Regions

High Street Equity Advisors has invested $70.5 million in acquisitions in Pennsylvania. The Boston-based firm purchased 18 light industrial and R&D Flex buildings in two Pennsylvania portfolios, Lehigh Valley and Bucks County. The combined square footage of the properties is about 963,000 square feet, and brings High Street’s Pennsylvania holdings to 26 properties totaling approximately 1.4 million square feet. High Street had previously owned properties in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Valley Forge, Pittson and Bethlehem. The Bucks County portfolio is comprised of 12 Class B+ light industrial and R&D Flex buildings, and cost $50.4 million in total. The buildings are currently 93…

In a move to consolidate its distribution operations in the Jacksonville, Fla., area, where it operates a manufacturing plant, Dr Pepper Snapple Group has leased West Point Trade Center, a 601,500-square-foot distribution facility, from Hillwood, which is scheduled to complete the speculative building by the end of the year. The new facility is expected to be fully operational in the first quarter of next year and will employ 40 workers. The building will be used primarily to distribute the beverage giant’s Snapple and Mott’s brands in the Southeast. Hillwood was represented by T. Preston Herold of Hillwood Investment Properties and…

A rise in space available for sublease and a large development pipeline are curbing the Dallas office market’s enthusiasm.“We’re not seeing gloom and doom. Dallas’ economy is holding its own,” said Dale Ray, managing director for Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.’s Dallas office. Still, he noticed an uptick in sublease space from the middle of May to the middle of June. Cushman & Wakefield Inc. confirmed his observation in a midyear report, recording an increase of 25 percent from the second quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2008. Executive director Susan Gwin attributed the jump to a rise in…

London-based ING Real Estate Select has just introduced its Global Osiris Property Fund to the market. Seed investor London Pensions Fund Authority has thrown in approximately $297 million to get Global Osiris off the ground, and other institutional investors seeking to diversify assets through the penetration of international property markets can join in with a minimum investment of about $12 million. Global Osiris is being touted as one of the first open-ended, core-balanced global funds. The investment vehicle, which is aiming for an 8 to 10 percent net return, will have few boundaries, targeting premium real estate in all property…

Boston-based developer Eastat Realty Capital L.L.C. has submitted a notice of project change with the Boston Redevelopment Authority in connection with a proposed $140 million, 24-story, 248,000-square-foot office building in Boston’s theater district. To Bostonians, the point of the project, however, seems less what will be built than what won’t be coming down; the plan would leave the adjacent Jacob Wirth Co. building untouched.The historic Wirth building (pictured) was completed in 1844, and the German-style restaurant there was founded in 1868, making it the city’s second-oldest operating eatery. The restaurant was added to the National Register of Historic Places in…

The province of Ontario has granted nearly $8 million to support the expansion of 6N Silicon Inc., which specializes in turning low-grade silicon into the purified form of the material need to produce solar cells. The funding will aid in the development of a $50 million, 120,000-square-foot manufacturing plant for the company currently under way in Vaughan, Ontario, a city north of Toronto. According to 6N Silicon, the company will be able to use warehouse-type facilities in more urban locations for the process at the new plant. This is a considerable real estate advantage over other silicon purification processes, which…

Petroleum Plaza, a 315,000-square-foot office property in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, has been snapped up in a transaction valued at $130 million. Acting on behalf of client DEGI Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Immobilienfonds m.b.H., Morguard Investments Ltd. purchased the property from KingSett Capital, which had owned Petroleum Plaza since 2005. Located in Downtown Edmonton in the Government District, Petroleum Plaza (pictured) consists of two towers linked by a retail plaza. Presently, the 35-year-old property is 95 percent leased to the Alberta Government, which is occupying space under a lease agreement scheduled to expire Dec. 31, 2020. Morguard will oversee management of the…

California’s traditional sources of water no longer meet the needs of Southern California, according to a study commissioned by the Southern California Leadership Council (SCLC) and other sponsors. Bad news for developers, the study is called “Where Will We Get The Water? Assessing Southern California’s Future Water Strategies.” For several years, developers seeking project approvals in Southern California have had to demonstrate how they would supply their projects with water. While most developers have managed, some projects have suffered significant delays. When the Manhattan Beach, Calif., shoe company Skechers wanted to develop a warehouse in Riverside County, the project was…

With the slowdown of the economy and the huge downturn in the housing market, the retail real estate market is taking a hit across the board and many investors are feeling sheepish–especially in the southeast. According to Ray Hayhurst, vice president of retail investment with real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis Inc.|Commercial Florida, the Southeast’s previously hot-strip center investment market has cooled down more than any other region in the country. “There was a huge volume of investment in 2006 and part of 2007 in the southeast, but it was down 88 or 89 percent in the first quarter…

Developments that will reshape the Manhattan skyline continue to move forward by fits and starts. A joint venture of Vornado Realty Trust and affiliates of Lawrence Ruben Co. won a six-month extension on a deadline that is central to plans for a 1.3 million-square-foot office tower that would rise above the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, granted the extension to allow the joint venture, 20 X Square Associates L.L.C., to wrap a 99-year lease for redevelopment of the terminal’s north wing. The extension will also allow for a transaction to…