Real Estate Strategies That Deliver Results

Helping you articulate your real estate strategy is fundamental to CTRR’s process. We understand that real estate is never just about bricks and mortar. The purpose of your corporate/institutional/healthcare real estate is to help you achieve your mission.

Our process helps you to systematically explore and articulate your real estate needs -- quality, quantity, duration, location, chief design requirements, etc. -- as they relate to your primary institutional objectives.

CTRR will assist you in developing a realistic time-line for meeting your objectives, along with milestones.

Upon completing CTRR’s strategy development process, your team will have developed an objective statement of needs.  

You and your team will sign off on this process and the resulting document, which becomes a touchstone for all decisions you’ll make during the real estate acquisition/disposition/right-sizing or redesign process.

Developing and formally adopting a real estate strategy helps assure clarity of vision and buy-in from all your team members. Your team uses this to stay on track and to weather the inevitable challenges involved in creating a real estate solution for your needs.

CTRR’s market surveys help you move from the broadest vision of your real estate needs to a fine focus.  

Should an operation be located in Dallas, Texas, Boston, Massachusetts, or Jacksonville, Florida?

Are you focused on a particular hiring pool, set of incentives, level of taxation, energy costs or other factor which affects your operations?

Even if your search is within a single state or city, similar considerations related to the local market apply.

Once our team has helped you focus on a particular geography, we dig into the types of buildings available: existing, to-be-built, build-to-suit, single tenant, multiple occupancy, high-profile, served by multiple power grids, with required site lines, etc.

Each market and then each building we assess is ranked based on your articulated real estate strategy.

The result of the market survey phase is a short list of markets – or a single market – and within those markets, a short list of buildings or buildable sites which best meet your articulated needs, and are worth further investigation.

Based on a winnowing process that began with articulating your real estate strategy, and continued with market surveys, the CTRR team conducts preliminary site inspections of select properties in your chosen markets to further qualify these properties based on your needs.

Selecting the best property for your needs is not like ordering a latte at Starbucks – a commodity product that can be infinitely varied.  

Each property we assess for you is unique. Each property that we inspect is timebound. Trade offs are necessary: size vs. location; price vs. time available; layout vs. accessibility for clients, customers, patients or staff, and so on, in a unique matrix of your requirements, your priorities, and what is currently available or can be made available in the marketplace.

Each property CTRR assesses which continues to meet your stipulated needs becomes a candidate for your inspection.

For your team’s site inspections, CTRR provides site inspection manuals with comparative data, tailored to your needs, to help your team continue to qualify candidate properties and to find the best fit for your needs.

Quick. What makes an effective lease negotiation?  

Did you say “low rent”?

Rent is just the tip of the iceberg in lease negotiations and may represent less than half of total lease costs depending on your lease structure.  

The CTRR team analyzes total likely life-cycle lease costs for the short-list of candidate properties which you select.  

We prepare detailed, aggressive and realistic offers and counter-offers, tailored to your needs, to assist your team in maximizing value.

And, we always recommend negotiating on multiple locations simultaneously.  

CTRR’s process assures that you always know the true, bottom-line, taking price of competing, qualified locations.

Our process also assures that you maintain the leverage needed to make the best available choice for your requirements. 

CTRR structures the business terms of your agreement to provide access to the due diligence that protects you in a purchase transaction.

Negotiating a lease is like negotiating a marriage contract – down to the level of what happens if you don’t cut the grass, and who takes out the trash.  

Leases are built on landlords’ “standard” lease forms and contain many non-rent, often hidden, costs.

Many lawyers negotiate leases based on these standard documents – without ever seeing or being inside the property you propose to lease, and without understanding your business operations.

CTRR negotiates the deal documents line-by-line from a business perspective, wholly focused on your business interests. Because we never represent landlords, CTTR is loyal to you alone.

We craft business terms focused on your operations, your true long-term costs, your ability to enforce your lease rights, the flexibility you need for your business operations, and your ability to respond to changing market conditions in today’s fast-paced business world.

We work hand-in-hand with counsel to help assure you get the deal you negotiated for and are fully protected.

With a lease or purchase agreement is signed, you are at the starting line of your next project phase – build-out. Whether this is a ground-up, build-to-suit, interior fit-up of an existing structure, a gut-rehab or some other variation of a construction process to create the space that will satisfy your needs, your team will need a team to get this done.

Architects, HVAC engineers and general contractors are part of the basic team. Maybe you’ll also need civil engineers, soils engineers, and environmental consultants. For a lab or healthcare facility you may need additional specialized consultants to demonstrate compliance with regulations or for special design conditions – like lead shielding or vibration-free labs – or to obtain a desired certification.

CTRR identifies qualified architects, engineers and general contractors in each market, as well as more specialized consultants.

After developing a short-list of qualified consultants and contractors based on the needs of your job, your budget and your timeline, CTRR runs structured interviews to assist you in interacting with these build-out partners, and to help compare and select.

We then negotiate letter agreements based on CTRR’s business experience and industry requirements to help assure that you will receive a full scope of services, no-surprise pricing, and a timely delivery.

During the build out of your improvements – whether interior alterations to an existing building or ground-up new construction, CTRR remains a key part of your team, advocating for your interests, helping to bridge communications among the disparate disciplines involved in a construction project, and helping to assure that your company receives the benefits it bargained for.

The services which CTRR provides can be called different things in real estate jargon – sometimes construction management, construction administration or owner’s rep services – where your firm is the owner of the project (regardless of who owns the building), and CTRR represents your interests.

Among the key services CTRR provides to protect you during this phase:

• Leading weekly owner/architect/contractor meetings to discuss project progress, anticipated challenges and to monitor the budget
• In conjunction with the architect and contractor providing two-week look-aheads to assure timely delivery and to manage material or personnel shortages or needed changes
• Review of architect and contractor invoices to assure that they conform to the agreed-upon project budget; advising your staff of approval or the need for changes in the invoice
• Assuring that your firm receives appropriate releases from contractors for all sums your firm has paid
• Helping to clarify on-the-job responsibilities for firms which you hire directly, e.g. IT and furniture suppliers, vs. those the contractor or architect hires 

With CTRR representing you during the build-out phase, communications remain transparent, responsibilities remain clear, and the disparate providers of construction services pull together as a cohesive team.