What will you do in your summer holidays?
Summer time is a great time to take stock of your business and a great time to think about and diarise some property housekeeping issues that quite often get overlooked in the bustle of normal day to day business.
However if you consider this now, you can plan to carry out some crucial housekeeping duties in January when business is traditionally quieter.
Some of the not so sexy but absolutely essential items to consider to maximise your return and minimise your cost and risk are as follows:
Property Replacement Insurance: given the sizeable increases in construction costs in recent times, have you considered whether your properties are correctly insured? Do you know what you are insuring: base building and / or fit out?
Capital Expenditure Planning: what items have you planned over the next calendar year? How will they be managed?
Maintenance: are your maintenance contracts up to date and appropriate? Are there any routine maintenance items that can be efficiently attended to in this quiet time?
Tax and asset updates: Is your base schedule correct? Have you carried out any upgrade works during the financial year to date for which you can claim either a tax write off or a future tax deduction?
Condition Audits: Do you need to create or update any condition surveys of your tenanted properties?
Tenancy Make Good: Do you have a schedule of lease expiries that will occur during the year? Are there any “repairing and make good” obligations that need to be planned with the tenant?
N&B can assist with all of the above to help you really enjoy your summer holiday.
Another tall tale
There are a few candidates vying to become the world’s tallest building, however there is one that is rising above the competition.
Burj Dubai (“Dubai Tower“) is a super-tall skyscraper currently under construction in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. According to its developers, It is currently the tallest free standing structure in the world, surpassing the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada which previously held the record for 32 years. When it is completed in early 2009, it is predicted to be the tallest man-made structure in the world, as well as the tallest building by any measure.
While the final height of the building is a closely guarded secret, sources claim that it will measure approximately 818m, however this information is disputed.
Scheduled for occupancy in September 2009, the building is part of a 2 km² (0.8 sq mi) development called ‘Downtown Burj Dubai’ .
Burj Dubai’s last two milestones will be to surpass the 628.8 m (2,063 ft) height of the KVLY-TV Mast in North Dakota, United States to become the world’s tallest structure, and to pass the Warsaw radio mast in G?bin, Poland (646.4 m (2,121 ft) until it collapsed in 1991) to become the world’s tallest structure of any type ever built.
However, it is not simply the tall buildings that are making headlines.
The City Centre Las Vegas
The CityCenter will be a mixed-use 76-acre complex (16,797,000 square feet (1,560,500 m²)) on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, currently under construction by MGM Mirage.
With a total cost expected to exceed $7.8 billion, CityCenter is the largest privately financed development in the United States. The original cost estimate was $4 billion, but it was pushed up by rising construction costs and design changes.
The project had an initial employee estimate of 12,000 people.
