BETHESDA, Md., Feb. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Andrew C. Florance -- founder, president and CEO of CoStar Group, Inc. -- is being honored today as Public Company Trendsetter of the Year by Transwestern during the Trendlines 2007 real estate conference in the nation's capital. This prestigious award recognizes Florance for revolutionizing the way the commercial real estate industry gathers, analyzes and uses mission-critical property and market information. Under his leadership, CoStar has become the number one provider of researched and verified information services to commercial real estate professionals throughout the United States and parts of the United Kingdom.
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"I'm deeply honored to receive this award from Transwestern," said Florance. "It's extremely gratifying to see a vision we mapped out 20 years ago for making the commercial real estate markets work more efficiently become such a successful reality. Little did I know 20 years ago that, in the process of solving an information problem for our industry, we'd be supporting over $378 billion in leasing and sales transactions across the United States and United Kingdom today."
"It seems only fitting that, as CoStar celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, we honor Andy's entrepreneurial spirit and success in launching a company that has evolved into the unquestioned market leader in commercial real estate information services," said Tom Nordlinger, president of Transwestern's Mid-Atlantic division. "His vision 20 years ago transformed the way our industry operates today, making it possible to access information on every type of commercial real estate property anywhere, anytime. In the process, CoStar has become our industry's leading provider for web-based real estate intelligence."
While still an undergraduate at Princeton University, Florance set out in 1987 to create commercial real estate's first truly centralized, interactive marketplace for commercial property information. Today, CoStar is the leading provider of web-based information services to more than 55,000 industry professionals -- from brokers, property owners and developers to lenders, retailers, appraisers and financial institutions -- in 66 U.S. markets and throughout parts of the United Kingdom. The company provides subscribers with the largest inventory of fully researched and verified for-lease and for-sale availabilities and comparable property sales covering over 37 billion square feet and more than 2 million commercial properties of all classes and types -- office, industrial, retail, land, mixed-use, hospitality and multifamily. This massive online database is continually updated by more than 1,300 professional researchers who personally gather and verify hundreds of commercial property details by phone and in the field using a fleet of high- tech mobile units, through courthouse research, door-to-door tenant canvassing, sophisticated aerial and architectural photography and satellite mapping systems.
Florance has received numerous other awards for innovation and industry leadership, including Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2000 for pioneering work in real estate information services and the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties' prize for a white paper that examined the potential impacts of 9-11 on tall and trophy office buildings.
He is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, serves on the board of the American Real Estate Society, an association of real estate thought leaders as well as on the board of The St. Andrews School.
About Transwestern's Trendsetter of the Year Award
Since 1998, Transwestern and their affiliate, Delta Associates, have honored an individual, or individuals, who have made a noteworthy contribution to the commercial real estate industry as a whole, and to the Washington metropolitan area in particular, in both the public and private sectors. Transwestern is a privately held, national commercial real estate firm focused on creating value for their clients in each local market they serve throughout the U.S. For more information, visit transwestern.net.
About CoStar Group, Inc.
CoStar Group, Inc. is the number one provider of information services to commercial real estate professionals in the United States and the United Kingdom. CoStar's suite of services offers customers access via the Internet to the most comprehensive database of commercial real estate information on 66 U.S. markets and parts of the United Kingdom. Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, the company has approximately 1,300 employees throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, including the largest professional research organization in the industry.
Note to Editors: A high-res photo of Andrew Florance can be downloaded from the "Management Team" section of CoStar's corporate site at http://www.costar.com/Corporate/PressKit/
This news release includes "forward-looking statements" including, without limitation, statements regarding CoStar's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. These statements are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. More information about potential factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward- looking statements include, but are not limited to, those stated in CoStar's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including CoStar's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2005 and CoStar's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2006, under the heading "Risk Factors." In addition to these statements, there can be no assurance that CoStar makes it possible to access information on every type of commercial real estate property anywhere, anytime. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to CoStar on the date hereof, and CoStar assumes no obligation to update such statements.
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