Mobility Shifts and Commercial Real Estate

 

Jeff Green is Managing Director of Global Occupier Services and Leader of The Automotive Advisory Group at Cushman & Wakefield.

As a recent transplant from New York, the first thing one notices is the love Los Angelenos have for their cars. Whether they are pick-up trucks, new electric vehicles or old vintage sports cars, automobiles are the clear method of choice for transportation here. While this may be an obvious fact of life for those already living in sunny Los Angeles, as an east coaster, it certainly takes some getting used to.

To help me make sense of the LA transportation scene and its impact on commercial real estate, I recently spoke with Cushman & Wakefield Executive Directors Justin Collins and Kevin Turner, where we shared some of our reactions and commentary around the latest report in the company’s “Tech Disruptor Series”, entitled Mobility Shifts and Commercial Real Estate - Implications of Ridesharing; Autonomous Vehicles; Micro-mobility and Electric Vehicles.

Highlights from our conversation include:

· Parking Infrastructure

o With most buildings in the Downtown LA area having been built in the early 1980s, companies and local government officials are contending with outdated city codes and ordinances that no longer apply to transportation today.

o Today, building owners and occupiers have to consider things like electric vehicles and the prerequisite charging stations, as well as ridesharing zones (i.e. designated pick-up and drop-off locations.)

· Commercial Trucking and Ports

o As the West Coast’s largest and busiest port, stakeholders in Los Angeles are examining ways to improve efficiencies across all aspects of the industry, from how autonomous vehicles will impact trucks and truck drivers to warehouses and logistics. Issues like dock availability, warehouse floor teams, queuing lanes and even amenities for the truck drivers moving in and out of the port, are all evolving, with companies leveraging all the management technology at their disposal to improve efficiency.

· The Olympics in 2028

o The podcast even touched on the impending 2028 Olympics. While it is still a decade away, we speculated on the changes in infrastructure the city would need to make in order to accommodate the games and its millions of attendees.

 

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