A 22-acre property in Boyle Heights, a virtually ignored neighborhood in East Los Angeles, has been slated to become home to a new retail project. Manarino Realty, heading up a team involving boxer Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Partners real estate company, has signed a deal with MJW Investments to acquire and redevelop the Sears Roebuck & Co. property. With an agreement in place, the Manarino team will pursue a master plan to accommodate the needs of the underserved community, which sits just five minutes east of Downtown, where billions of dollars are being poured into a bevy of…

Search engine marketing has always played a critical role in managing the visibility of a company’s online brand. However with the Internet becoming what is arguably today’s dominant medium, search engine marketing has also risen to become a key driver in a company’s overall brand strategy.Regrettably the maturity of the products and services that comprise search engine related disciplines come at a time when the industry has never been more complicated and difficult to navigate. Even though businesses today have many more options with regard to how they execute their search engine initiatives, I find that many marketing executives struggle…

Packaging giant Berry Plastics Corp. has expanded its lease at a site in the western Chicago suburb of Aurora, Ill., to accommodate additional operations. The plastics maker inked a lease for 233,000 square feet at 999 Bilter Road near I-88, also known as the East-West Corridor. Evansville, Ind.-based Berry Plastics had previous used 147,000 square feet of space at the site for warehousing. The unusual part of the deal is that, going forward, the company will be using the additional space for manufacturing. “Site selection for a manufacturing facility is quite complicated, since it has to take into account the…

The developer of a $550 million casino on the Philadelphia waterfront is preparing its next move after yesterday’s decision by Mayor Michael Nutter to revoke a key city license for the controversial project, one of the city’s largest planned developments. Nutter, who took office Jan. 7, reversed an eleventh-hour decision by his predecessor, John Street, to grant the developers of the SugarHouse Casino a permit to build part of the project on submerged city-owned land. The decision appears to be a significant setback for the project, which will now require additional study before construction can begin.  In a statement, SugarHouse’s…

Only a few months after unveiling plans for a $300–$400 million mixed-used project in the prestigious Preston Hollow area not far from Downtown Dallas, Provident Realty Advisors is at it again, albeit with a somewhat more moderately sized redevelopment project. The company has announced that following a successful rezoning effort, it has closed on the acquisiton of a 25-acre site on the north side of the LBJ Freeway (I-635) in the northwestern Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch. The site is currently occupied by six, three-story office buildings totalling nearly 400,000 square feet. Provident’s plans for the as-yet-unnamed project are still…

With the share values of Glimcher Realty Trust, Cedar Shopping Centers Inc. and One Liberty Properties Inc. hovering well below expectations, ROCA Real Estate Securities Fund L.P., a major stockholder in all three REITs has called on the companies’ CEOs to explore major changes. In a letter to Glimcher chairman & CEO Michael Glimcher, ROCA noted that, after relying on its Net Asset Values assessments, as well as those of three leading analysts, the Columbus, Ohio-based retail REIT’s shares should be trading at $29.42 per share to $31.47. However, such is not the case; company shares closed yesterday at $13.31….

Two Class A office buildings in the Gateway Corporate Center in Diamond Bar, Calif., totaling 162,300 square feet, have been sold to Cornerstone Real Estate Advisors for $48.5 million, according to brokers handling the deal.Falcon Real Estate Investment Co. of New York City sold the buildings at 21680 and 21688 Gateway Center Drive, which are 99 percent leased to high-profile tenants like Travelers Insurance and Wells Fargo. Falcon, which provides investment and management services for institutional and overseas investors, acquired the properties for $25 million in September, 2002, according to the firm’s website.Built in 2000, the two buildings are located…

A fire that broke out earlier today at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas appears to be coming under control. Firefighters have contained the blaze to the top four floors of the 32-story building, which was evacuated after the fire was first reported at about 11 AM Las Vegas time. No injuries were reported. According to multiple reports, the damage was concentrated on the top floor of the building, while falling debris ignited a portion of an exterior ledge four stories below. Reports also stated that the fire may have been started by welders working on the…

To some senior retail real estate executives, the constant stream of dire warnings about an economic slowdown amount to a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I believe that if we have a recession it’s because we ‘want’ to have one, and we’ll come out of it quickly,” said Greg Maloney, president of retail for Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. Nationwide, he noted, retail sales have slipped in only one month out of the last 12. Maloney also predicts that Washington will come up with a stimulus package that will spur consumer spending.Even if the main problems with the economy are uncertainty and lack of…

LCOR has received a $60.7 million construction loan from KeyBank for the developer’s gut rehab of the 17-story, 140,000-square-foot office bulding at 545 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The loan package also includes an $11 million letter of credit that secures LCOR’s ground lease during construction. The building is aimed at “elite, boutique financial services companies and law firms,” according to a prepared statement, with offerings as full floors or multiple floors. Floor plates range from 6,200 to 9,300 square feet. In late 2006, LCOR signed a 75-year ground lease on the property, which had been built in 1955. Work on…