Making their mark: some of the winners in the commercial real-estate game share the keys to surviving the cycles.

• Position: North Carolina

One North Commerce Center, with its plantings, green spaces and keen attention to aesthetics, was ahead of its time. "We started that in 1980 before there was such a thing as highly landscaped, architecturally interesting office projects in Raleigh," says Carlton Midyette, president of Carolantic Realty.

But today when the Raleigh native, who has been in commercial real estate 27 years, heads down Capital Boulevard and sees the complex, which Highwoods Properties recently acquired, he's pleased with more than its enduring attractiveness to tenants. "It's still an interesting, tax-paying, successful part of the community. I'm proud when one of our projects ceases to be a real-estate development and simply becomes part of the fabric of the community," he says.

Every weekday, 1.8 million North Carolinians, nearly half the state's 3.7 million work force, go to work in offices that are part of the fabric of their communities. The fortunate among them work in an estimated 30 million square feet of Class A office buildings, the equivalent of 25 shopping centers the size of Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh.

The offices are varied. Some rise above downtowns. Charlotte has the 60-story NationsBank Corporate Center, developed by Lincoln Property Co., Childress Klein Properties' 42-story One First Union Center and Faison & Associates' 32-story Interstate Tower. Other buildings stand out in less-developed areas, such as Samet Corp.'s One Piedmont Center in High Point, four stories of brick and glass and stainless-steel arches.

As you'd expect, the projects in smaller towns are typically smaller. One example is the new Peoples Bank Plaza in Hickory, a three-story, $3 million complex by Adams-Wells Commercial Real Estate Services.

Successful developers don't have much in common when it comes to projects. But they share a lot of traits, say researchers, lenders and others who have pinpointed the developers who shaped North Carolina's skylines and suburbs in the '80s and '90s.

One nearly universal characteristic is good timing - the ability to home in on a market, define it better than their competitors and get there first. Another is unusual attentiveness to tenant needs. Relationships are also important.

"When we look at a project, obviously financial wherewithal and experience are critical," says James Barber, executive vice president of Dickinson, Logan, Todd & Barber Inc. in the mortgage-banking company's Greensboro office. "But we also look at reputation and whether a company can start something, complete it and then perform for the tenant. A continuous commitment to excellence puts successful companies above the others."

Eric Karnes, president of Karnes Research Co., a real-estate research firm in Charlotte and Raleigh, says Tar Heel developers benefit from one of the nation's strongest office markets. For example, a tenant at Crescent Resources Inc.'s Three Coliseum Centre in suburban Charlotte, Coltec Inc., recently moved from Manhattan. Downtown, Trammell Crow's 30-story, $116 million 201 North Tryon project is "the tallest steel-frame building going up on the East Coast right now," local President Jim Apple notes.

In Greensboro, The Koury Corp.'s 1,400-acre Grandover project will feature 2.4 million square feet of offices, says Gene Tillman, commercial properties vice president. In late January, LADD Furniture Inc. announced it is moving its corporate headquarters to a 75,000-square-foot, three-story building there. Koury Corp. will lease about 25,000 square feet of that to another tenant. The building is near the new headquarters of the Atlantic Coast Conference and will push Koury's office inventory to more than 1 million square feet.

Vacancy...