1. WEB SUCCESS. Koll’s Richard Hayes uses PikeNet to "hunt down brokers to assist in servicing a national client. This activity is particularly helpful when entering secondary and tertiary markets. Twice, I have been able to actually locate properties and conclude transactions…" Recently Richard leased 13,500 square feet from Security Capital Trust via the web for a client in Northern Virginia.

2. NEW AND NOTABLE. Based in Oak Brook, IL, the Inland Group of Corporations, which offers brokerage, management and development services, lists five Circuit City stores for sale. Avison Young provides commercial real estate services in Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. The Harry K. Moore company, based in Louisville, KY, provides real estate brokerage services as part of Colliers International. Realtec Commercial Real Estate Services has offices in Fort Collins, Loveland and Greeley in Northern Colorado. Jupiter Western National is a developer and manager of multi-family residential with operations in CA, CO, GA.

3. COUNTY INFORMATION. Last week’s item about finding the county in which a city is located produced a number of interesting alternatives. Yahoo seems to be the best way. Use More Yahoos’ "Get Local" feature to drill down to a city. For complete instructions, go to PikeNet’s home page, click the "Questions…" hyperlink under Toolkits and "How to find which county a city is located in using Yahoo." Thanks to Gary Davis of the Tennessee Department of Economic Development for mentioning this.

The U.S.G.S. operates the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) that can be queried by city to find a county. GNIS contains information on over 2 million cultural and geographic features. Each feature is described by state, county, and geographic coordinates. For complete instructions, go to PikeNet’s home page, click the "Questions…" hyperlink under Toolkits and then "How to find geographical features using the USGS Geographic Names Information System." My thanks to Robert Watts, land economist in Florida, who mentioned this idea to me. You can also go to Robert’s web site where he has posted the search form along with other useful tools.

Tom Wootten of Storage Technology pointed out that the U.S. Postal Service site enables you to look up the county if you have a street address, city and state (you also get the ZIP+4). Terry Dobbins of Dallas likes the "Know the Neighborhood" CD-ROM from Lysias, which contains demographic information and maps.

4. OOPS--THE ULTIMATE IMAGE AD. Jones Lang & Wootton USA ran an 8-page full color advertising supplement in the Real Estate Forum (June 1997) without mentioning its web site address--or phone number. Maybe they want more people to search PikeNet!

5. PIKENET PRESENTATIONS. If you’re in the San Diego area, this coming Saturday, July 5, listen to Robert Griswold of Griswold Real Estate Management interview me on Real Estate Today!, his live show on KSDO, AM 1130, from 2-3 p.m. (the call-in number is 619-560-1130, or toll free 888-440-1130).

Later this year I’ll be speaking at a number of conferences in San Franciso. These include two panel presentations: "Improving Design, Increasing Traffic and Branding" at Real Estate Connect 97 on Friday, July 25, and "How Technology Affects Business Units" at the NACORE Convention on Monday, September 15. Finally, at NAIOP’s Annual Conference on Thursday, October 16, I’ll present two interactive seminars, "Technology for Business Development I and II," featuring multiple computers hooked to the net.

6. HYPERLINK REMINDER. It’s easy to find hyperlinks for all sites and e-mail addresses for most of the persons mentioned in each Dispatch. Click the hyperlink below the list of contents above or paste it in your browser’s address box and you’ll go to a copy of each week’s Dispatch at PikeNet with the hyperlinks built in. Just click the name of the company and you’ll go straight there.

7. SUBSCRIBING AND CANCELING. If you do not want to receive this Dispatch, please reply with "cancel" in the subject field to remove your name. Please include your name and company name in the body of the message. If you know a person who would like to be added to the list, please send e-mail with the word "subscribe" in the title to Peter Pike .

--Peter Pike