The U.S. relied on
the members of
S.I.R. to find and
either buy or lease
the manufacturing
and distribution
space needed to
fight and win World
War II. No other
organization will
ever be able to
make that claim.
industrial land and building resources for
defense purposes, industrial real estate
specialist throughout the country are now
forming an American Society of Industrial
Realtors and will hold their first meeting in
Washington, D.C. Jan. 10, 1041. It went on to
read “plans for the new organization have
been completed in Chicago by a committee
headed by Joseph Greenberg … and district
organization is planned in each of eleven
industrial regions of the country.”
Beginning January 10, 1941, through
October of that year, the organizing committee hosted meetings in the Mayflower Hotel
in D.C. to assist a nation-wide exchange of
listings of industrial properties available
for both defense work and normal plant
purposes. They assembled a listing file of
over 10,000 available industrial buildings
encompassing millions of square feet
of space.
The U.S. relied on these future SIR members to find and either buy or lease the
manufacturing and distribution space
needed to fight and win World War II. No
other organization will ever be able to
make that claim.
On a lighter note, it was good that SIR did
not choose the alternate name proposed
when our members were surveyed on
March 6, 1941, by our first EVP, Henry
Price. Can you imagine if our name was the
“Industrial Real Estate Society” (the IRS)?
By April 1941 the organization of SIR was
complete and Walter S. Schmidt (Cincinnati)
was elected our first president. SIR had 12
vice presidents and 14 governing councillors (we clearly had not learned the value
of a small board of directors).
In its first year, SIR mailed its membership
roster (which had grown to a 224 – our
“Charter Members”) to over 7,500 manufacturers, industrial agents, government
officials, chambers of commerce, etc. The
Charter Members were from 26 states
(one from Toronto) were segmented into
Districts I through XII, and were joined by
nine firm affiliates (corporate representatives).
