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Mercury News interview: Transwestern managing director Edward Del Beccaro

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 03:42:29 +0000

Click photo to enlarge

Commercial real estate goes hand in hand with the local economy. If more jobs are being created, companies need more office space. If job shrink, then office vacancies increase.

Edward Del Beccaro, managing director of the East Bay office of commercial real estate firm Transwestern, has 34 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry. Before joining Transwestern, he headed up the local offices of commercial realty brokerages Colliers International and Grubb Ellis.

He recently was interviewed about the commercial real estate market and the regional economy. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What is your assessment of the Bay Area economy?

A: The Bay Area is one of the healthiest metro areas for job creation in the entire United States. It is because of the intellectual capital in the South Bay and San Francisco, and the manufacturing and transportation capabilities in the East Bay. That’s been the division of labor here for a long time.

Q: What about the East Bay? How do you see that economy?

A: The East Bay is characterized by anemic growth, but growth nonetheless. The Port of Oakland and the refineries will help the East Bay economy grow, even if it is very slow growth. The East Bay will have anemic growth, but most of the country is going to be jealous of that growth.

Q: The South Bay has enjoyed strong leasing activity from Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), and other major tech companies. Do you think that office leasing boom is going to continue?

A: I think it will hold steady despite all the bad crosswinds.

Q: What are some of those crosswinds?

A: My daughter is deployed on a Navy ship in the Persian Gulf right now. If there is an Iranian or Middle East oil event, that will be an issue. That will flatten growth.

Q: What about the East Bay commercial real estate market? What is happening there?

A: Our current trend of slow growth and slow leasing continues. Look at the job creation vehicles and the absorption. They are more dynamic in the South Bay than the East Bay.

Q What trends do you see for the retail market in the East Bay?

A In eastern Contra Costa County, there are rising vacancies for big-box retail. Developers overproduced retail in East County. It’s because of the foreclosures that there was less demand for retail than anticipated.

Q: What about the new Paragon Outlets in Livermore? Why are those doing so well?

A: That part of the East Bay was underserved. You have the BART station in the area and connections to the Central Valley, and the Paragon outlets are near two major freeways, 580 and 680, that intersect in the area. And they are building new houses in Livermore and Dublin. Forget about the foreclosures, the prices are high enough that they are building. The Tri-Valley is strong because that is a commuting suburb to Silicon Valley.

Q: How is retail doing in the South Bay?

A: South Bay retail is strong. Retail reflects the dynamics of strong engines for growth. Cars, merchandise, restaurants are all doing well. Same thing in San Francisco. Same thing in Walnut Creek and Emeryville and the Tri-Valley. Those are all good retail markets.

Q: What is your assessment of the downtown Oakland office and retail markets?

A: Oakland is a tale of several cities. Uptown is healthy and getting healthier. Jack London Square is getting better. Broadway addresses tend to be tougher for getting tenants in there. You never know when you’re going to be shut down because of an Occupy protest march.

Q: Overall, will Oakland see improvement?

A: Oakland, because of its central location and transportation access, has a lot of potential.

Q: Long term, do you see that Silicon Valley is going to continue on its growth pace for the commercial property market?

A: Bottom line is that Silicon Valley continues its present leasing and absorption activity and levels. And that will benefit the entire Bay Area.

Contact George Avalos at 925-977-8477. Follow him at Twitter.com/george_avalos.

Edward Del Beccaro

Age: 58
Birthplace: Covington, Ky.
Company: Transwestern
Position: Managing director
Residence: Danville

Five Things about Edward Del Beccaro

As past president of the Walnut Creek Library Foundation, he has raised several million dollars to build a new library.
He has a personal library in Danville with 4,000 books.
He is a volunteer for arts organizations.
His daughter is a petty officer in the U.S. Navy and that has caused him to be more involved in veterans organizations.
He is an “amateur urbanologist.” He loves to know how cities are born, how they evolve and how they decay.

Article source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_22044873/chat-transwesterns-edward-del-beccaro

Mercury News interview: Transwestern managing director Edward Del Beccaro

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 21:32:23 +0000

Click photo to enlarge

Commercial real estate goes hand in hand with the local economy. If more jobs are being created, companies need more office space. If job shrink, then office vacancies increase.

He recently was interviewed about the commercial real estate market and the regional economy. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What is your assessment of the Bay Area economy?

Q: What about the East Bay? How do you see that economy?

Q: The South Bay has enjoyed strong leasing activity from Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), and other major tech companies. Do you think that office leasing boom is going to continue?

A: I think it will hold steady despite all the bad crosswinds.

Q: What are some of those crosswinds?

A: My daughter is deployed on a Navy ship in the Persian Gulf right now. If there is an Iranian or Middle East oil event, that will be an issue. That will flatten growth.

Q: What about the East Bay commercial real estate market? What is happening there?

A: Our current trend of slow growth and slow leasing continues. Look at the job creation vehicles and the absorption. They are more dynamic in the South Bay than the East Bay.

Q What trends do you see for the retail market in the East Bay?

Q: What about the new Paragon Outlets in Livermore? Why are those doing so well?

Q: How is retail doing in the South Bay?

Q: What is your assessment of the downtown Oakland office and retail markets?

Q: Overall, will Oakland see improvement?

A: Oakland, because of its central location and transportation access, has a lot of potential.

Q: Long term, do you see that Silicon Valley is going to continue on its growth pace for the commercial property market?

