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In December 2020, CREW Boston hosted a special holiday luncheon featuring Cara Brookins, author of Rise: How a House Built a Family. In 2007, Cara was at a personal crossroads. Having survived two, abusive relationships, Cara wanted to give meaning and purpose to her own life and the life of her four children. To do that, she landed on a big idea: she and her four children would build their own, forever home where they could put down new roots and start a new chapter for their family. Cara and her children had no construction experience. However, relying on YouTube tutorials and their own grit and scrappy determination, they successfully built the home of their collective dreams in a mere nine months. More importantly, Cara’s children had learned that they could figure out how to do incredible things.
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At November’s luncheon, Ben Breslau, Chief Research Officer, Americas of JLL shared his thoughts with CREW Boston on a spectrum of potential outcomes for 2021. Some of his observations included:
Covid-19/Pandemic has been the greatest accelerator of trends – e-commerce was growing, but the pandemic has made the switch to technology quicker. The Boston area is a knowledge/innovation economy, positioning our region well for recovery. Hospitality and retail have been impaired by the pandemic and will take longer to recover. Flex spaces (WeWork) may have been impacted during pandemic, but they will likely remain an important part of how we will continue to work in the future. Business travel has been drastically impacted and will take time to recover. Our work from home experience has underscored the value of face-to-face interactions and will no doubt remain a critical part of relationships in the future.
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At November’s luncheon, Peter Standish, SVP of Development at Northland Investment Corp, Michele Quinn, Senior Project Manager at Cube 3, and Michelle Lambert, President and Founder of Lambert Sustainability teamed up to provide a comprehensive overview of Northland’s Newton Development which has been over 40 years in the making. In the Spring of 2020 this project finally received approval to move forward by the Newton City Council after nearly 3 years of community outreach, hundreds of meetings, and a public hearing process that lasted nearly 18 months. This development will be setting the bar for community developments moving forward in sustainability, affordable housing, transit integration and demand, as well as historic perseveration and open space planning.
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At the September 2020 luncheon, Kerry Hawkins, Senior Director, Capital Markets at JLL Boston, and CREW Boston’s President Elect, hosted a panel discussion about the Massachusetts Life Sciences market. The panelists, Doug Cuff, Vice President, IQHQ, McKenna Teague, Vice President, CBRE, and Audrey Symes, Director of Research – Healthcare, Life Sciences, and Advisory, JLL, provided a bullish outlook for a segment of the commercial real estate market that has been relatively pandemic / recession-proof.
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The first time ever in CREW Boston history, the annual meeting was held virtually with astounding success. With over 220 participants, we kicked off the annual meeting with a farewell address from 2019-2020 Chapter President, Jill Sharif. 2020-2021 Chapter President, Laura Gregoriadis provided her goals for the Chapter in the coming year and also announced President-Elect, Kerry Hawkins.
Laura welcomed back guest speaker Alison Levine, who was our annual meeting speaker in 2019. Alison helped provide guidance and support as our audience continues to tackle the COVID pandemic that has affected everyone personally and professionally.
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At January's luncheon, Ben Breslau, Chief Research Officer, Americas of JLL spoke about big themes impacting the commercial real estate industry in the next decade.
Some pearls of wisdom from Ben: 1.) Organizational agility will be a critical factor to getting ahead of the competition. 2.) Investors are increasingly concerned with the environmental and societal impact of their investing. 3.) Elements that maximize human performance and engagement (lighting, acoustics, air quality, etc.) are becoming a differentiating factor in attracting the next tenant or employee.
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In November CREW Boston hosted a luncheon panel discussion about one of the industry’s favorite buzzwords: placemaking. The panel, which was moderated by Tara Piurko, a real estate partner at Toronto-based Miller Thomson and former CREW Network President, featured Jesse Brackenbury, Executive Director of The Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston; Russell Preston, Founder and Director of Principle Group, a planning, design, and development firm; Al Wilson, Founder and CEO of Beyond Walls in Lynn; and Laura Christopher, Real Estate Innovation Officer at MassDevelopment, explained what placemaking is, what it is not, and why real estate developers in the private sector should consider investing in placemaking to create successful, sustainable, and thriving projects and communities.
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On October 3rd at the Fairmont Copley, Lisa Wieland, Massport’s new CEO spoke to an engaged audience to hear about her role and upcoming initiatives. It ended with a fireside chat with CREW Boston President, Jill Sharif.
As Lisa stepped into her role this past August, her goals are to enhance the customer experience, maintain strong business relationships and optimize best practices for the organization.
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CREW Boston members and guests enjoyed an evening in July for a boat tour of the Boston Harbor, the culmination of our year-long series of events discussing climate change and its impact on the commercial real estate industry. Panelists will discussed the unique features of Boston’s coastline and how that has informed and transformed a diverse array of projects and initiatives from Spaulding Rehab, to Clippership Wharf, to the previously proposed Boston Harbor barriers.
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