the Editors of Commercial Property Executive
Parkway Pockets $25M in Sale of St. Petersburg Office
Parkway Properties Inc. has concluded the $26 million disposition of Wachovia Plaza, a 186,000-square-foot office asset in St. Petersburg, Fla., that the company has owned since 1998. The deal left the REIT with a net $25 million in cash, and included the assignment of the leasehold interest in 240 parking spaces in the neighboring Mid-Core Garage, which is owned by the City of St. Petersburg. Orlando-based CNL Commercial Real Estate is now the new owner of Wachovia Plaza, as per the Tampa Bay Business Journal. Located at 150 Second Ave. North, Wachovia Plaza is a 17-story structure that was developed…
W.P. Carey Closes $58M Sale-Leaseback in Germany
New York City-headquartered W.P. Carey, acting through its publicly held non-traded REITs CPA(R):15 and CPA(R):17 – Global, has completed a sale-leaseback transaction in Germany with U.K.-based automotive supplier Wagon Plc. The properties involved are Wagon’s manufacturing facilities in Waldaschaff and Nagold, and, as per terms of the agreement, W.P. Carey will shell out an additional $10.5 million to facilitate the autotomotive components company’s manufacturing plant expansion plans. In addition to supplying financing to increase the size of its manufacturing plants, the sale-leaseback deal provides Wagon with the financial wiggle room to funnel money into other growth initiatives, and to repay…
Och-Ziff, Kolter in $1B Southeast Residential JV
New York-based Och-Ziff Capital Management Group and Kolter Group of West Palm Beach, Fla., have announced the formation of a $1 billion joint venture that will target residential properties in the Southeast that are at any stage of development, from undeveloped, unentitled land to finished projects.Among Kolter’s affiliates are Kolter Homes, which has since 1993 completed nearly $3 billion in high-rise, low-rise and master-planned communities, and Kolter Commercial, which focuses on office, multi-family and hotel properties. Kolter Commercial’s portfolio currently includes more than 4 million square feet of office space in Toronto, nearly 2 million square feet of office space…
Icahn Nabs AT&T’s Dallas HQ in Sale-Leaseback
Transferring its headquarters from San Antonio to Dallas, telecom giant AT&T Inc. has moved into a 37-story high-rise and sold the building in a sale-leaseback deal to Icahn Enterprises for an undisclosed amount. The new headquarters (pictured) had been owned by Southwestern Bell, a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T. The 1 million-square-foot building was originally constructed in 1982 and was acquired by Southwestern Bell purchased the building in 1985. Icahn Enterprises representatives declined comment on the deal, but an AT&T spokesperson confirmed the sale to Icahn, telling CPN, “This is a sale lease-back, which is very common for us. We’ve…
220-Acre Mixed-Use in Works Near University of Missouri
A 220-acre parcel near the University of Missouri’s Discovery Ridge research park in Columbia is on tap to sprout a gargantuan mixed-use project. Forum Development Group, the owner of the land, recently wrapped up a pre-application meeting with the city’s Planning and Development Department, where the Atlanta-based real estate company presented a proposal for a multi-phase project that would ultimately encompass approximately 1.5 to 2 million square feet of commercial and residential offerings. The project, called Discovery, will be directly accessible via the Discovery Parkway–previously known as the Gans Road Interchange–off Highway 63. “We had a concept meeting, which is…
ProLogis Expands Industrial Portfolio in Mexico
ProLogis plans to develop approximately 500,000 square feet of industrial warehouse space in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The firm is now beginning phase one of the development at ProLogis Park Centro Industrial Juarez in Ciudad Juarez.The total build-out will include three buildings, which will total approximately 500,000 square feet, and also the completion of infrastructure for an additional six buildings. Construction is underway, and is expected to be completed in early 2009.Light manufacturing and assembly operations are continuing to be developed in Ciudad Juarez thanks to its its strategic location by the Mexico-United States border, according to a statement by Silvano…
Spear Street Takes Austin Office Portfolio
San Francisco-based Spear Street Capital has acquired an office property portfolio consisting of Riata Corporate Park and Riata Crossing in Austin. The complex includes 13 buildings totaling about 1.1 million square feet in the northwest submarket of that city, not far from the JJ Pickle Research Campus of the University of Texas at Austin, a center for electronic, aerospace, mechanical, petroleum and environmental-health engineering research. The tenant base of the Riata complex, which all together is about 98 percent occupied, likewise sports a good many tech-oriented companies, including Apple Inc., ACS–an information technology company–and Nvidia, a specialist in visual computing…
Shares of Fannie, Freddie Down Again
Shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plummeted yet again today on renewed fears of the possibility that the government may be forced to bail out the beleaguered institutions. Shares of both Fannie and Freddie were down 27 percent in trading on the New York Stock Exchange this afternoon, continuing a slide which saw each already down some 20 percent thus far this week, and a staggering 90 percent so far this year after being stung by the subprime mortgage crisis and housing slowdown. Given the importance of the two agencies to the American housing market–Fannie and Freddie together own…
U.S. Hotel Deals Down 81 Percent Mid-2008: JLL Report
The volume of U.S. hotel transactions for the first six months of 2008 plunged 81 percent from the year-ago period, to $6 billion, according to a Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels report. The firm based the conclusion on its proprietary database, which tracks transactions $10 million deals and above. In the first quarter 2008 transaction volume was relatively stronger at $3.4 billion. The second quarter saw just $2.6 billion in deal closings. “Illiquid debt markets and economic uncertainty have U.S. investors generally taking a “wait and see” approach,” said Arthur Adler, managing director & CEO-Americas for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels said…
Experts: Lehman RE Sale Could Be Major Opportunity
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s sale of its commercial real estate assets may entice opportunity funds with the patience to wait for a positive turn in the real estate cycle, according to two real estate professionals. According to media reports, Lehman is looking to peddle about $14 billion of its $40 billion in commercial property and securities. A group that includes BlackRock Inc. is negotiating with Lehman to buy the assets, according to a report last week from Bloomberg. “Lehman has an awful lot of real estate that is clogging up their balance sheet, and they have to get rid of…