A: Bottom line is that Silicon Valley continues its present leasing and absorption activity and levels. And that will benefit the entire Bay Area.

Contact George Avalos at 925-977-8477. Follow him at Twitter.com/george_avalos.

Edward Del Beccaro

Age: 58
Birthplace: Covington, Ky.
Company: Transwestern
Position: Managing director
Residence: Danville

Five Things about Edward Del Beccaro

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_22044873/chat-transwesterns-edward-del-beccaro

Biz Break: A ‘welcome shift’ in S.F., other big metro housing markets?

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:42:46 +0000

Today: The real estate market may be turning up in the San Francisco region and other big metro areas. Plus: Google (GOOG) introduces Google+ social features. And: MySpace is reportedly about to be sold.

An upturn in the real estate market?

As warmer weather has brought out buyers, home values have turned upward in 13 of the nation’s 20 largest metro areas, according to the latest Standard Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices report released today.

The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metro area — which includes

relatively expensive San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties and more affordable communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties — had the nation’s second-biggest gain in April, with prices climbing 1.7 percent from the month before. However, home values were still down 5.5 percent from April 2010.

Nationwide, home prices increased 0.7 percent on average in the 20 metro areas after reaching a “double dip” low in March.

“In a welcome shift from recent months, this month is better than last — April’s numbers beat March,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of SP’s index committee, noted in the report.

“However, the seasonally adjusted numbers show that much

of the improvement reflects the beginning of the spring-summer homebuying season,” Blitzer said. “It is much too early to tell if this is a turning point or simply due to some warmer weather.”

While San Jose is the Bay Area’s biggest city, its metro area isn’t included in the Case-Shiller report because it’s not one of the nation’s 20 largest.

Google vs. Facebook?

Mountain View Internet juggernaut Google revealed details today of its effort to compete with Palo Alto social networking powerhouse Facebook.

In a blog post, Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior vice president of engineering, described “the Google+ project” as a way “to make Google better by including you, your relationships and your interests.”

Google+ is invitation-only for now. According to the http://plus.google.com site, its features include:

Circles, which groups people by relationships, allowing Google+ members to “share precisely with the right folks,” Gundotra wrote.

Hangouts, or group chats “combining the casual meetup with live multiperson video.”

Sparks, which sends users videos and articles that Google+ determines they might like.

Huddle, which creates a simpler group chat to allow for quick decisions, such as which movie to see.

MySpace sale?

Speaking of social networking, media giant News Corp. reportedly is seeking offers to sell MySpace. According to our friends at The Associated Press, a deal may come this week.

MySpace, you might recall, was the music-oriented hub of cool kids online, but has struggled as it tried to compete with Facebook.

According to AP, which quoted “a person familiar with the matter,” three possible bidders for MySpace are Specific Media, Golden Gate Capital and Austin Ventures.

A potential buyer would keep MySpace’s emphasis on music, but probably would cut more than half of the Los Angeles site’s staff.

Silicon Valley tech stocks

Up: Apple (AAPL), Oracle (ORCL), Google, Intel (INTC), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), eBay (EBAY), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Yahoo (YHOO).

Down: VMware.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Up 41.03, or 1.5 percent, to 2,729.31.

The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Up 145.13, or 1.2 percent, to 12,188.69.

And the widely watched Standard Poor’s 500 index: Up 16.57, or 1.3 percent, to 1,296.67.

Check in weekday afternoons for the 60-Second Business Break, a summary of news from Mercury News staff writers, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and other wire services. Contact Frank Russell at 408-920-5876. Follow him at Twitter.com/mercspike.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_18369846?source=rss

Bay Biz Buzz: SF-based Del Monte Foods lures away Hershey CEO

Wed, 18 May 2011 21:43:57 +0000

After leading Hershey to three years of strong performances, CEO David West is leaving to take the top job at the smaller Del Monte Foods, a move that sent the candy maker’s shares plummeting Wednesday. Del Monte Foods, the San Francisco-based food processor, said that West will become its CEO on Aug. 15 and will join the company’s board in June. Del Monte was bought by private equity firms for $4 billion, a deal that closed in March. Hershey chief operating officer John Bilbrey was named interim president and CEO Wednesday. In midday trading, Hershey’s share price slipped $1.80, or more than 3 percent, to 55.28.

Online

Google (GOOG) will complete the biggest hiring year in its history by occupying a new campus of up to nine buildings, extending its growing real estate footprint for the first time across Highway 101 in Mountain View as it leases as much as 630,000 additional square feet of space. Along with Google’s recently announced plans to build as much as 595,000 square feet of new space on 19 acres of land near Charleston Road and Shoreline Boulevard, the new Ellis Street campus would expand Google’s total real estate holdings in Mountain View by about one-quarter. Google needs the space. The Internet giant said in January that 2011 would be its biggest hiring year ever,

adding more than 6,000 employees before the end of the year, with about one-third of those hires in the Bay Area.

Oil

San Ramon-based Chevron doesn’t plan to seek partners for its shale-gas fields in Poland and isn’t looking for further reserves in the central European country, Pat Blough, vice president for gas commercialization at Chevron Global Gas, said today in Warsaw. Chevron owns four shale gas exploration licenses in Poland’s Lublin basin covering 1.1 million acres of land, according to a company presentation. It will begin drilling exploratory wells in the fourth quarter of 2011, country manager John Claussen told reporters today.

Compiled from staff and wire reports.

Article source: http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_18087535