the Editors of Commercial Property Executive
JV Investment Boosts $3.4B India Mixed-Use Portfolio
In return for $126 million and change, Tel Aviv, Israel-based Elbit Imaging Ltd. has forked over part of its stake in a $3.4 billion mixed-use project portfolio in India via a new joint venture agreement. It’s a family arrangement, however. The investment comes from Elbit Imaging subsidiary Plaza Centers N.V., an emerging markets property developer focusing on projects in Central and Eastern Europe and in India. The deal leaves Plaza with a 47.5 percent ownership of Elbit India Real Estate Holdings Ltd., which owns interests in the aforementioned mixed-use development endeavors. Plaza actually contributed a minuscule amount for ownership of…
Fund Invests $44M in Texas, Ohio Student Housing
The Place/BV Student Housing Fund L.L.C. continues to make investments in student housing facilities across the United States, with two more announced today. The properties will be developed in Texas and Ohio for $44 million with completion set for next summer. La Cantera Place will be the fund’s second asset in the San Antonio, Texas, market and will serve students at the University of Texas, San Antonio. The fund’s first asset, Hill Country Place, opened this month and is 98 percent leased. USTA is one of the state’s largest and fastest growing campuses, with an enrollment increase of 1,500 students…
Conoco to Sell Gas Stations for $800M
ConocoPhillips has reveled plans to sell 600 company-owned gas stations across the nation to PetroSun West in an $800 million deal that will mark the firm’s exit from the volatile retail gas business. Houston-based Conoco operates gas stations under the Conoco, Phillips 66 and 76 brands in the West and Midwest. The firm is the latest gas company to divest itself of its service stations. With ballooning crude oil prices, profit margins have shrunk even with high prices at the pump. In June, Exxon Mobil Corp. announced plans to sell off its 2,200 stations, and BP Plc. also plans to…
First Segment of $925M Mohegan Sun Casino Expansion Wraps Up
The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, owner of Uncasville, Conn.’s Mohegan Sun, a 3 million-square-foot casino entertainment destination and one of only two authorized gaming operations in New England, has just completed the first phase of its $925 million Project Horizon expansion endeavor. The new addition to the 240-acre property is the 64,000-square-foot Casino of the Wind, which cost $116 million to complete. Situated along Southeastern Connecticut’s Thames River on the Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut’s 405-acre reservation, Mohegan Sun first opened its doors in 1996 and underwent two major expansions prior to Project Horizon. Ground broke on Project Horizon’s…
A&B Sells Austin-Area Retail Center, Eyes Savannah Industrial Market
A&B Properties Inc. has sold Boardwalk Shopping Center–a 184,600-square-foot retail center on 21 acres in the Austin submarket of Round Rock, Texas–with intent to reinvest the proceeds in another the burgeoning Savannah, Georgia, industrial market. A&B Properties, the real estate subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin Inc., sold Boardwalk Shopping Center to affiliates of Gemini Real Estate Advisors L.L.C.. A&B plans to apply the proceeds as part of its Section 1031 reinvestments program to a previously acquired logistics warehouse facility in Savannah with the balance to be reinvested in other replacement properties. Among A&B’s Savannah industrial properties are 1020 and 1024…
Kolter Group is Latest Commercial RE Player to Embrace Residential
It isn’t necessarily a trend, but it’s likely more than coincidence that the Kolter Group, West Palm Beach, Fla., is the second largely commercial real estate company in the past couple of weeks to announce a big financial commitment to the distressed residential market. Kolter and Och-Ziff Capital Management Group L.L.C., New York, announced the formation of a $1 billion joint venture that will target residential properties in the Southeast that are at any stage of development. Och-Ziff is a leading global institutional alternative asset management firm, with about $30 billion of assets under management as of late 2007. This…
Urban Wind Power: Just a Lot of Air?
Hot on the heels of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s call to install wind turbines on the city’s high-rises and bridges as part of a green-energy plan, a California company has offered to donate a wind turbine to the city to demonstrate that the idea is indeed workable. Marquiss Wind Power, of Folsom, Calif., manufactures a patented ducted wind turbine (pictured) that little resembles the 200- to 300-foot-high turbines used in major wind farms. Marquiss’s Aeropoint turbines are in fact specifically intended for use on commercial and industrial buildings. According to information from Marquiss, its roof-top turbines are 19…
Hospitality Q&A: PKF Capital’s Eaton Says Industry Must Reinvent Wheel
With a nearly 80 percent drop in hotel transaction volume compared to last year, many industry observers wonder when hotel sales volume will begin to rebound. Bob Eaton, addressing a conference sponsored by Hospitality Advisors in Honolulu recently, called on the hotel finance industry to “reinvent the wheel.” The executive managing director of PKF Capital, Inc., which provides real estate investment advisory services to the hospitality and leisure industries, recently talked about the environment for hotel financing, and what it will take to break the logjam. CPNHospitality: You have said the hotel finance industry must “reinvent the wheel.” What should…
Dallas Keynote Sees Continued Movement to Urban Living
Demographic factors, rising gas prices and changes in Dallas zoning laws have all combined to create a movement toward revitalizing Dallas Fort Worth’s urban core, according to Ted Hamilton (pictured), president of Hamilton Properties, who keynoted this morning’s CPN-sponsored Dallas-Fort Worth Property Opportunities Conference.Hamilton, whose company specializes in converting historic, vacant buildings into modern multi-family and hotel projects, said that Dallas is following a nationwide trend of migration back into urban centers. He noted that this in-migration has proved truly revolutionary in Dallas, which as recently as 1997 had but a single Downtown multi-family property. In 2007 and 2008, Hamilton…
Emeritus to Lease 11 Seniors Housing Properties from HCP
Assisted living services provider Emeritus Corp. will soon bring a new group of seniors housing properties under its umbrella now that it has signed an agreement with affiliates of HCP Inc. to lease 11 communities accounting for an aggregate 1,462 units in six states from California to Massachusetts. The lease carries a 10-year term and allows Emeritus the option to acquire the assets during the period commencing with the close of the fifth year of the lease until its expiration. If the company decides to acquire the portfolio, the price tag will be a minimum $300 million. California, Connecticut, Massachusetts,…