the Editors of Commercial Property Executive
Pantheon Signs Pair of Tenants in New Jersey
Pantheon Properties has signed on two long-term tenants for more than 42,000 square feet at their Newark and Secaucus, N.J., industrial properties.The first transaction was with Transgroup Worldwide Logistics, who secured a lease for approximately 26,000 square feet at 280 Wilson Avenue in Newark. The Seattle-based, third-party logistics company will use this location a warehouse and office operations. The second lease was with JAS Forwarding Worldwide for 16,200 square feet at one of Pantheon’s flex-buildings at 401 Penhorn Avenue in Secaucus. JAS selected this location for its tri-state freight and office headquarters. “Both Transgroup and JAS were seeking locations within…
No Bottom Yet for Residential Market
Despite poor consumer confidence and sour housing numbers, U.S. equity markets had a fairly positive day Tuesday, with the Dow Jones index ending up 184.46 points, or about 2.17 percent, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq up 2.44 percent and 2.67 percent, respectively. Possibly investors were responding to the news that GMAC, the former financing arm of beleaguered automaker GM, managed to finagle $5 billion from TARP in return for preferred shares and warrants. No one expected positive housing numbers from Tuesday’s publication of the October S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices Indices, but in the end they were sobering anyway. Besides a…
Sperry Van Ness Gets New President
Sperry Van Ness International will kick off the new year with a new president, now that the real estate brokerage firm’s board of directors has voted unanimously to push COO Kevin Maggiacomo up the ladder to the new position. Maggiacomo will take on responsibility for the Irvine, Calif.-headquartered company’s day-to-day operation and execution of its vision, which CEO Mark Van Ness had been supervising. A player in the real estate industry for approximately 15 years, Maggiacomo has been a leading force at Sperry Van Ness for quite some time. Having joined the organization eight years ago, he has since served…
SL Green Aims to Raise $95M with Sharp Dividend Cut
SL Green Realty Corp. has slashed a planned dividend payment in efforts to pay down debt and conserve funds for future investments. The company set the new dividend payment at $0.375 per common share for the fourth quarter of 2008. The third quarter dividend was $0.7875 per share. The move follows a third quarter decline in net income of 66 percent, from $1.66 per share in the third quarter of 2007 to $0.58 per share for the third quarter this year. In a prepared statement, Marc Holliday, SL Green’s CEO, explained the dividend reset as a way of generating $95…
Freddie Mac’s New Chief Credit Officer Brings Strong Credentials to Tough Task
Freddie Mac today named Raymond G. Romano chief credit officer. Romano had been the company’s senior vice president of credit risk oversight since joining Freddie Mac in 2004 and in September also took the position of acting chief credit officer. Romano’s appointment follows a nationwide search to fill the position, which is responsible for credit risk management activities across the entire Freddie Mac enterprise. “Managing credit effectively is the cornerstone of this company, particularly in a turbulent economy,” Freddie Mac CEO David Moffett said in a prepared statement. “Ray has really demonstrated leadership at Freddie Mac, and I can think…
Midwest Industry Hit by Recession
Various international tempests and other factors, such as uncertainty over the price of oil, seemed to drive the markets down Monday, but only slightly. The Dow Jones index ended 31.62 points down, or 0.37 percent, while the S&P 500 was off 0.39 percent and the Nasdaq was down more–1.3 percent. According to the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, manufacturing in the Midwest is at its most sluggish pace in more than a decade (the Midwest in this case being Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin, which form the seventh Federal Reserve district). In November, the Chicago Fed’s Midwest factory index stood…
Port of Houston Planning $283M in Projects
With more than $283 million in construction planned, the Port Commission of the Port of Houston Authority is working to assure Houston’s emergence as the nation’s busiest port is met with cutting edge facilities. The Port of Houston has grown in the past few years with the expansion of the Bayport Container Terminal, which will ultimately increase capacity to 2.3 million TEUs, a jump of more than 200 percent, and allow Houston to market itself as a better alternative for shipping to other ports across the country. PHA achieved its eighth consecutive year of record-breaking revenue in 2007. Figures for…
Office Market Positioned to Survive a Bruising Recession
As a deep recession looms around the world, there is a country where a conservative investment community has resisted speculative office construction, enabling vacancy rates to fall to historically low levels and rents to continue rising through the third quarter of 2008. Where is this magical land? Canada. According to an analysis of the office markets in six major Canadian cities by Toronto-based Colliers International in Canada, the Canadian office market will finish 2008 well positioned to withstand the recession. The Colliers study looked at Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. “Generally, Canada’s credit markets have tightened and are…
‘Edge Cities’ Set to Move to Forefront
At first glance, it may appear that the country’s largest cities will reap the biggest benefits under President-elect Barack Obama’s planned infrastructure initiatives, partially due to his connection to metropolitan areas like Chicago. But according to urban planner Douglas McCoach (pictured), vice president of planning and urban design for global design firm RTKL Associates Inc., perimeter suburban and exurban areas surrounding large U.S. cities–locations he describes as “edge cities”–may gain the most from new infrastructure funding.McCoach contends that suburban residents, with an eye on reducing lengthy commutes and enhancing sustainability and a sense of community, have expressed interest in transforming…
Company Says Emergency Housing Product Can Expand to Other Uses
A new type of emergency housing, introduced this month in Galveston, Texas, can be expanded to other uses, such as hotel and office, said maker Smart Holdings L.L.C.The unit, called Amerihome, is 200 square feet, but can be expanded. Amerihomes can be stacked and connected to one another (pictured), to a height of three stories, according to Smart Holdings. The Amerihome was first developed by Dutch engineers, who wanted to build structures that would be able to withstand below-sea-level flood risk. The first Amerihome units in the U.S. will be installed on Texas’ Galveston Island in the Spring of 2009,…