Imagine you're a leading services firm with a longstanding commitment to promoting sustainability. You've achieved carbon neutrality in your own operations globally and you manage a significant percentage of the world's LEED-EB certified office buildings. You've gotten Energy Star certification for more than 250 million square feet of office product, earning the US Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star Sustained Excellence Award for five years running. Where do you go from there? In fact, says David Pogue, CBRE's global director of sustainability and architect of the firm's green initiatives, that's exactly what owners are asking his company.

The venerable shopping mall may not loom large on developers' horizons at the moment, but it certainly stands out on investors' radar screens. Sales volume on significant retail properties nationwide was up 87% year-over-year to $12.5 billion during the first quarter of 2012, according to Real Capital Analytics, with malls accounting for nearly three-quarters of that total.

Like Northern Plains settlers stepping out of their cabins after a snowbound winter, consumers are treating the first signs of spring in the economy as an occasion for driving to stores and prying their wallets open just a little wider than they had since the depths of the recession. "Everyone has come to the realization that the worst is over," says Tom Swieca, an SVP with Voit Real Estate Services in Ontario, CA. "Consumer confidence is improving from the depths of what it was in 2008." Given that consumer spending comprises about 70% of the economy, it bodes well that shoppers are now more willing to shop.

Cole's long-term focus has been, and continues to be, helping individual investors become the landlords of America's industry-leading corporations.

The European debt crisis. Social unrest in the Middle East. Legislative gridlock in the US. Questions about the impact and timing of Dodd-Frank rulemaking. The availability of credit, or lack thereof. The extended slump in housing sales. Minimal personal income growth. All of these challenges heading into 2012, even as the country's economic vital signs continue to improve, mean another year of uncertainty. It's little wonder that after ticking off these issues during a Real Estate Board of New York seminar in February, John Sikaitis, SVP and director of office research at Jones Lang LaSalle, predicted that the pace and depth of recovery would remain "highly segmented" across the US this year.

Heading into 2012, the US seems less caught up in global economic uncertainty than decoupling from it, at least temporarily. "The US will outpace Europe in the coming year, and by more than most people expect," says Richard Mack, North America CEO of AREA Property Partners in New York City, although he adds that is this is "due more to European weakness than US strength." Asieh Mansour, CBRE's San Francisco-based head of Americas research, puts it a little differently: "The US fundamentally will avoid a recession. Many of the fundamentals of the US economy are much better, in comparison to Europe.

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NEW YORK CITY-In its second deal announced this week, DHA Capital has partnered with USAA and Crimson Real Estate Fund to secure the Midtown West development site.