Your Nova News Source: Keeping You Informed And In The KNova | |
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We are excited to introduce the new and improved internal newsletter - Nova Navigator - in an effort to improve internal communication and help keep everyone informed and “In The KNova.” This is a collaboration between the Communications Committee and the Creative Committee.
Here’s to future growth and new heights!
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Meet Nova Group, GBC's Corporate Leadership Team | |
We are excited to announce the appointment of the following Nova Team Members to the Corporate Leadership Team! We look forward to the new and innovative ways this collaborative team will bring their diverse perspectives to driving Nova's strategic and operational decisions.
We would also like to extend a special shout-out and congratulations to Meagan Dunn, Joannie Hennen, and Keely Felton for their well-deserved promotions to their respective roles of Chief Operating Officer, Chief People Officer, and Chief Sustainability Officer!
Next Editon - we will feature the Strategic Advisory Team - stay tuned!
If you missed the "Exciting Future!" team meeting on November 3rd, you can watch the recording here: Exciting Future! - hosted by Ben_Jack-20231103_100115-Meeting Recording.mp4
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Welcome to the Nova Family, New Team Members! | |
Internal Promotions
Congratulations to the following Nova Team Members who have recently been promoted! Your hard work and dedication to the success and future of the Nova Family are applauded and appreciated.
Strategic Advisory Team
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Chuck Easley – Senior Vice President, Director of Technology, Data & Training
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Neil Archibald – Senior Vice President, Director of Account Management
Construction Services Group
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Rebecca Frecks – Senior Project Manager
Energy
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Jan Duller – Senior Project Manager, Technical Team Lead
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Gabriel Palacios – Energy Senior Project Manager, Field Team Lead
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Jenny Oraskovich – Energy Project Manager, Feild Team Mentor
Industrial Hygiene
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Thomas Fiorentino-Strawn – Vice President, Industrial Hygiene Services Group Leader
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Ben Jungers – Vice President, Industrial Hygiene Services
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Kristopher Sutton – Senior Project Manager
Sales/Marketing
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Tanner Johnson – Associate Business Development, Chicago Area (relocating)
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Caroline Bach – Vice President, Marketing & Branding
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Happy Work Anniversary!
Congratulations to the following who celebrated a milestone work anniversary in September/October.
25 Years: Paul Micari (Carlson)
15 Years: Christine Kozuch (Carlson), Kerri Roiniotis (Carlson), Ray Hutchison
10 Years: Jessica Oxford
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Energy Team's Naushad Amlani and his wife, Amreen, welcomed their baby daughter on August 22, 2023. | |
Equity Team's Rafael Cardenas welcomed his baby girl, Vanessa Cardenas, on October 1, 2023. | |
In the KNova - Let's Chat | Episode 1
Listen in as Jack Cummings kicks off our In The KNova...Let's Chat Leadership Series with a Market Update.
PT Homepage
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Market Snapshot from Nova Sales Team
Per the latest update from the Nova Sales Team, transactional deals are expected to remain slow in the 4th quarter, with a few exceptions. However, other services, such as energy audits, decarbonization strategies, and climate risk/resilience services, along with balcony inspections in California, construction monitoring, and Phase II site investigations, have been steady. Nova's strategy of diversifying its service capabilities has successfully kept us busy.
Talking about commercial real estate deals, the floating rate (bridge) is still volatile, but it is generally sought for short-term refinance needs, hoping rates will be lower in late 2024 and 2025. Other positive developments include:
- The 10-year treasury rate has tightened up more than 60 bps (currently at 4.44%) from topping out at 5% a few weeks ago. As a result, we have seen an uptick in CMBS deals (particularly in 5, 7, and 10-year loans), with the 10-year treasury coming back down.
- The October Jobs Report suggests that the Federal Reserve Board’s ambitions to cool the economy are working, as labor wages have cooled. This is a good sign that the Fed will not increase rates in the near term.
- Although there has been a decrease in requests from agency clients in Q4, it is expected that 2024 will be a robust year due to loan maturities. One thing to watch out for is the investigation into Meridian Capital (a broker) by Freddie and Fannie, which may impact the agency clients. It is expected that agency originators will start to work directly with borrowers rather than relying on brokers moving forward. In addition, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac released their volume caps for 2024. The 2024 volume caps applicable to multifamily loan purchases of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be $70B (billion) for each Enterprise, for a total of $140B during the calendar year for 2024.
