Kenco selects Liberty Logistics Park for new facility

Kenco Logistics Services, LLC has selected a 295,600-SF warehouse and distribution space for their new facility at Liberty Logistics Park in Liberty, Mo.

“We are excited that Kenco Logistics, one of the top ten logistics companies in the world, selected the Liberty Logistics Park and our community for their new facility,” said Lyndell Brenton, mayor of the City of Liberty.

“Their decision to locate here reinforces Liberty’s place as a growing logistics and distribution hub in the Midwest. While Liberty Logistics Park is still under construction, we believe our community values, location and "can do” attitude are the differentiators that attract new businesses, like Kenco Logistics, to Liberty, Brenton said.

In the past five years, the KC region has successfully attracted eCommerce and distribution companies pledging to create more than 10,200 jobs, invest $1.8 billion and occupy 16.7 million square feet, according to a release.

“The KC region’s central location and access to a skilled workforce are key drivers of a successful eCommerce strategy,” said Tim Cowden, president and CEO of the Kansas City Area Development Council.

“The KC SmartPort team and our partners in Liberty continue to elevate our region’s competitive advantages to position KC as a leading logistics hub,” Cowden said.

The Kansas City Area Development Council worked with a number of regional partners in attracting Kenco to the Kansas City region, including the State of Missouri, Missouri Partnership, City of Liberty, Missouri, Liberty Economic Development Corporation, CBRE - Joe Orscheln, Evergy, Spire Energy and KC SmartPort.

“It is fantastic to see and support the growth in the logistics and distribution industry in Liberty and the entire KC region,” said Subash Alias, CEO of Missouri Partnership.

“The status of Missouri as North America’s Logistics Center is already well known, and more and more companies, such as Kenco, are taking advantage of one of the best river, road, air and rail infrastructure systems in the nation. When it comes to logistics and distribution, Missouri is a global leader.”

Kenco Logistics Services, LLC

Kenco is the largest woman-owned third-party logistics (3PL) company in the United States. The company provides integrated logistics solutions including distribution and eCommerce fulfillment, comprehensive transportation management services, material handling equipment services, engineering and innovation consulting, and information technology. For more information, visit kencogroup.com.

Autodesk launches complete project lifecycle management platform

Yesterday, Autodesk announced a new set of products for Autodesk Construction Cloud that further connect data, workflows and teams throughout the entire building lifecycle, from design to operations.

Built on a unified platform and common data environment, the new products – Autodesk Build, Autodesk Quantify and Autodesk BIM Collaborate – empower general contractors, specialty trades, designers and owners to drive better business outcomes.

“Almost a year ago we introduced Autodesk Construction Cloud, sharing our vision for the most powerful and complete portfolio of construction management products. The new products we announced today represent a huge milestone for connected construction, with Autodesk Build providing an entirely new approach to project management,” said Jim Lynch, vice president and general manager of Autodesk Construction Solutions.

Construction teams will have a comprehensive construction management platform with all data in one central location to simplify collaboration, proactively anticipate project changes and provide data-driven guidance for organizational improvement.

“We’re continuing to deliver on our promise of helping builders across the world catalyze their digital transformation and make construction more predictable, safe and sustainable,” Lynch said.

The three new product offerings announced today include:

• Autodesk Build: Unites the best of PlanGrid and BIM 360 with additional new functionality to create a comprehensive field and project management solution. Autodesk Build also includes the PlanGrid Build mobile app with additional new capabilities for field workers.

• Autodesk Quantify: Empowers estimators to automate 2D and 3D quantification from a single comprehensive platform.

• Autodesk BIM Collaborate: Enables project teams to align and execute on design intent by managing the entire design collaboration and coordination workflow from a single solution to reduce rework, improve productivity and accelerate project delivery.

As part of the unified Autodesk Construction Cloud platform, every new product is reinforced by:​

• Autodesk Docs – underpins the common data environment for every unified product with centralized document management, providing users with seamless navigation and integrated workflows to create a single source of truth across the project lifecycle.​

• Insights – delivers analytics from the data collected and analyzed, as well as the ability to export that data; encompasses Construction IQ artificial intelligence to identify and mitigate risk.

• Administration – provides centralized user management and permissioning, templates and other tools for project setup, as well as a single authentication method for any unified product.

“The continuous and fluid flow of data is the backbone of our teams’ success, with our healthcare projects in particular requiring tremendous scrutiny in inspections and documentation,” said Amy Kozlowski, project manager at Herrero Builders.

“Autodesk Construction Cloud delivers a unified platform where data and information are centralized. We can immediately get new design details into the hands of preconstruction and construction teams, proactively make adjustments in the field and better understand the health of our project portfolio. With Autodesk Build, we will be able to connect critical field and project management workflows, powering seamless collaboration across locations and devices. Just as importantly, the new products are intuitive and simple to use. Autodesk inherently understands the construction industry and provides technology that fuels success across the entire building lifecycle.”

“Construction is about building, not learning how to navigate complicated software,” said Sameer Merchant, head of product development, Autodesk Construction Solutions.

“Technology should be easy-to-use and effortless to scale – if a construction company grows, its software should grow with it. In developing our new offerings, we incorporated the best-in-class features of existing Autodesk construction products into a common web and mobile framework and integrated them with a shared data platform. As a result, the most loved capabilities will be immediately available within Autodesk Build, Autodesk Quantify and Autodesk BIM Collaborate.”

Autodesk’s new construction management products will connect construction teams, data and workflows across the headquarters, office and job site. Products will be available in early 2021.

KC Convention Center wins top global rating for clean, healthy facilities

Kansas City’s largest event space, the Kansas City Convention Center, has achieved accreditation from the Global Biorisk Advisory Council (GBAC) STAR™ program for its cleaning, disinfection and infectious disease prevention practices.

