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Continuing a long and rich legacy of commercial real estate development

Brian Coyle is the president and CEO of the Henderson Group, a commercial real estate development company based in Media, Pennsylvania. Founded nearly 100 years ago, the company has earned a reputation as a go-to partner for businesses seeking workplace solutions and commercial property in the Greater Philadelphia region and beyond. The Henderson Group currently owns and operates a portfolio of 3.5 million square feet of commercial real estate, as well as 50 acres of developable land.

EDWIN WARFIELD: The Henderson Group recently sold 135 acres to the Philadelphia Airport. What does the airport plan to do with all that land?

BRIAN COYLE: There’s a subtle shift that’s been happening in the air freight area that most people may not be aware of. But if you look at the Philadelphia International Airport, in 2010, when they were completing their capacity enhancement program to try to understand how they were going to grow the airport, they expected that the number of enplanements—or the number of planes taking off and landing—on both a passenger and a freight side was going to grow rather substantially. I can’t attach a number to it, but what we’ve seen over the years is that the number of enplanements has actually stayed the same despite a pretty big increase in cargo freight and air passenger flights, because the planes have just been getting bigger and bigger. And then, within the planes, they’ve been shrinking the footprint of a typical seat. The number of people and the amount of cargo that has moved has increased, but the enplanements—the number of planes actually taking off and landing—has stayed the same.

You might not tap into that from the industrial side very much, except to say that there’s a greater proportion of freight that is now moving through passenger airlines than dedicated freight airlines. So, first UPS has a million square foot distribution facility at the Philadelphia International Airport on the south side of the airport complex, where they operate their own fleet of airplanes that move cargo around. FedEx for a long period of time had planes at the airport that did the same thing, although they didn’t have a dedicated facility nearly as large as UPS. But now that these larger planes are out there, and the airlines are able to move more freight through their system, it’s created a challenge, and now what we’re hearing is Amazon is going to attempt to go head-to-head with UPS and FedEx—be the next step in the logistics system that they just aren’t occupying. So, there are some more developments to play out here.

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ABOUT NEWMARK KNIGHT FRANK

Newmark Knight Frank (NKF) is one of the world's leading commercial real estate advisory firms. Together with London-based partner Knight Frank and independently-owned offices, NKF's 15,000 professionals operate from more than 400 offices in established and emerging property markets on six continents.

With roots dating back to 1929, NKF's strong foundation makes it one of the most trusted names in commercial real estate. NKF's full-service platform comprises BGC's real estate services segment, offering commercial real estate tenants, landlords, investors and developers a wide range of services including leasing; capital markets services, including investment sales, debt placement, appraisal, and valuation services; commercial mortgage brokerage services; as well as corporate advisory services, consulting, project and development management, and property and corporate facilities management services. For further information, visit www.ngkf.com.

NKF is a part of BGC Partners, Inc., a leading global brokerage company servicing the financial and real estate markets. BGC's common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol (NASDAQ: BGCP). BGC also has an outstanding bond issuance of Senior Notes due June 15, 2042, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol (NYSE: BGCA). BGC Partners is led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer  Howard W. Lutnick. For more information, please visit www.bgcpartners.com.

Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

If you're interested in reaching CEOs, please contact edwin.warfield@citybuzz.co

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