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In other news, WeWork declared bankruptcy, which is another blow to the already struggling office market; however, WeWork's bankruptcy has already been priced in for debt structuring and discounts for office buildings. Despite this, office coworking is the strongest it has ever been, and other occupiers of this sector, such as Industrious, SPACES, and Studio, may scoop up distressed WeWork locations. The news on WeWork will not materially impact the market.
- Given the current economic conditions, many property deals require repricing and restructuring. Private Equity clients have been stepping in with "rescue capital" in the form of Mezzanine and Preferred Equity loans (Senior Debt) to keep borrowers in compliance or force foreclosure and assume ownership of the property.
Looking forward to 2024, if the Federal Reserve Board is done raising interest rates and the price of debt stabilizes, transactional deals will increase in volume and regularity. There are a lot of clients and potential clients loaded with cash to pursue opportunities. As a result, there is optimism for Q2 and beyond in 2024. Overall, even if the market remains volatile or slow, Nova expects that 2024 will be another solid year due to the number of maturing loans that will come due throughout the year. There’s a safety net of sorts for business to remain steady for Nova due to owners being forced to refinance or sell. Nova remains very optimistic moving forward into 2024 and 2025.
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Building Performance Standards
Nova is tracking existing and new Building Performance Standards (BPS) that require benchmarking and/or energy audits.
Boston, Colorado, and New York impose fines for poor-performing properties, with more to come.
Read more here, a nice article from CBRE.
Connect with your clients and ask whether they are meeting their Building Performance Standards where they have properties.
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In The KNova - Case Study
In The KNova Project Highlight - Echo Park - Construction Services Group
This featured case study by Sean Paradine and Joseph DiBernardo outlines the success of over a two-year out-of-ground logistics construction project in which Nova was engaged as the Owner's Rep (plus other Nova scopes) going on 2.5 years and still ongoing.
Read the full Echo Park Case Study here.
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Carlson Environmental
Carlson has recently been selected again by the Chicago Blackhawks to assist in the redevelopment of environmentally impacted parcels they own near the United Center. Carlson also has been hired by the City of Aurora, Illinois, to obtain No Further Remediation letters on numerous parcels as part of their master plan to redevelop a large section of their downtown area.
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Peak Environmental on the Radio
Peak Environmental’s Rob Edgar, a Managing Principal, and Kassidy Klink, an Associate, appeared on the podcast “All About Real Estate,” which airs every Sunday at 10 am on Fox Sports New Jersey (93.5 FM/1450 AM). The show is hosted by Kenneth Mueller and Jane Mueller, both real estate brokers who serve central New Jersey from their ReMax office in East Brunswick. The show provides insight and information regarding the management and sale of real estate. In “Environmental Issues in Real Estate,” Ken and Jane interviewed Rob and Kassidy about the environmental aspects of commercial real estate transactions. They discussed the triggers and goals of Environmental Site Assessments, the applicable regulations, the qualifications of environmental professionals, the process and goals, and most importantly, decision-making.
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Ambiente Sustainability Team Wins Big
Last week, the Ambiente Team was awarded the BX/MW refinancing project for 410 sites across nine countries. The Sustainability Team has a busy few weeks ahead - from setting up the first phase to delivering project deliverables by December 15th.
They have also been commissioned to carry out Climate Risk Assessments on 112 assets for Oxford Properties/M7, with the work to be completed before the end of the year.
Kudos, Ambiente Sustainability Team - strong way to wrap up 2023!
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Communications Committee
The Communications Committee has been hosting a variety of new communications initiatives this year.
In the Knova...Let's Chat (above) – casual leadership team recordings located on PT and Viva Engage.
Social Hours – we have hosted several social hour events this year, the most recent being a decked-out Halloween hour.
Our upcoming social hour will be on 12/20 to celebrate the holidays. More information on contests will be sent out soon.
Communications Community
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Community Outreach Committee
One of the perks of being a Nova employee is the opportunity to spend 10 hours of paid volunteer hours per quarter for a good cause.
Those who share their volunteer efforts by posting pictures/details of their activities on PT or Viva Engage will be entered in a monthly drawing to win a $50 voucher to Nova's Company Store.
We encourage everyone to consider volunteering for a meaningful cause that you are passionate about in your community.
This Holiday Season is the perfect opportunity for all of us to be A Force For Good and make a difference around the world!
October Volunteer of the Month Winner is...Chealsea Gittle!
