"In light of the current market conditions, we wanted to be more nimble for our clients and still have an affiliation with a global provider of real estate services," Peter Waldt, managing partner of DWH, tells GlobeSt.com. "It seemed like the perfect marriage."

Waldt and managing partner Robert Hutchinson previously managed C&W's development consulting group in the New York/New Jersey region before forming DWH a few months ago. Ronnie Davis and Bill Braun, also previously members of C&W's development consulting group, are serving as DWH-affiliated consultants. They're based in Atlanta and Chicago, respectively.

The DWH team, based in New York and New Jersey, focuses on transit-oriented development for both private- and public-sector clients, asset repositioning and optimization and sustainability services including brownfields redevelopment, solar power development and energy use reduction. Currently, DWH is engaged in projects in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas as well as in Puerto Rico, Ontario and Latin America. These are being handled independently and in conjunction with C&W's global consulting, brokerage, capital markets and client solutions groups.

When asked whether sustainability and infrastructure will soon be linked, Waldt responds, "Clients are now demanding it," particularly in the corporate real estate arena. "It's part of the corporate culture, and in virtually all cases, it makes financial sense to do so. Especially in the consumer product end of things, it's part of a branding exercise. You do not want to be known as a non-green company."

Adds Hutchinson, "One of the core aspects of our practice is to look at an asset and apply those technologies that maintain or enhance the value of that asset. We're looking to control the amount of energy an asset uses and, where possible, to produce the energy on-site."

From a sustainability standpoint, Waldt says that DWH in the near term will focus on "expanding the breadth of technologies available to provide sustainability services to our clients, with the understanding that the world is changing and things like carbon credits are going to become much more important than they are now. On the development and consulting side, as we look at repositioning assets, we look at something called a competitive location assessment, where we take the location decision matrix and turn it upside down. Instead of drilling down to a site--finding a location that provides a business solution to a company--we actually start with a location and answer the question of what business solutions it provides to the end user."

Given the current state of the market, "thoroughly positioning assets is much more important to their success than it's been before," says Waldt. "You focus on things like cluster strategies that really separate your asset from others that may be competing with it."

Instant Insights /

Cushman, Infrastructure Consultants Team Up

Related Stories

Recommended For You