Developers Diversified Realty Corp. has formed a $62 million joint venture with Cole Real Estate Investments for the ownership of Independence Commons, a 386,000-square-foot shopping center in Independence, Mo. The joint venture will be owned 85.5 percent by Cole Real Estate Investments, and 14.5 percent by DDR. According to the terms of the joint venture agreement, DDR will receive leasing and property management fees. DDR previously owned Independence Commons through its joint venture with Macquarie DDR Trust (MDT). MDT will receive proceeds of more than $20 million from the sale of the property, based on its 85.5 percent interest in…

Duke Realty Corp. has leased 58,800 square feet of space to Agility Project Logistics at Chesapeake Commerce Center, its warehouse and distribution development in East Baltimore City, Md. The space will be used for project freight forwarding, export packing and warehousing services.Chesapeake Commerce Center, which is located adjacent to I-95, I-895 and one-half mile from the Seagirt Marine and Dundalk terminals and is served by two railroads, is gaining momentum in the market, with recent leases and land sales to companies selecting sites based on logistics and shipping efficiencies. Earlier this month, Berry Plastics Corp., a manufacturer and marketer of…

Finding the proverbial silver lining in today’s economy gets harder and harder as the markets continue their downward slide and one of the nation’s most successful casinos – the Las Vegas Sands – may be sinking in a financial quicksand. While construction continues on the $4 billion Marina Bay resort and casino project in Singapore, in a Nov. 5 filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Las Vegas Sands revealed its cash was drying up as the company’s earnings for the first six months of the year were “insufficient to cover fixed charges” by $80.1 million, Time magazine reported. The…

All those layoffs are adding up. Adding up big. The U.S. Department of Labor has reported the details of job losses in October, which it pegged at a whopping 240,000. But that’s only October. The total number of jobs that evaporated from the U.S. economy so far in the ill-starred year 2008 is about 1.179 million. With more to come this month and next. At 6.5 percent, the nation’s unemployment rate is the highest since the tail-end of the early 1990s recession. No one industry took the brunt, with pain all around. For example, manufacturing lost 90,000 jobs; construction lost…

As if more proof were needed that the lending environment is hammering even top-of-the-line development, project backers in Boston and Philadelphia have acknowledged that the capital markets crisis is forcing them to put some of those cities’ showcase projects on hold. The developers of the $700 million mixed-use redevelopment of the Filene’s department store site in Downtown Boston are calling a time-out on construction because they have been unable to secure the necessary debt. As reported late Thursday by the Boston Business Journal’s Michelle Hillman, the project’s lead developer, John Hynes III, confirmed the delay during a panel discussion at…

NPC International Inc. will acquire 191 Pizza Hut restaurants from Pizza Hut Inc. for $52.9 million, and will sell 70 additional units to Pizza Hut for $19.6 million.When all is said and done, NPC will increase its net holdings of Pizza Hut restaurants by 12 percent, to a total of more than 1,100 locations. NPC is the world’s largest Pizza Hut franchisee.”This unique transaction demonstrates the strength and depth of our relationship with PHI as well as both parties’ ability and willingness to work with each other, noted NPC chairman & CEO Jim Schwartz, in a release. “We are strong…

National New Markets Fund L.L.C. has received a $50 million New Markets Tax Credit allocation from the Treasury Department to provide funding for real estate development in financially strapped neighborhoods. This allocation marks the third that the fund–created by Strategic Development Solutions and Economic Innovation International Inc.–has been awarded by the department. Congress established the NMTC allocation program in December 2000 to finance economic development projects in low-income communities by providing individual and corporate taxpayers with a credit against federal income taxes for making equity investments in those areas. This year’s installment is the sixth round of the program. The…

Excitement over President-Elect Barack Obama’s victory Tuesday spurred the country’s biggest election day gains in more than 20 years, but the party was short-lived as stocks began dropping Wednesday afternoon. As the finger-pointing continues in the financial world, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s CEO Richard Fuld will be pounding the pavement at year’s end after getting his walking papers from the bankrupt company, according to a Bloomberg.com report. Lehman Brothers earned a record $4.2 billion last year, before spiraling under subprime and structured investments, listing $613 billion in liabilities in its bankruptcy petition. Lehman is also the subject of three federal…