the Editors of Commercial Property Executive
New CBRE Group Rides to the Rescue of Distressed Assets
CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. has just kicked off its restructuring services group to provide one-stop shopping for clients in need of services to address the growing pool of distressed commercial real estate assets. CBRE has been offering such services on a regional level, but the new entity allows the company to accommodate needs on a national platform. The restructuring services group consolidates all relevant services into a singular division, without internal overlap. The company said it is is uniquely qualified to offer such services on a national plane given its longstanding proficiency in tackling issues surrounding distressed assets, its…
JV to Develop 162,000-SF Office Building near Chicago
Bridge Development Partners L.L.C. in partnership with Globe Corp. will develop 555 Corporate Center, a 162,000-square-foot, four-story speculative office building at 555 Aptakisic Road in Lincolnshire, Ill. Plans call for the Class A office facility to be LEED certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. The facility is situated on a 12-acre site west of Milwaukee Avenue and on the north side of Aptakisic Road, directly north of Bridge’s Aptakisic Creek Corporate Park industrial development in Buffalo Grove.The developer plans to break ground this fall and anticipates a fourth quarter 2009 completion. “When complete, our development will be the only…
Flagler Inks Tenant to 240,000-SF Lease at Florida Biz Park
Flagler Development Group has signed paper products firm Lagasse Sweet to a 240,000-square-foot lease in a build-to-suit facility at Flagler Station, South Florida’s largest business park.The 10-year lease ranks as the largest in the Miami Dade Airport West submarket this year and brings the firm’s total annual lease transactions for the center to nearly 1 million square feet. A new 328,000-square-foot office/industrial building is currently being constructed in Flagler Station to accommodate the new tenant. The property also offers Class A office, retail and industrial facilities, as well as rail-served buildings, flex space, front-load warehouse space and cross-dock facilities. Jones…
Top 10 Office Markets See Modest Gains
While prices across commercial real estate are down from a year ago, they increased in September up 2.5 percent from the month before, according to an Associated Press report on Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices. The top 10 markets showed modest gains in all property sectors in the third quarter, Moody’s said. Office prices in the top 10 cities saw a 2.2 percent increase from the previous quarter while overall nationally, office prices were down 1 percent in the third quarter; industrial and retail prices were nearly flat; and apartment prices were up 2.3 percent, according to the report.Still, prices…
Conference Report: Investors Move Cautiously in Nation’s Capital
You know it’s a tough market when even Washington, D.C., is affected. Yes, even the long recession-resistant center of government has seen a reduction in real estate investment sales, as speakers affirmed during the investment panel at CPN’s Washington, D.C. Property Opportunities conference on Nov. 18. In fact, sales are down 60 percent from this time a year ago, according to session moderator William Prutting Jr., senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis Inc., and there have been no transactions over $30 million for the first time in 10 years. Some investors are still keeping an eye out for opportunities…
$700M Houston-Area Mixed-Use Project Expands
A huge mixed-use development in a Houston suburb has recently both broken ground and potentially added another major component. The 150-acre WaterLights project, being developed by Historic Real Estate Inc., is under way in the growing Houston suburb of Pearland. WaterLights will rely on customers and tenants generated by the nearby Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical district, with 13 hospitals and two specialty institutions, two medical schools, four nursing schools and schools of dentistry, public health and pharmacy. As of 2006, the center employed more than 75,000 people, including 4,000 physicians and 11,000 registered nurses. Additionally, the center’s…
Financial Market Update-More Grim News on Employment Front
Jobless claims are at their highest level in 16 years, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. For the week ended Nov. 15, initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits were 542,000. The four-week moving average of new jobless claims also rose, from 490,750 last week to 506,500, which was the highest in 25 years. Reports like this week after week are bound to reflect a larger ill wind blowing through the economy, and sure enough the Conference Board reported today that the Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators declined 0.8 percent in October, following a 0.1 percent increase in…
Gaylord Nixes Plans for $1B San Diego-Area Resort
Tennessee-based Gaylord Entertainment has pulled out of a plan to develop a $1 billion resort in Chula Vista, Calif., but the firm claims the project’s abandonment was not caused by the frozen debt markets that have wreaked havoc on developments across the nation. According to Gaylord, the cancellation was not due to financing difficulties, but instead was the result of a “prolonged planning and approval process, a complicated regulatory and legal structure and excessive off-site infrastructure costs.” Gaylord had been in negotiations for the project for the past three years. A 2,000-room hotel and 400,000 square-foot convention center were among…
Boston Properties Closes $375M Financing of Four Embarcadero Center
Using the proceeds to pay down its unsecured line of credit, Boston Properties Inc. has closed on an eight-year, $375 million loan secured by Four Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. The loan was provided by a syndicate of life insurance companies and bears interest at a fixed rate of 6.10 percent annum. The 47-story, Class A office building has approximately 937,000 rentable square feet and is located at the corner of Drumm and Clay Streets in the city’s North Financial District submarket. Boston Properties bought the skyscraper and its sister properties–One Embarcadero Center, Two Embarcadero and Three Embarcadero Center–in 1998….
STAG Capital Kicks Off Industrial Fund with Anticipated $1.3B Buying Power
Boston-based STAG Capital Partners has initiated STAG Investments V L.P., a fund targeting commitments of $400 million for the acquisition of predominantly high-yield single-tenant industrial properties across the country. The newly launched fund marks STAG’s fifth such investment vehicle, and, as has been the case with the previous four funds, approximately 85 percent of STAG V will focus on industrial properties, with the remaining investments encompassing both flex and office assets. STAG V will have an anticipated buying power of approximately $1.3 billion. Markets across the U.S. will be fair game for STAG V, but acquisitions will not necessarily center…