step up to the plate.

In the US alone, developers and investors have already picked up on this relationship and began moving into action. In terms of ‘instant’ shipping and last-mile deliveries, e-commerce demands a lot from industrial. This CRE sector is increasing its bandwidth to make it all happen, which results in a huge spur of industrial demand all around the country — especially near popular metros like Vegas.

The forecast for e-commerce doesn’t call for the online shopping revolution to die out anytime soon, meaning that commercial real estates’ industrial sector is expecting big business. Amid these massive expansions, the Las Vegas market is flexing its muscles and getting ready to carry the weight.