the Editors of Commercial Property Executive
Users Snap Up 1.2M SF of Diminishing Industrial Space in Silicon Valley
Demand for industrial product in Northern California’s Silicon Valley remains strong, as evidenced by real estate services firm Colliers International’s closing of 1.2 million square feet in new and expanded leases over the last two months. As per a Colliers report, Silicon Valley’s industrial market closed the year in 2007 with an overall availability rate of just under 7.7 percent. And during the first quarter, the warehouse and manufacturing properties kept the numbers down with average vacancy rates of 4.7 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively, according to a report by real estate services firm NAI BT commercial. The deals Colliers just…
Casden’s Los Angeles M-F Development Leasing Up
Palazzo Westwood Village in the heart of Westwood Village of Los Angeles is leasing quickly and expected to be full by the end of the year. A total of 350 rental town homes are now occupied.Retailers have signed on for most of the commercial space along Glendon Avenue. Trader Joe’s and Rite Aid are two anchors. Also scheduled to open this summer are Pastagina, Jersey Mike’s Subs and It’s a Grind coffee.Created by Casden Properties, Palazzo Westwood Village embraces the architectural tradition of Westwood with its Spanish revival design.It has integrated the controversial Glendon Manor, a building considered historically significant,…
First Financial Markets $400M in M-F Loans
It’s a sign of the times. Acting on behalf of a top banking institution, First Financial Network Inc. has just commenced an offering of more than $400 million in real estate loans on multi-family properties in the South and Southeast.”The offering is the largest whole loan offering comprised solely of this product type so far this year,” Merrie Duncan, FFN director of marketing, told CPN today.Most of the 44 loans involved in the offering are secured by properties in Florida–including condominiums, apartments and developable land–with the remaining few situated in North Carolina and Tennessee. in North Carolina and Tennessee. “The…
Boston Agency Approves $300M Mixed-Use Research Facility in Medical Enclave
Plans for the development of the Longwood Center, a 350,000-square-foot mixed-use research center at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, move forward as the Boston Redevelopment Authority gives the green light to the joint venture behind the $300 million endeavor. Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc., Charles River Realty Investors and National Development are the developers of the Longwood Center, which will sit within the 200-acre Longwood Medical Area, an enclave of hospitals, biomedical research centers and educational institutions about three miles from Downtown Boston. The state-of-the-art building will occupy a one-acre parcel that the joint venture acquired from the Harvard…
NetLease Q & A: New TIC Structures Proposed by Prudential Rand’s Rand
Since the beginning of the subprime meltdown, various proposals have been made at various levels to ameliorate the crisis, and by extension, the sorry state of the residential market. Interestingly, one idea involves borrowing a page from the tenant-in-common market, and the idea is so new that it doesn’t really have an agreed upon name. Instead of foreclosing on a residential property – anything from single-family to owner-occupied multifamily properties – a lender becomes fractional owners in the property with a borrower who can afford a reduced mortgage payment. The lender receives a piece of equity and the borrower still…
Energy Firm Renews, Expands Houston Lease
As the energy business continues to grow in Houston, Enbridge Energy Partners L.P.– operator of the world’s longest crude oil and liquids pipeline system–have added to their Houston office space at the 1100 Louisiana building with a long-term lease renewal and expansion. Enbridge renewed their current lease of 220,000 square feet and expanded to 264,400 square feet with the addition of two floors. Other terms of the lease were not disclosed.“This was an early renewal and expansion for Enbridge. Given their size, it necessitates being out in the market a little early,” Kyle Kelley, senior vice president with CB Richard…
Tribune Nabs 8 Newspaper HQs for $175M
Tribune Co. has bought eight office properties used by its newspapers around the United States in a like-kind exchange for $175 million from TMCT L.L.C.The transaction will save the media company $24 million a year it would otherwise have paid to lease properties where newspapers including the Los Angeles Times,Newsday, Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant have their operations.The company received the option to buy the properties–which total 2.9 million square feet of office space–for $175 million as a result of the 2006 restructuring of TMCT, as CPN reported on Jan. 31. The deal is structured as a like-kind exchange with…
Rezoning Approval Pushes Forward $1.8B Canada Mixed-Use Project
The process of rezoning a nearly 14-acre parcel that is currently home to two retail centers in Colwood, Victoria, Canada progresses to the final stage, thereby paving the way for the development of a high density mixed-use project. League Assets Corp. and Turner Lane Development Corp. are partners on Colwood City Centre, which will cost an estimated $1.8 billion to complete at full build-out.The Colwood City Council presided over the final public hearing on the project (pictured) last night, wrapping up the third step in a four-pronged rezoning process that will allow for the development of retail, office, lodging and…
Proposed Merger of Altus, Integra Will Benefit Both
The proposed merger, officially announced yesterday, of Altus Group Income Fund and Integra Realty Resources will likely be a strong move forward for both parties. Altus, a dominant international real estate consulting entity, has entered into a non-binding letter of intent to acquire Integra for a consideration expected to consist of cash and equity, according to a prepared statement, with some of the cash raised through bank financing. Though Altus is somewhat larger, the two firms are roughly similar. Altus has 1,100 employees in 31 offices in 23 Canadian cities and six offices in the U.K. Founded in 1999, Integra…
St. Louis Office Market Relatively Buoyant
Vacancy rates in the metro St. Louis office market have actually decreased in the first quarter of 2008, according to a new report by CB Richard Ellis Inc., despite more difficult times in the nationwide commercial real estate market. The area’s industrial market, however, showed a rise in availability rates, according to the report. Metro St. Louis’ overall vacancy was 14.54 percent, down somewhat from the fourth-quarter 2007 vacancy rate of 14.99 percent. The report noted that the South County submarket had the lowest vacancy rate, at 8.87 percent, including a 4.24 percent vacancy rate in the Class A sector….