Matching buyers and sellers of real estate is a core value that brokers provide clients. Today, clients need partners that provide holistic solutions to maximize the value of the real estate through cost optimization tools, analytics, and effective representation.
Cawley Commercial Real Estate offers comprehensive solutions to ensure its clients make strategic real estate decisions that optimize both short and long-term operating costs, including:
1. Labor analysis, with future focused projections on skill sets and costs;
2. Financial incentives to minimize capital outlay and operating costs; and
3. Effective representation to minimize construction costs and ensure quality.
Labor Analysis
Depending on the skill levels that you require for your facility, the available labor force within a reasonable commuting distance can change drastically within a narrow drive-time radius. As labor becomes an increasingly critical component of the competitive advantage of all companies, an analysis of a labor availability and cost is integral intelligence to any real estate decision.
At Cawley Commercial Real Estate, we provide our clients with future-focused data that projects the available skill sets, wages and occupational make-up of the population down to a 1-minute drive radius of any subject property. This data provides clear insight into the potential costs and opportunities that can be realized with any facility location decision. This information can also help uncover the unique competitive advantages of properties, enhancing the marketability of sites in growing labor markets.
For example, key indicators can provide a quick snapshot of an area:
Data represents the population that resides within a 10-minute drive of the central industrial area
Based on this data, we can see that although Pleasant Prairie, WI has the lowest population number and lowest number of people employed in production occupations, its population is growing at the fastest rate and has the highest concentration of employment in manufacturing industries. This could uncover a hidden competitive advantage of Pleasant Prairie for companies that are seeking a growing industrial labor market.
Financial Incentives
Financial incentives from state and local governments can play a key role in taking projects from concept to reality. Incentives come in many forms, and it is important to understand and differentiate how each tool impacts upfront costs, future operating costs, or both. Incentives are often precise tools that can be used to mitigate specific cots associated with a capital investment.
At Cawley Commercial Real Estate, we analyze the unique fact pattern of each project and use all tools to ensure you fulfill your fiduciary responsibility to negotiate on behalf of your employees, partners and shareholders. Examples of tools typically used in the greater Chicagoland market include:
– TIF or 6b (Chicago) – A TIF designation allows a company to enter into a development agreement with a municipality that provides cash to a company to pay for projects that will increase the property value (and therefore property taxes) over time
– EDGE Tax Credit (Illinois) – A company can enter into an agreement with the State of Illinois to receive an annual tax credit based on payroll taxes paid on new jobs created as a result of a capital investment project; the tax credit is taken annually for 10-years, offsetting potential increases in operating costs associated with a real estate project
– CDBG Economic Development Grant – CDBG grants can be used to pay for public infrastructure expansions that are required to develop greenfield sites; depending on the geography, the program varies in terms of how the funding is administered
These tools all require careful application and negotiation to secure; Cawley Commercial Real Estate guides our clients through application, negotiation, and ongoing compliance with program requirements. Our focus is lowering your capital outlay and operating costs and protecting your long-term interests.
Owner Representation
Most real estate projects require some internal or external build-out. The construction costs can add significant previously unforeseen costs to a project, and it is important to have effective representation to manage the construction process.
Cawley Commercial Real Estate offers project management services that remove any conflicts of interest that can arise when a general contractor self-performs work, or when design flaws are not effectively managed by the architectural and engineering team.
Cawley Commercial Real Estate can directly manage subcontractors on your behalf, removing conflicts of interest and reducing the cost of general contracting. Budgeting construction work concurrent to the execution of the real estate reduces risk, and provides a faster project delivery schedule.