Continued Trend: Commercial Real Estate As Project Manager

In the latest example of corporate "outsourcing", software giant Cisco Systems has signed a multi-year agreement with Commercial Real Estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis Inc., for CBRE to provide Cisco with global project and construction management services. Under the agreement, CBRE will manage capital construction projects within Cisco's 506 locations, spanning 87 countries and totaling 23.6 million square feet. According to the press release project types range from, "fit-out of small field ofices, to large-scale campus development, to complex data center construction."

This agreement is certainly at the large end of the scale, however it is consistent with the trend towards Commercial Real Estate (CRE) firms branching further and further into "alternative" services.

Aside from CBRE, locally active CRE project management groups include Jones Lang Lasalle (locally working with Tesla Motors on their large projects), and recently rebounded Grubb and Ellis, who has been very active in the East Bay and is currently working witht Bank of the West on their consolidation to Bishop Ranch.