I am delighted to report that TRO JungBrannen is listed among the top 50 firms in the country by Architect magazine in their inaugural survey, published in May. The rankings are based on a balanced assessment of profitability, commitment to sustainability, and caliber of design.
This approach to ranking design firms is a significant departure from that of most other industry publications which tend to look only at size, revenue, or market share. Architect magazine’s approach, I believe, is a more enlightened one and better reflects the overall quality of a design firm. Initially, nearly 750 firms were considered. Ultimately the top 50 list was compiled from data gathered through online surveys and editorial review.
While I have always maintained that financial well-being is fundamental to our growth and prosperity, it is particularly satisfying to see that our firm’s design ranking outpointed all but four of the top fifteen firms on the list. This is due in no small measure to the extraordinary quality of our work and to the dedication of our professional, marketing, and graphics personnel. Also, the exponential growth of our LEED accredited staff and the growing number of LEED certified projects in our portfolio assures that TRO JungBrannen will continue to climb up the list in the years to come.
To all of you in the firm who work so hard every day, and to the consultants who team with us, and to the clients who entrust their projects to our care…..thank you!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Location, location, location
The real estate broker who coined the phase ‘location, location, location” sure knew what (s)he was talking about!
Last Thursday I was in San Diego addressing a gathering of CFOs, and during lunch the conversation rolled around to the housing crisis. One of the CFOs was from the Detroit area and lived in Gross Point – the most upscale area in an otherwise downtrodden city. According to him, huge numbers of homeowners were “under water.” Luxurious homes that once sold for more than a million dollars were on the market for a fraction of that price. That evening I went on line to check it out, and sure enough, I found several four and five thousand square foot homes selling for an average of $60 - $80 per square foot.
Now, you may say ‘well, who wants to live in Detroit?’, but the same thing appears to be true in other parts of the country as well. Just look at Phoenix, for example – a very decent place to live if you ask me.
Two days later, on Saturday, I flew to San Francisco to visit my oldest son, Alex. He rents an apartment in the Russian Hill area of the city and hopes to buy a modest one bedroom condo in a more affordable neighborhood. We went to about six open houses and the prices were astounding…..a 600sf condo for $500K; a 750sf condo for $600K; and, an 800sf condo for $675K. That’s an average of $825 per square foot. And then there’s the condo fee and the taxes on top of that! And these condos weren’t even in desirable neighborhoods. The swanky sections of town are a good deal more….well over $1000 per square foot. And if you think that the recession hasn’t affected San Francisco, think again. To boot, the entire state is on the verge of bankruptcy.
The whole thing makes no sense to me. I’m thinking of moving to Gross Point and ‘working from home’!
Last Thursday I was in San Diego addressing a gathering of CFOs, and during lunch the conversation rolled around to the housing crisis. One of the CFOs was from the Detroit area and lived in Gross Point – the most upscale area in an otherwise downtrodden city. According to him, huge numbers of homeowners were “under water.” Luxurious homes that once sold for more than a million dollars were on the market for a fraction of that price. That evening I went on line to check it out, and sure enough, I found several four and five thousand square foot homes selling for an average of $60 - $80 per square foot.
Now, you may say ‘well, who wants to live in Detroit?’, but the same thing appears to be true in other parts of the country as well. Just look at Phoenix, for example – a very decent place to live if you ask me.
Two days later, on Saturday, I flew to San Francisco to visit my oldest son, Alex. He rents an apartment in the Russian Hill area of the city and hopes to buy a modest one bedroom condo in a more affordable neighborhood. We went to about six open houses and the prices were astounding…..a 600sf condo for $500K; a 750sf condo for $600K; and, an 800sf condo for $675K. That’s an average of $825 per square foot. And then there’s the condo fee and the taxes on top of that! And these condos weren’t even in desirable neighborhoods. The swanky sections of town are a good deal more….well over $1000 per square foot. And if you think that the recession hasn’t affected San Francisco, think again. To boot, the entire state is on the verge of bankruptcy.
The whole thing makes no sense to me. I’m thinking of moving to Gross Point and ‘working from home’!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Less is More
The trite architectural adage that is the subject of this blog posting can be aptly applied to a phenomenon that is gaining traction in the current recession: namely, the American consumer is spending less and saving more for the first time in decades.
