No. 10: Michael McGuinness

McGuinness heads NAIOP’s New Jersey chapter, the trade group for the state’s commercial real estate industry. Amid the turmoil of the past two years, NAIOP hosted webinars on how the industry could navigate the pandemic and plan for a post-COVID world where businesses opt to keep the telecommuting arrangements in place. Those programs covered everything from new amenities to offer and how to handle building maintenance, all while accounting for sanitization and 6-foot physical distancing.

As the industrial marketplace continues its meteoric growth, McGuinness finds himself at the center of the action. “New Jersey is both a logistics state and a home rule state, and that has consequences,” he told NJBIZ in the wake of a move by some legislators to reign in the activity.

“It is likely that a streamlined regional planning approach could better address local concerns, but given our location, wealth and population density, New Jersey is both the first and last mile in the bullseye for the explosion in consumer-driven demand for warehouse and distribution centers,” McGuinness said.

Nationwide, NAIOP conducts surveys of their members on how they have fared during the pandemic. Those polls delved into the exact source of the economic pain they’ve felt during the pandemic from rent relief orders, financial woes among tenants and delays arising from red tape.

The input from members will be key to gauging how businesses can safely open and stay afloat during the pandemic and a potentially sluggish economic recovery.