A symposium to help European executives understand the Americas’ commercial real estate market is an opportunity to market Arizona.

Can Arizona get European commercial property decision-makers to take a look at our state for expansion or relocation?

Commercial Real Estate Group of Tucson will find out when we attend the Global 2012 Corporate Real  Estate Symposium.

The Sept. 12 event in London, “Doing Business in the Americas,” will educate European company executives and their internal real estate site selectors on the American commercial property market.

One component will cover facility-specific issues such as availability, build-to-suit and leasing vs. ownership.

The other component, and the one we think is most crucial for us, is the panel of economic development executives from North, Central and South America.

Part of the moderated discussion will focus on the many incentives that jurisdictions provide to companies expanding into their regions. And we can listen to what issues are important to European companies as they try to find commercial real estate in our part of the world.

Arizona’s Image

Based on last year’s “Pollina Corporate Top 10 Pro-Business States for 2011,” Arizona has a lot of work to do in economic development. Its grade for incentive programs was a “D.” Overall, the state earned a “C” grade and ranked as the 21^st pro-business state.

That means we won’t have a stellar product to present at this symposium. But we do have some advantages to point to, including positive business tax positions and growth in specialty industries, including aerospace, defense and bioscience.

CNBC ranks Arizona among the top five friendliest states for business and tops for our workforce quality and availability. “Business Facilities” has ranked Arizona as the top state in solar energy manufacturing. Arizona has lots of citations like these and we’ll point out as many as possible.

Arizona’s Presence

Among the symposium’s sponsors are the Missouri Partnership, Nebraska and Ontario, Canada. Missouri and Nebraska are among the top 10 states in the Pollina report.

Planning to join our small contingent is our colleague in Phoenix, Gordon Rasmussen, CCIM.

Rasmussen wants to convey the message that Arizona recognizes the need to actively attract businesses. “Overall, the attitude is that we need to improve a lot of things,” observes Rasmussen, “and I think we’re doing it.”

We would welcome any Arizona economic development group, government or private, to join us in making the case for Arizona. In any case, we’ll do our best to represent Arizona and talk up our product.

Will it be enough to stir some interest among European corporate executives? We’ll see.

Commercial Real Estate Group of Tucson specializes in representing tenants and corporate users across the United States. For more information call 520-299-3400.