The point was driven home for me this weekend while I was tidying up my desk at home and came across an interesting bit of personal history. I found a savings account book from the Waltham Savings Bank, dated 1955. It was my first recorded bank transaction, and showed me opening a savings account with a deposit of one dollar. I was eight years old. As I recall, my grandfather, George Davis, encouraged me to save the money I had earned from shoveling walks in our neighborhood during the winter and went with me to the bank to guide the process. He was a prominent Boston attorney and I believe that he was also on the bank’s Board of Directors. The account, of course, earned interest, and I soon learned that the more money I saved the more interest I earned.
This morning I opened my email and came across an article by Carol McMullen which recently ran in the Boston Herald, entitled The Frugal American Consumer: Permanent or Temporary? Carol is the President of Eastern Wealth Management at Eastern Bank. In the article she points out that the savings rate of the average American was nearly zero at the beginning of 2008. When the recession hit home for many people later that year, the savings pattern changed abruptly and at the close of the first quarter of 2009 the rate is nearly 5%. That sounds pretty good until you compare it to the savings rate in many Asian countries, which exceeds 20% in some cases. Mike Hebert, our firm’s investment advisor pointed out the other day when he met with our Executive Committee that Americans have never really been very good at saving. You’d have to go back to the mid 1980s to see our savings rate at 10%. But, according to Carol, it looks like we might be headed back to that level after more than twenty years of easy credit and profligate spending.
It is ironic that the world’s economy since 1985 grew largely on the back of the American consumer’s insatiable appetite for goods and services. And, now that we are saving more and spending less, it appears that we are not able to shoulder the burden of stimulating economic recovery, at least not exclusively. Carol suggests better balance, with Americans spending less and the Chinese, for example, spending more. The inescapable reality for American businesses is simple: We must all, TRO JungBrannen included, commit ourselves to providing exceptional value for the services and goods that we provide, both here and abroad, if we expect to compete favorably for the attention of the increasingly frugal and discriminating consumer.
I think I will call Waltham Savings Bank and open another savings account. My grandfather would approve!
The point was driven home for me this weekend while I was tidying up my desk at home and came across an interesting bit of personal history. I found a savings account book from the Waltham Savings Bank, dated 1955. It was my first recorded bank transaction, and showed me opening a savings account with a deposit of one dollar. I was eight years old. As I recall, my grandfather, George Davis, encouraged me to save the money I had earned from shoveling walks in our neighborhood during the winter and went with me to the bank to guide the process. He was a prominent Boston attorney and I believe that he was also on the bank’s Board of Directors. The account, of course, earned interest, and I soon learned that the more money I saved the more interest I earned.
This morning I opened my email and came across an article by Carol McMullen which recently ran in the Boston Herald, entitled The Frugal American Consumer: Permanent or Temporary? Carol is the President of Eastern Wealth Management at Eastern Bank. In the article she points out that the savings rate of the average American was nearly zero at the beginning of 2008. When the recession hit home for many people later that year, the savings pattern changed abruptly and at the close of the first quarter of 2009 the rate is nearly 5%. That sounds pretty good until you compare it to the savings rate in many Asian countries, which exceeds 20% in some cases. Mike Hebert, our firm’s investment advisor pointed out the other day when he met with our Executive Committee that Americans have never really been very good at saving. You’d have to go back to the mid 1980s to see our savings rate at 10%. But, according to Carol, it looks like we might be headed back to that level after more than twenty years of easy credit and profligate spending.
It is ironic that the world’s economy since 1985 grew largely on the back of the American consumer’s insatiable appetite for goods and services. And, now that we are saving more and spending less, it appears that we are not able to shoulder the burden of stimulating economic recovery, at least not exclusively. Carol suggests better balance, with Americans spending less and the Chinese, for example, spending more. The inescapable reality for American businesses is simple: We must all, TRO JungBrannen included, commit ourselves to providing exceptional value for the services and goods that we provide, both here and abroad, if we expect to compete favorably for the attention of the increasingly frugal and discriminating consumer.
I think I will call Waltham Savings Bank and open another savings account. My grandfather would approve!
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