Magazine

Appraisers generally expect office building values to keep slipping over the course of 2023. When Altus Group recently surveyed its Canadian valuation staff for their opinions, more than two-thirds of respondents projected a further 5 to 15 per cent decline, while just 1 per cent judged that values have hit bottom and will remain flat…

A broad coalition of hotels and resorts have pledged to work toward achieving “net positive hospitality” promising to take action to protect nature, enhance climate resilience, and reduce the environmental impact of their operations. This week, the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, a group which represents more than 50,000 properties and 7 million rooms globally, unveiled a five-year…

Shear walls are walls specifically designed to resist lateral loads, transferring the load from the wall above to the wall below and, ultimately, out through the foundation. This is a critical role in a building’s structural frame, as walls that do not properly manage lateral loads can experience racking, base shear and overturning. The Importance…

The right window film can improve the look of your facility, but more importantly, it can also protect occupants from outsider threats that are especially problematic to schools and retail stores, such as active shooters, civil unrest, and natural disasters, which are becoming more frequent over time. Jamie Hamilton, Senior Building Security, Energy, and Branding…

Physical attacks — be they against businesses, banks, critical energy infrastructure, or places of worship — continue to tragically dominate the news cycle. Business continuity plans (BCPs) have now become commonplace for institutions that once never expected to need them. BCPs are designed to enhance responses to various crises, including natural disasters, technological failures, industrial…

Generator insights When designing or assessing campus-style distribution systems, it is important to focus on centralized versus decentralized standby power systems. Decentralized standby generators offer electrical and geographic diversity to prevent single points of failure and can be less expensive due to localized and right-sized electrical distribution. Centralized standby generators offer shared capacity and N+1…