WASHINGTON, DC-There was something for everybody in President Barack Obama’s rousing State of the Union speech Tuesday night. For fiscal conservatives, there was his urging to streamline and simplify the tax code. For the defense hawks, there was his reference to the troops. For tea-party activists, there was the call to freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years. For liberals, there was the emphasis on higher education, along with a staunch refusal to bow to Republicans’ attempts to roll back the healthcare legislation. For manufacturers, there was his goal of doubling US exports by 2014. And for the commercial real estate community, there were his calls for a greater focus on energy and infrastructure improvements.

But underlying it all, and of interest to each of these groups, was Obama's focus on the economy and what it will take to push it into the next phase of recovery. “The steps we’ve taken over the past two years may have broken the back of this recession, but to win the future we’ll need to take on challenges that have been decades in the making,” he said. 

For the most part, Obama stuck to broad-brush themes--including the cooperative spirit that has overtaken politics since the tragedy in Tucson, AZ. However, he did delve into specifics when it came to certain topics. As one commentator after the speech said, it was the first State of the Union he could recall where dropped calls made it into the speech. 

To illustrate the promise of renewable energy, the president pointed to Robert and Gary Allen, brothers who run a small Michigan roofing company. “After September 11, they volunteered their best roofers to help repair the Pentagon,” he said. “But half of their factory went unused, and the recession hit them hard. Today, with the help of a government loan, that empty space is being used to manufacture solar shingles that are being sold all across the country.” 

To pay for this investment, Obama will ask Congress to eliminate “billions in taxpayer dollars that we currently give to oil companies.” He also called for setting a new goal: by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources. 

Infrastructure investment--a subject that Obama has raised in national dialogue before--was also a focus of the State of the Union. “To attract new businesses to our shores, we need the fastest, most reliable ways to move people, goods and information--from high-speed rail to high-speed internet,” he said. “Our infrastructure used to be the best, but our lead has slipped.” He continued, “Countries in Europe and Russia invest more in their roads and railways than we do. China is building faster trains and newer airports. Meanwhile, when our own engineers graded our nation’s infrastructure, they gave us a 'D.' ” Within 25 years, he added, the US goal is to give 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail.  

All of these are great concepts, Jones Lang LaSalle’s managing director of government investor services, Joe Brennan, told GlobeSt.com shortly after Obama’s speech ended, but it is lacking a roadmap as to how the nation will achieve these goals. “Take the concept of attacking waste,” he said. “Yes, we have to do that and it is beneficial to everyone. But the challenge is to do it with a scalpel and not a meat cleaver.” 

That said, Obama’s initiatives could easily translate into real growth if implemented property, Brennan continued. Consider his call to invest in transportation-related infrastructure. “Look at markets in the District, such as NoMa," he observed. "Transit-oriented investments helped to create that community and other neighborhoods here.”