Congrats, Chelsea, on winning Volunteer of the Month for all your hard work and dedication to serving your community and making a difference!
Community Outreach Community
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Creative Committee
The Creative Committee has been working hard to create this new In Nova Navigator Internal Newsletter and looks forward to future issues.
If you have anything to contribute at any time, please submit content through this form or by scanning the QR code.
Additionally, if you have a project that would be a good case study to be featured, fill out this outline and return it to Caroline Bach.
Creative Community
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Health & Safety Committee
The Nova Health & Safety Committee is revising the project Health & Safety Plans (HASPs) for large- and small-scale field projects. When complete, the documents will be integrated into Quire to assist in creating HASPs for our field projects. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas you would like to share, please contact Kevin Arnold or Dustin Mencel.
Health & Safety Community
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Wellness Committee
“Take Care of your mind and your body will be thankful. Take care of your body and your mind will be thankful!"
Nova offers three virtual wellness classes each week, and we encourage you to tune in:
- Meditation Mondays: 12:00 – 12:15 PM CST
- Meditation Wednesdays: 12:00 – 12:15 PM CST
- Power Yoga Fridays: 11:00 – 11:45 AM CST
TAKE CLASS HERE
**If this is your first time attending a class, please preregister at MindBody Online prior to class!
Reminder: In an effort to encourage more people to participate in Nova’s Wellness Activities, we are going to do a drawing for a chance to win a Nova Store gift card. The drawing will take place on Friday, December 1. Anyone who participates in the Yoga or Meditation classes will be entered into the drawing - the more classes you attend, the more times your name will be entered.
Wellness Community
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Upcoming Holidays/Days Off | |
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Tis' the season!
In appreciation for all your hard work and dedication over the past year, all US employees have the following upcoming paid days off:
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Thursday, November 23rd, Thanksgiving Day (observed holiday)
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Friday, November 24th, Day after Thanksgiving (observed by Nova)
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Friday, December 22nd (bonus holiday)
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Monday, December 25th, Christman Day (observed holiday)
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Friday, December 29th (bonus holiday)
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Monday, January 1st, New Year's Day (observed holiday)
In addition, keep an eye out for our Holiday email signatures that will start showing up after Thanksgiving break!
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Ben & Jack Visit Europe!
Ben Bohline and Jack Cummings met with Carmen Dahl and the rest of the German Team to strategize on client development.
After Germany, Ben and Jack met with Sarah Pirrie, Inga Kooij, and the rest of the London Team. Also, while in London, Ben and Jack were busy meeting with the following clients: Brookfield, Blackstone (Mileway), M7, Eastdill, AGC Equities, PGIM, and Morgan Stanley.
They enjoyed spending some time with our European Team, including some "Kölsch" beer in Germany, and strategizing how we can continue to grow our operations in Europe!
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UK Team Christmas Outing
The Ambiente UK Team had their annual Christmas outing on November 16th, visiting “ Christmas at Kew,“ a magical Christmas light trail set to music across London’s Kew Gardens.
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Carlson Team-Building Volunteer Event
In September, the Carlson Team participated in a wet and muddy group-wide volunteer event at the Sundown Meadows Preserve in Countryside, Illinois. They spent the morning in the rain, cutting out and burning invasive species as part of the Forest Preserves of Cook County's restoration efforts. It was a fun team-building event that helped the natural environment with Friends of the Forest Preserve!
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The Minnesota Nova Group, GBC (generally bad curling) Team | |
Reactions in Microsoft Outlook
Want to send a quick reaction to an email but don't want to have to create an entire email reply to send a thumbs up? Reactions in Outlook are the perfect solution!
Simply click the 😊 next to "reply" and choose from the gallery of reactions.
The selected reaction will be sent to the message sender and displayed for anyone else in the conversation.
On the other hand, if somebody reacts to your email, you'll see their reaction below the message controls towards the top right corner of the message window. You can also see these reactions in the notifications feed of Outlook.
You can learn more here.
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Nova Blog Notifications
Interested in being notified whenever there is a new Nova Blog Post? It's another great way to stay "In The KNova!"
Just visit our blog page on our website here to sign up for notifications.
Additonally, if you're interested in contributing or writing a blog post on a topic of your choice, please reach out to Caroline Bach.
This is a great opportunity to get recognition and share important information to our audience. All blog posts will also be featured on Nova's LinkedIn page to share with all of our followers.
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Stay tuned for the next edition of Nova Navigator! | | | | |
