Before the economy crashed, commercial property owners thought long and hard about retrofitting their properties for efficiency and environmental reasons. But today, survival has become building owners’ overriding goal, with deep-diving retrofits slipping down—or off—the list of priorities. Read more to learn when industry analysts expect once again to see a major spike in the retrofitting trend.

With a weak dollar boosting global demand for U.S. exports and the domestic economy inching back from the brink, the health of most U.S. industrial real estate markets is improving, too. Nonetheless, the national vacancy rate remains stubbornly in double-digit territory at 10.2 percent. Read what advice experts at Cushman & Wakefield and other firms have for savvy landlords with vacancies to fill.

As the number of U.S. factory jobs continues to shrink, cities increasingly find themselves with underused or abandoned industrial land. Where these sites border residential areas, the result is blight and increased crime. Read how the Oakland, California, housing authority took aging public housing on a blighted site and remade it to strengthen connections to nearby residences and community amenities.

As cities both large and small transition from manufacturing-based to service-oriented economies, municipal officials are forced to decide whether a site will be prepped for resale to another industrial user or if it should be remediated for residential development and commercial business. Read more to learn what a ULI panel told the city of Indianapolis to do with a well-sited vacant GM property.

It is the way that cities celebrate and showcase assets such as parks, culture and the arts, and safe neighborhoods that will determine the vibrancy of a community. Those communities that build partnerships to shape their response to these changes will be those that become successful 21st-century cities. Learn the three assumptions that successful cities will build on.

The global industrial market is poised for big changes as companies reexamine their supply chain operations, says ULI trustee James J. Curtis III. Labor arbitrage, rising manufacturing costs, and a much greater sensitivity to sustainability are among those factors that will drive the industrial market in the future, he adds. Read what other experts predict for the industrial market going forward.

The April/May Federal Reserve senior loan officer opinion survey notes that both credit standards and loan terms to commercial and industrial (C & I) borrowers continued to ease with the percentage of domestic banks tightening C & I lending standards continuing to moderate (with fewer banks reporting tightening standards). Are commercial banks showing an increasing willingness to extend credit to both small and large business and household borrowers?

The FTSE/NAREIT Equity REIT (real estate investment trust) Index was up 5.11 percent in April, up 13.00 percent through April 30th, and pays a 3.29 percent dividend, too. All 13 property sector sub-indices were positive in April, ranging from the leaders—office/industrial (+7.38 percent), regional malls (+7.15 percent), and diversified (+6.91 percent)—to the laggards—industrial (+2.13 percent), timber (+2.29 percent), and freestanding retail (+2.95 percent). Read about the year-to-date basis leaders and laggards.

The expectation for the merged ProLogis and AMB is that the combined customer relationships, land banks, and financial resources will give it a leg up on a lot of its competition as it endeavors to expand its building portfolio. Read how analysts expect the firms’ respective geographic footprints to complement each other.

With a strong economy led by government, education, and health care, the Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, area consistently ranks among the nation’s best economies. Read what local insiders have to say about how the multifamily sector and the Class A warehouse segments have improved, as well as what’s in store for the retail and office sectors in the Research Triangle area in 2011.