Commercial Investment Real Estate Winter 2020 | Page 8

By Nicholas Leider
WHAT LIES AHEAD
Accomplished CCIM instructor Alec Pacella, CCIM, joined CIRE podcast
to discuss disruptive technology, where the market is headed, and the
importance of giving back.
W
elcome to the New Year! One
big addition to Commercial In-
vestment Real Estate in 2020 is
the CIRE podcast, where we sit down with
leading figures in commercial real estate to
keep you on the cutting edge of the industry.
With our debut in January, a handful
of episodes are available on SoundCloud,
Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you find your
podcasts. We will also include a printed ex-
cerpt of our episodes, including this issue’s
conversation with Alec Pacella, CCIM.
Pacella is the managing partner at
NAI PVC in Cleveland. Last year, he was
NEXT FEW YEARS THAT WOULD BE
ESPECIALLY IMPACTFUL?
honored as the Robert L. Ward Instructor
of the Year for CCIM Institute. We discus
technological developments in the industri-
al sector, the reinvention of Cleveland and
other Rust Belt cities, and the value of the
instructor/student relationship in CRE. ALEC PACELLA, CCIM: I think the one
that everyone’s watching is this driver-
less vehicle idea because that could really
change the paradigm. A lot of times, you
just go along and see these little changes,
little changes, little changes. Then suddenly
something happens in a landmark way. For
instance, with computing, look at the land-
mark change with the internet — everyone
saw computers getting more powerful and
automation taking effect. All of a sudden,
the World Wide Web was
introduced, and it’s a quan-
tum leap.
In the transporta-
tion industry, autonomous
vehicles could be a quan-
tum leap because, all of a
sudden, the restrictions
on how much product and
how far it can move in a day
are changed. Right now,
that’s governed by how long
someone can drive. There
are very strict limitations,
for instance, on the amount
of time someone can spend
driving a truck. When all
of a sudden, you switch to
a driverless vehicle, those
restrictions get lifted. If you
think that commerce can move 24 hours a
day, seven days a week, that’s a fundamental
change. I think everyone in the industry is
watching. How much traction are driverless
vehicles really gaining? Ultimately, how’s
that going?
CIRE: TECHNOLOGY IS IMPACTING ALL
DIFFERENT SECTORS OF THE MARKET.
BUT AS FAR AS MANUFACTURING AND
INDUSTRIAL, ARE YOU SEEING ONE OR
TWO INNOVATIONS COMING IN THE CIRE: DO YOU SEE CHANGE COMING IN
A TRANSFORMATIONAL WAY? WILL
THIS BE A SITUATION WHERE THE DAM
BREAKS, REGULATIONS ARE EASED, AND
THERE’S BUY-IN FROM ALL INDUSTRIES?
6
COMMERCIAL INVESTMENT REAL ESTATE MAGAZINE
PACELLA: It’s funny, because monumental
change happens very quickly. All of a sud-
den, it’s then like, what happened? Where
did that come from? I think it will be quick
— when it happens, we’re talking a matter of
a few short years.
CIRE: DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE PROFES-
SIONALS TO PREPARE? OR IS THAT A
SECRET YOU’RE KEEPING?
PACELLA: You need to be on top of things,
and I think a lot of people figure auton-
omous vehicles could be a fad. If you see
someone in a Tesla texting, you might think
that’s funny or isn’t that crazy? You might
not think, well, what could that mean to my
industry? What could that mean to my busi-
ness? It’s important to connect those dots, to
link those things and understand that, yes,
there’s a much broader impact. You better be
aware; you better be paying attention. You
better be reading, and you better be contin-
ually thinking about how a technology can
impact your business.
CIRE: DO YOU SEE 5G AFFECTING WHAT
FUTURE TENANTS MAY WANT IN A MAN-
UFACTURING OR INDUSTRIAL SPACE?
PACELLA: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. For many
years, you could have a really large ware-
house in Cleveland — 300,000 or 400,000
sf. In central Ohio, a really large warehouse
is a million sf, but it would bring a handful of
jobs. You’d have vast acres of storage and just
a few people that run forklifts and help man-
age truck traffic. But now, look at an Amazon
fulfillment center. There are 3,000 people
packed into one of those. In a lot of ways, it’s
refreshing to see that. These big footprint
industrial users can come accompanied with
people and with jobs. 5G provides the ability
for internal communication and picking sys-
tems within the warehouse. Still, they need
WINTER 2020