Columbia U MSRED Paris 2011: Vendredi avec Hines France

On Friday we visited the Hines France Regional Office in the central business district of Paris. We met with Managing Director, Patrick Albrand, who is a graduate of Columbia's MSRED program. In 1995, Mr. Albrand was instrumental in the establishment and supervision of the Hines' French subsidary. Hines is a privately owned global real estate firm with 3,750 worldwide and 250 employees in 11 European cities. Hines has developed 42 square meters of real estate in Europe. The company was founded in 1957 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Mr. Albrand explained fundamental differences in the American and European real estate markets. In his opinion, the American markets are a sum of different submarkets, whereas the European markets are more concentrated. For example, 19% of the population (living in Île-de-France) generates 29% of the French GDP. The concentration is one explanation as to why sourcing deals is so difficult in the French real estate market.

Hines is currently active in ground-up development of office buildings in Boulogne-Billancourt, just south-west of La Défense and within the Île-de-France limits. Boulogne-Billancourt is home to the French automaker Renault and is the populous suburb of Paris. The area is undergoing a comprehensive redevelopment. The urban planning initiative is to visually connect the suburb to Paris' historic Axis, which extends from the Louvre Palace, to gardens of Tuileries, to Place de la Concorde, along the Champs-Éylsées, through the Arc de Triomphe, to La Défense, and gestures westward towards Versailles. In addition to the Hines' office developments, the city is building new bridges, roads, and parks to accommodate anticipated increase in volume of vehicular and pedestrian traffic.