the Editors of Commercial Property Executive
Oakmont Nabs Development Rights for Jacksonville Industrial Project
Schafer Development has sold the development rights to its New Berlin Commerce Park in Jacksonville, Fla., to Oakmont Real Estate. Oakmont, based in Georgia, plans to construct a 386,000-square-foot LEED approved facility, scheduled for completion in 2008, on the 75-acre parcel. The New Berlin Commerce Park parcel was assembled by Schafer Development and will provide an additional 1 million square feet of industrial office space to meet increasing demand in the region. Schafer acquired four separate tracts of land and spearheaded rezoning for each parcel from residential to industrial. New Berlin marks Schafer’s second large-scale industrial development in Florida, having already completed…
Hines to Open 2 Logistics Parks in Brazil
The São Paulo office of Hines has announced the start of a Brazilian investment program to acquire or develop strategically located logistics parks on major highway intersections in various cities to serve the needs of logistics and transportation clients. Currently, the firm has five logistics parks underway or completed in Louveira, Araucaria, Rio, Embu and Manaus. Hines plans to develop an additional 14 parks over the course of the next three years. Hines has just has broken ground on two: Louveira Swans Industrial Park and Cajamar Distribution Park, two speculative modular warehousing projects in Louveira, a suburb of São Paulo.The…
Medical Properties Trust Wraps Up $168M Purchase of 10 HCP Properties
Medical Properties Trust Inc. has just taken another step in its multi-phase acquisition of a 21-property healthcare center portfolio from HCP Inc. with the closing of the purchase of 10 facilities for $168 million.The group of assets Medical Properties has just claimed as its own consists of Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital in Wichita, Kans.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.’s Sunrise Rehabilitation Hospital; Pioneer Valley Hospital in West Valley City, Utah; Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center in Poplar Bluff, Mo.; as well as six wellness centers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.Completion of the transaction comes on the heels of the closing of Medical…
Tower to Rise in Warsaw, Said E.U.’s Tallest
The B.S.R. Group has announced plans to build the tallest tower in the European Union in Warsaw, Poland. Initial plans for the Lilium Tower, designed by architect Zaha Hadid, call for the building to be approximately 800 feet tall, comprised of 70 stories. Plans for the building call for half the units to be residential and the other half to be condominium hotel units. Restaurants and retail units will make up the ground floor of the building and below.The Lilium Tower, upon its completion, will become the European Union’s largest structure, The B.S.R. Groups’ chairman Kalman Sufrin, noted in a…
Morgan Stanley RE Closes Third Phase of $5.9B Fund
Morgan Stanley Real Estate has announced the closing of the third offering for its Special Situations Fund III; the offering raised $2.5 billion of equity commitments, bringing the fund to a total of $5.9 billion. In all, 63 percent of the third offering came from investors based outside the United States, according to a prepared statement, and Morgan Stanley itself represents 23 percent of the total commitments. Structured as an open-ended fund, Special Situations III primarily targets “non-controlling investments in an array of real estate securities in growth/emerging, developed and distressed markets around the world,” according to the statement. As…
Goldman Sachs, L&M Launch Investment Fund for Urban Housing Projects
GSLM Capital Partners L.L.C., an investment entity involving Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group and L&M Development Partners Inc., has been created for the launching of a new $100 million investment fund that will target mixed-income housing projects in various well-populated and ethnically diverse markets across the United States.The fund’s $100 million, which will be leveraged, will likely be invested over a period of approximately three to four years. Of particular interest to GSLM will be Metropolitan New York, the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic and California, where the fund will invest in mixed-income, affordable and workforce housing, as well as community-serving retail…
SL Green Lands News America Lease, Reports Q1 Earnings
SL Green Realty Corp. has announced that News America Inc. has signed a new 12-year, 84,000-square-foot lease to occupy floors 25, 26 and 27 at Manhattan’s 1185 Ave. of the Americas. The lease boosts the building’s occupancy to 99 percent.SL Green also has announced that the Omnicom Group has signed a lease renewal covering 55,000 square feet at 220 East 42nd St. The 37-story, 1 million-square-foot tower also known as “The News Building,” was made famous in the Superman television series in the 1950’s, and the landmarked lobby featuring a rotating globe continues to be a tourist attraction today. Lee…
ProLogis to Do Build-to-Suits in South Korea
ProLogis has signed two new build-to-suit agreements in South Korea with Logen Express, a national parcel delivery provider, and Wonjin Logistics, a third-party logistics provider, it reported today. These are the first build-to-suit transactions in South Korea for the industrial property giant, according to Thomas Nam, senior vice president and head of Korean business for ProLogis.The first build-to-suit will be developed for Logen Express as a 46,700-square-foot facility near Daejeon City in Okcheon County. The park will provide easy access to the nation’s busiest highway, the Seoul-Busan Expressway. “Supply chain dynamics are strengthening in Okcheon,” Nam added in a statement….
The Carlyle to Be Built on the Wilshire Corridor
Fendi Casa and Elad Properties have announced their first Los Angeles development, The Carlyle Residences. The Carlyle will be the last permitted high-rise in the Wilshire Corridor’s “Golden Mile,” according to the firms. The development is a 24-story crescent-shaped building with 78 private residences ranging in size from 2,700 square feet to 5,000 square feet. Each will have its own private elevator entrance. The building is scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2009.Elad Properties has made a serious commitment on the West Coast, including the relocation of COO Thomas Elliot to Los Angeles to oversee all of the…
S&P Index Shows Stability in Commercial Real Estate
The chairman of the Standard & Poor’s Index Committee said the release of January results for the S&P/GRA Commercial Real Estate Indices shows that commercial real estate is holding stead for the time being despite the tanking of the residential real estate world. “Will commercial real estate follow residential down or will it hold together? At this point, overall, it seems to be hanging together for the moment,” David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee of Standard & Poor’s, told CPN. “If you look month to month, there are pockets of strength and pockets of weakness. Commercial real estate is…