A presidential election year is a natural time for optimism. But, with the recovery in such a fragile state, many crucial issues may be left dangling until next January. By Suzann Silverman.

To get through this period of economic uncertainty, it’s gonna take money—patient capital; capital invested for the long haul—to do it right in the cut-throat competition of U.S. retailing and the stores sector of the property market. By Hugh F. Kelly, PhD, CRE.

Is retail a victim of the Internet and heading the way of the horse and buggy? While big-box stores have been hit hard by both technological and economic trends, net-lease players still report that closings for single-tenant properties have been muted. By Keat Foong.

While many new-wave technologies are emerging that have potential to help commercial property executives reduce building energy consumption in coming years, some older mechanisms are seeing a revival. One such alternative is exterior insulation and finish systems, or EIFS. By Brad Berton.

Technology is already revolutionizing workers’ relationship to the office, and commercial real estate is going to need to balance the demands of IT and emerging technologies with the benefits of face-to-face interaction.

Commercial window experts have great expectations for a budding technology known as “dynamic electrochromic glazing” for window glass, which allow allows property operators to optimize solar heat gain for prevailing conditions without losing daylighting benefits.

It might seem as if property managers ran through their entire bag of cost-cutting tricks during the past couple of years, but property managers are turning to alternative means of saving dollars, including energy audits, renegotiation of contracts and tax savings.

Along with multi-family, could the net-lease sector be the next big winner in 2012? While there are still deals to be found, it remains to be seen if investors decide to sign up for the ride once again.

While there is optimism in the market for 2012, there is still hesitation – and those negative factors include debt availability, the tightening of the CMBS market and the need to resolve distressed debt.

Associations need to keep pace with their constituencies’ ever-evolving needs, and to meet those demands, groups are looking at new communication channels, re-examining their programs and rolling out new offerings.