the Editors of Commercial Property Executive
NetLease Q&A: Corporate Partners Capital Group’s Sands Sees Healthy One-Off Deals, Approaching Market Equilibrium
Net-lease sales may be down from those easy-credit days before the summer of 2007, but Howard Sands, founding principle of Los Angeles-based Corporate Partners Capital Group Inc., thinks that the lower deal volume still includes a good many relatively healthy net-lease transactions. As both sellers’ and buyers’ expectations come closer together, the market is approaching a new equilibrium, he says. Sands’ own company, which engages in both single-asset and portfolio net-lease transactions, has been an active participant in the market itself recently, typically buying one-off net-lease properties ranging from $5 million to $100 million and portfolios of up to $300…
Duke to Build $55M Office Campus for GE Aviation in Cincinnati Suburb
Duke Realty Corp. has started construction of a $55 million, 403,800-square-foot office campus for GE Aviation in West Chester, Ohio, as the aviation company seeks to consolidate its office space in the Cincinnati region. The 43-acre campus will include two, four-story, L-shaped buildings which will be 201,900 square feet each. The site, off Union Centre Blvd. just east of Interstate-75, also has room for GE Aviation to expand in the future. Site work has already begun at the property, which Duke bought last year, a Duke spokesperson told CPN. The property was formerly the Queen City Sports Complex. In addition…
LaSalle Closes Third Asia Opportunity Fund
The LaSalle Asia Opportunity Fund III has closed with the raising of some $3 billion focused on real estate investments in the developed nations of Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and mainland China. The fund was launched last year by LaSalle Investment Management, and with leverage will represent buying power of $10 billion to $12 billion. According to the company, it expects its assets under management in Asia to roughly double in the next three years, as it invests the new opportunity fund. Currently, LaSalle has about $11 billion in Asian property under management, much of which…
Report Cites Building Materials in Monte Carlo Fire
More than seven months after a fire at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, news has emerged that the exterior wall claddings at the property did not meet the building code at the time of original construction in 1996. Fire protection and engineering firm Hughes Associates Inc. prepared a report for the Clark County Development Services’ building division to assist in determining the materials that were involved in the Jan. 25. The fire, which was started by workmen on the roof area, spread over the upper portion of the exterior wall claddings on the south and west…
Entertainment, Electronic Gaming Firms Boost Play in Los Angeles Office Market
Los Angeles’ newest “it” industry may sport companies with unfamiliar names, but Charles Dunn Co. senior managing director Eugene Page is glad they are calling Los Angeles home. While some financial services firms are returning space to the market, electronic-gaming firms and entertainment companies continue to take down significant chunks of Los Angeles office space. “These electronic-gaming companies are creating a lot of jobs,” Page said. A year ago, he knows of a Korean computer-gaming firm that leased a 23,000-square-foot floor to a company that employed two people. A year later, the company’s staffers fill the entire floor. And Fox Interactive Media…
What’s Your Next Move?
The real estate landscape has changed drastically since the middle of 2007, and economic conditions are unlikely to permit improvement in the near future. The minimally active finance market, corporate cutbacks and other fallout make doing business difficult at best and have affected some companies gravely. Of course, many a real estate executive has found opportunity in such markets, but timing is everything, and the national economy is volatile enough to throw off even the most seasoned economist’s predictions.Fortunately, there is more than a little truth to the old axiom that history repeats itself, suggesting it is possible to draw…
A New Game
The shift into September signals the commencement of the next business season—a good time for new beginnings. CPN celebrates this with our new format.The new CPN is designed to meet your needs, providing information and perspective you’ve told us you require most to grow your business in today’s tough market and succeed in any economic climate. You’ll find more specific and relevant data, more analysis, more research and more involvement from the industry’s most respected economists and analysts.CPN will continue to be forward looking, actively seeking and identifying emerging trends and delivering the type of information you need to make…
MetraMarket Bags $25M Construction Loan
Despite a difficult environment for accessing debt for commercial real estate projects, about $25 million in construction financing has been secured for MetraMarket, a retail development in Chicago’s West Loop. U.S. Equities Realty, the project’s Chicago-based developer, says that the 100,000-square-foot MetraMarket (pictured) will get under way sometime next month. Located within the Ogilvie Transportation Center complex–also known as Northwestern Station–the development will sport street-level shops and restaurants in two currently underutilized city blocks between Washington, Lake, Canal and Clinton streets. The development will be under the 16 rail lines of the station, which are elevated at that point. Ogilvie…
Clark Forges Ahead with $134M Contract for Student Housing Project in L.A.
Clark Construction Group-California has commenced work on University Gateway, a 421-unit mixed-use student housing development in Los Angeles, just across from the University of Southern California. Operating under a $134 million contract, Clark is building the project on behalf of Urban Partners L.L.C., which, along with equity associates Real Estate Capital Partners and Blackstone Real Estate Advisors, secured a construction loan and joint venture equity for the upscale project totaling $167.5 million in late July. Commercial real estate and capital markets services provider Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P. orchestrated the financing deal, securing the fully underwritten construction loan from Wells Fargo’s…
Catskills Hotel Project Gets $525M in Redevelopment Funding
Redevelopment of the site that was once home to the Borscht Belt’s legendary Concord Hotel, in Kiamesha Lake, N.Y., has taken two major steps forward. In one, Concord Associates L.P., joint venture partner of Empire Resorts Inc., has completed a $225 million equity loan financing with Entertainment Properties Trust, a REIT based in Kansas City. In the other, the County of Sullivan (N.Y.) Industrial Development Agency has announced a $300 million bond financing for the resort’s redevelopment, the agency’s first major funding for the $1.1 billion project. In its prime, the Concord Hotel was one of the largest in the…