The City of Kansas City worked with Visit KC to earn this designation, which is recognized by industry leaders as the gold standard for prepared facilities. The GBAC STAR program verifies that the Kansas City Convention Center has implemented best practices to prepare for, respond to and recover from outbreaks and pandemics such as COVID-19.

“The GBAC STAR accreditation empowers facility owners and managers to assure workers, customers and key stakeholders that they have proven systems in place to maintain clean and healthy environments,” said GBAC executive director Patricia Olinger.

“By taking this important step to pursue its accreditation, the Kansas City Convention Center has received third-party validation that it follows strict protocols for biorisk situations, thereby demonstrating its preparedness and commitment to operating safely.”

The result of a rigorous, 90-day application and review process, the accreditation was praised on Thursday by Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas.

“I applaud the Kansas City Convention Center for reaching the prestigious Global Biorisk Advisory Council STAR status,” said Mayor Lucas.

“Kansas City takes seriously our responsibility to keep our residents and visitors alike healthy and safe, and this is yet another example of that commitment. Thank you to the Convention Center and Visit KC for their work to achieve this status.”

To achieve GBAC STAR accreditation, the Kansas City Convention Center was required to demonstrate compliance with the program’s 20 core elements, which range from standard operating procedures and risk assessment strategies to personal protective equipment and emergency preparedness and response measures.

“Our staff is dedicated to keeping our facilities clean and safe, and we are gratified by this recognition of our work and our commitment to our customers,” said Oscar McGaskey, director of the Kansas City Convention Center. “Our staff will keep it up with continuous training.”

The KC Convention Center is the third facility in the region to achieve this distinction, following the Overland Park Convention Center and Arrowhead Stadium.

“Meetings and conventions are significant economic drivers for our destination, and this third-party endorsement reinforces our City’s dedication to resuming that important business responsibly,” said Visit KC president & CEO Jason Fulvi.

“I applaud and thank our partners at the KC Convention Center, as well as Mayor Lucas, the City Council and the KCMO health director for working with Visit KC to implement safety procedures throughout our community, all of which will help position Kansas City to welcome visitors and attendees back safely and effectively when the time is right,” Fulvi said.

To learn more about the GBAC STAR program or view a list of accredited facilities, visit www.gbac.org. For information about the KC Clean Commitment and other ways Kansas City is responding to COVID-19 as a convention industry, go to VisitKC.com/SafeMeetings.

Amazon, Zoom, robot megatrends set new pace for CRE

The Kansas City chapter of CoreNet Global hosted futurist Nikki Greenberg for a virtual presentation on Thursday, November 5.

Greenberg, an architect by trade, worked in real estate development in Sydney, Australia before relocating to New York four years ago where she founded Real Estate of the Future, American PropTech and Women in PropTech.

According to Greenberg, the pandemic accelerated technological changes that were already underway and created opportunities for the commercial real estate industry to embrace these changes.

“We have a construction site without a blueprint. The world has fundamentally changed. The industry’s been blowing up, and there’s rubble everywhere. As real estate professionals, it’s up to us to decide now that we know that things have been dismantled, what do we want to build . What do we want the future to look like for our industry, our assets, for our buildings and for the people who occupy them,” Greenberg said.

Although technology is changing at an exponential rate, Greenberg said we tend to think about the here and now; however, there are several megatrends that are going to cause fundamental shifts within the commercial real estate industry.

The pandemic increased the prevalence of checking in with our devices, using QR codes and other methods of touch-free entry into buildings. Greenberg said these types of technology are here to stay.

“So you do want to be thinking about your touch-free access and how you’re using technology for your building and your spaces to make it a more pleasurable experience,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg said that because of the uncertainty of when people will return to the office and what future space requirements will be, flex space operators are the future because they are flexible and nimble. Flex space is designed to respond to current conditions and absorb risk.

“They have desks that anyone can jump in on, depending on the provider. So, you give that uncertainty over to a third party. Then it becomes a shared space and you’re not having to have redundant space that’s not being used,” said Greenberg.

Greenberg said that Amazon represents a megatrend, and the real estate industry needs to watch what Amazon is doing.

“Amazon is very much making a new market. They are big consumers of real estate and of course all of the technological changes that they’re bringing--drones, robots, and so forth--and that’s going to start impacting our assets and sales,” said Greenberg.

Greenberg said that nine out of the top ten purchases on Amazon this year have been electronics, including laptops, iPads, ear buds and AirPods - devices that users can move around their space.

“So people aren’t wanting to have a fixed workspace; they’re not buying desktop computers. They’re wanting to choose where they work. So we should be thinking about that in terms of workplace design. People want to choose where they work,” she said.

Greenberg said using robots represents another megatrend.

“I think within our industry, robots provide a huge opportunity and will be hugely disruptive, but we just aren’t speaking about them enough,” said Greenberg.

Greenberg noted that in warehouse spaces, robots can move parcels; in office spaces, they can deliver parcels to desks; and on college campuses, robots deliver food. And, she said, all the delivery companies have been experimenting with drones and are working to obtain clearance to make drone deliveries.

“In the future, how are packages being delivered? Are they coming through the front door or through a loading dock or are they coming through the roof or a window,” said Greenberg.

Another megatrend is the emergence of Zoom, which, Greenberg said, fundamentally has shifted the way we work.

“So you have to think about how you design for Zoom to connect people that are working from home or working from a third place with those that are in the office working there physically or in a Board room,” said Greenberg.

Greenberg said it’s up to us to choose how much we want to embrace the new technologies and new ways of working.

“The reality is that as the way we live changes, the way we provide our spaces to facilitate the activities happening inside needs to change alongside with it,” she said.