Regions

As it prepares to move from Fort Worth to Austin this fall, real estate private equity firm N3 Capital Partners L.L.C. has changed its name to Pennybacker Capital L.L.C. The firm also announced plans to start investing its $250 million inaugural fund. Led by Tim Berry, co-founder of N3 Development Ltd., the firm closed the N3 Opportunity Fund I in December and is now seeking equity investment deals between $1 million and $20 million per transaction. The fund will target investments in undervalued commercial, mixed-use, multi-family and raw land real estate assets, primarily through joint ventures with proven real estate…

Downtown Fort Myers, Fla., is undergoing a renaissance and Acquest Realty Advisors Inc. will play a big role in the endeavor, now that the city council has selected the Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based company to spearhead the development of a waterfront mixed-use project.Working with city officials and a redevelopment team, Acquest will take on the responsibility for conceiving and bringing to fruition a project that will transform a five-acre city-owned parcel into a coveted destination. Fronting The Caloosahatchee River, the designated site is neighbored by the Fort Myers Yacht Basin, Centennial Park and the Harborside Event Center, which will be expanded…

Conifer Crossing, a 420-unit multi-family property in Norcross, Ga., has traded hands for $31.75 million. The buyer was San Francisco-based Fowler Property Acquisitions; the seller, Denver-based Simpson Housing L.L.L.P. Located on about 54 acres on Holcomb Bridge Road, Conifer Crossing is about 17 miles northeast of Atlanta’s CBD, and is currently 98 percent occupied. In the vicinity of the property is about 10 million square feet of office space, including Technology Park/Atlanta, a 3.8-million-square-foot business park primarily occupied by technology-related tenants. The property includes one-, two- and three-bedroom units averaging 1,233 square feet each. Amenities include a clubhouse, pool, fitness…

Establishing a dedicated monthly shipping service between Texas’s Port of Corpus Christi and Venezuela opens a two-way trade route that hadn’t existed at the port before. The opening of the trade route comes on the heels of the selection of Federal Development as the master developer of a $400 million project that includes the development of La Quinta Trade Gateway. Federal Development will be the master developer of 1,009 acres in Ingleside, which includes 576 acres at Naval Station Ingleside, which will revert to the port in the fall of 2010. Federal will create a mixed-use site with potential uses…

PNC has provided a total of $354.4 million in financing to three separate projects in California. In the largest financing, PNC subsidiary PNC Real Estate Finance extended a $300 million term/construction loan to Macerich for the expansion of The Oaks, a high-end retail center in Thousand Oaks, Calif. PNC was the lead syndicator on the loan, with seven other institutions providing the remainder of the financing. In another deal, PNC ARCS–a multi-family lending arm of PNC Real Estate–funded a $34.5 million loan for the purchase and rehabilitation of Woodsong Apartments, a 262-unit garden-style apartment complex in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. Freddie…

Douglas Emmett Inc. has announced that it has obtained a non-recourse $365 million term loan to refinance the bridge loan that was obtained in connection with the REIT’s acquisition of a six-office portfolio on March 26, 2008. This new loan is secured by the six-office portfolio. The loan bears interest at a floating rate equal to LIBOR plus 165 basis points, but the firm has entered into interest rate swap contracts that effectively fix the interest rate at 5.515 percent until September 4, 2012. The loan facility matures on August 18, 2013. Emmett does not have any debt maturities until…

Liberty Property Trust is expanding its portfolio in the Sawgrass International Corporate Park in Sunrise, Fla., with the acquisition of a 107,000-square-foot Class A office building. The REIT bought the building at 13621 NW 12th St. from Real Estate Capital Partners, but did not release the purchase price. The building is fully leased by UnitedHealthcare. Liberty officials said they also lease space to UnitedHealthcare at properties it owns in Maryland, Minnesota and North Carolina. The Malverne, Pa.,-based REIT now owns properties totaling more than 200,000 square feet in the South Florida complex. Liberty owns and operates three other buildings at…

Man Industries, a pipe-manufacturing firm based in Mumbai, India, has made its first venture into the United States with the purchase of 155 acres of land in Little Rock, Ark., with plans to build a $100 million facility to serve as its North and South American headquarters. Construction will begin later this month in an existing industrial area on Greenfields. No targeted completion date was released. “The cost of transporting finished goods from India had risen to a level that it was too expensive and made better sense to have a location in the U.S. to be closer to their…

Groundbreaking on The Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas–would-be sibling to the landmark Manhattan hotel of the same name–has been put off till next year, in conjunction with an agreement by Goldman Sachs Group and Credit Suisse Group to give the project’s developer an additional six months to repay $625 million in loans. A spokesperson for the project’s developer, Elad IDB Las Vegas L.L.C., told CPN that payment on the loans, used toward the purchase of the 35-acre site of the former New Frontier hotel/casino, will now not be expected till May of next year. The developer is a joint venture…

Construction has wrapped up for the first of two Class A office buildings that will comprise the 230,000-square-foot Atlantic Corporate Park in Sterling, Va., located about 25 miles from Washington, D.C., in Loudoun County. Developer DEXUS Dulles Town Crossing L.L.C.’s completion of the complex’s East Tower marks a milestone for Loudoun County, as it is the municipality’s first spec office project to achieve LEED Gold certification. Situated on a one-acre landscaped park at the corner of Atlantic Blvd. and Woodland Rd., Atlantic Corporate Park provides easy access to major thoroughfares Route 28 and Route 7. The 115,000-square-foot East Tower, carrying…