SCI Real Estate Investments has sold Deer Valley Village, a 832-unit, gated, garden-style apartment complex in Phoenix, to Sterling American Property Inc. for $85.2 million.  In a joint venture with Sterling, Thompson Michie Communities will manage the community. Amenities include two fitness centers, three heated pools and a clubhouse.  Jeff Smith, senior vice president of acquisitions for Sterling, told CPN that even in current market conditions, Phoenix is “a solid market, because of the employer base.” Built in two phases completed in 1996 and 2000, Deer Valley Village is in the Loop 101 and I-17 Deer Valley employment corridor, with…

Boston-based Eaton Vance Management has acquired a Santa Clara, Calif., office/research and development building for $53 million on behalf of an investment fund that it manages.  “Our strategy for this fund is to acquire long term credit lease properties triple net leased to a single tenant,” K. C. Swartzel, director of acquisitions and dispositions for Eaton Vance’s real estate group, told CPN today. “This building is 100 percent leased to Abbott Laboratories.” Abbott uses the building’s lab to hand-apply coatings to heart stents. A coating provides a biologically inert barrier between the surface of the stent, circulating blood and walls…

InterContinental Hotels Group, in conjunction with Lane Hospitality, opened the first Crowne Plaza modeled after a new prototype that IHG unveiled in 2006, in mid-March. The new hotel is a 298-room Crowne Plaza Milwaukee-Wauwatosa. IHG wants to increase Crowne Plaza’s presence in a variety of key locations, including secondary suburban markets, airports, and urban markets. Gina LaBarre, vice president of brand management for Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts, talked about plans for the Crowne Plaza brand CPNHospitality: What elements of this prototype are different from the old Crowne Plaza prototype? LaBarre: This is actually the first Crowne Plaza prototype ever….

In a recent speaking engagement I was talking about the downside of passion and was quickly interrupted with the question: “How could being passionate about what you do ever be a bad thing?” As most people understand, anything taken to the extreme, or in excess, can in fact be harmful. Therefore I thought it might be of value to examine the downside of unbridled passion in this week’s column, so that passion can remain an asset and not end-up becoming a liability for you or your company. Most of the professionals I know would agree with me that passion is…

In the midst of a gloomy economic climate, some top executives offered a cautiously optimistic view of the industry’s prospects Thursday at New York University’s annual REIT conference in Manhattan. “I think the housing crisis, and the sub-prime catastrophe, was the best thing that ever could have happened to the commercial real estate industry,” said Martin Cohen, co-chairman and co-CEO of Cohen & Steers Inc., during the morning keynote address. Cohen explained that the credit squeeze put a stop to the unsound financial structures that threatened disaster for commercial real estate finance. In the absence of high leverage that fueled…

A subsidiary of Hines U.S. Core Office Fund L.P., an investment vehicle of international real state firm Hines, has just taken the 1.4 million-square-foot One North Wacker office property off the hands of a German investment fund operating under the guidance of RREEF. With a sale price of $540 million, the Class A building commanded approximately $386 per square foot.One North Wacker, which the seller owned since 2002, was developed in 2001 by the John Buck Co., and sits in the central business district’s coveted West Loop submarket. The 51-story tower, designed by architectural firm Goettsch Partners, is presently 98…

Nearly four months after the New Jersey Casino Control Commission pulled the casino license from the owner of the Tropicana Hotel Casino in Atlantic City, the commission this week denied a bid to return the title to the unlicensed owner, Adamar of New Jersey.The request had come from Gary Stein, a retired New Jersey State Supreme Court Justice who the commission had named as conservator of the property after ruling Dec. 12, 2007, that the company that owned Adamar, Tropicana Entertainment L.L.C., was not qualified to own a casino hotel in Atlantic City. Once a license has been taken away,…

The details released late yesterday for Madison Square Garden’s proposed $500 million makeover appear to scuttle plans for a $3 billion transit hub in Midtown Manhattan, as well as an $11 billion redevelopment of the surrounding area. Yet the stakes are high, as state and local officials consider the new train station vital to Midtown’s revitalization.   Cablevision Systems Corp.’s decision to overhaul the 40-year-old arena rather than building a new facility would remove the linchpin of the project. Madison Square Garden sits on top of Pennsylvania Station, which would be renovated and expanded as part of the Moynihan Station rail…

Ground has been broken on The Banks, an 18-acre, $600 million mixed-use development on the Ohio River in Downtown Cincinnati.  The initial part of the project’s first phase consists of about 300 apartments and 70,000 square feet of retail and restaurants; construction is scheduled for completion in 2010. A spokesperson for the project told CPN that there is no retail preleasing yet, and that the retail will focus on “eatertainment” and on support retail for the residents.  The Banks’ master developer is Riverbanks Renaissance L.L.C., a joint venture of Carter & Associates Commercial Services L.L.C. and The Dawson Co., both…