Regions

Marinita Development and Regency Centers are breaking ground on Jefferson Square, a commercial development of 90,000 square feet in La Quinta, a city near Palm Springs in the Coachella Valley . The project is being planned in sections. Phase One, a shopping center, is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2009. Current tenants include Fresh & Easy Market, owned by Tesco of Great Britain, and CVS/Pharmacy. Marinita Development is a privately held company, a developer, builder and manager of retail and industrial properties. The general contractor for Phase One is Mercer Construction of Temecula,…

Construction has commenced on Taheima Wellness Resort & Spa, a project in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, spearheaded by Whole In One Nuevo Vallarta S.A. de C.V. To be developed at a cost of $150 million, the upscale condo-hotel will ultimately feature 400 units. Whole In One is targeting the baby boomer set in North America and South America, highlighting the property’s wellness-centric attributes. Taheima sits on the El Tigre Golf Course fairway in Paradise Village, approximately 10 miles from Puerto Vallarta International Airport. In addition to space to accommodate offerings such as yoga, T’ai Chi and lectures ranging from cooking to…

Kansas Entertainment L.L.C., a joint venture between The Cordish Co. and Kansas Speedway, has just presented its plan for a Hard Rock Hotel & Casino at the Kansas Speedway track in Kansas City, Kan., to the state’s Racing and Gaming Commission. The team is proposing the creation of a 1.5 million-square-foot gaming resort with a development price tag of $700 million. In competition with three other entities for a state gaming facility management license in Wyandotte County, Kansas Entertainment added a cherry atop its proposal, declaring that Kansas Speedway owner International Speedway Corp. would petition NASCAR for a second Sprint…

Just one week after stating its Australian operations were delivering solid results, The PMI Group, a mortgage insurance company, announced today it has agreed to sell its Australian subsidiary and related holding company to QBE Insurance Group for approximately $920 million. The two companies also reached an agreement in principle for the sale of Hong Kong-based PMI Asia to QBE, Australia’s largest international general insurance and reinsurance group, for about $55 million. Details of that transaction will be released when both parties reach a definitive agreement. PMI said in a news release today that the Australian transaction would improve its…

Prudential Real Estate Investors established a joint venture with L&L Holding Co. L.L.C. for the acquisition of premier office properties in the greater New York City area. Acting on behalf of institutional investors, the team will plunk down as much as $500 million for the purchases, most of which will be made in Manhattan. As for timing, the joint venture, arranged by Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman, is planning to capitalize on the smaller price tags that have been spurred by the lending market crisis and the downturn in the economy. While the New York City office market has not…

ProLogis and Browning Investments Inc., an Indianapolis-based developer of commercial real estate, have announced that their joint venture has signed a new lease agreement for 947,000 square feet near Indianapolis, Ind. The ProLogis and Browning joint venture has leased the space at AirTech Park, which they own jointly, and that is immediately west of Indianapolis in Plainfield, Ind.The space was leased to a Fortune 500 company and will be used a primary Midwest distribution center. AirTech Park has access to the Indianapolis International Airport as well as to Interstates 70, 465, 65 and 74. This is one of ProLogis’ single…

Paramus, N.J.-based Vornado Realty Trust has just formed a joint venture with Mumbai-based Reliance Industries Ltd. to acquire, develop and manage shopping centers in major cities across India. Vornado and Reliance will each contribute as much as $250 million to the partnership. The properties, most of which will be anchored by supermarkets, will range in size from 500,000 to approximately 1 million square feet. India, according to A.T. Kearney Inc., is one of the most appealing regions in the world for retail investment, scoring the number two spot on the global management consulting firm’s 2008 Global Retail Development Index. Opportunity…

Having entered the Seattle market only last year, Chicago-based First Industrial Realty Trust has grown its presence there steadily, its most recent transaction being the just-announced acquisition of a three-building distribution portfolio in the Kent Valley. The Class A buildings total 233,000 square feet and are 100 percent leased.The price was not disclosed. Andrew Harnish and Chris Spofford of Jones Lang LaSalle assisted with the transaction. First Industrial opened its Seattle/Tacoma office in the first quarter of 2007, and in July 2007 announced its first land acquisition, for the development of First Park Meridian Campus in Lacey. The project has…

CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. has hired two real estate industry veterans, Michael McShea and Peter Larkin, both of whom focus on the public sector. They have joined the company’s Government and Public Sector Solutions (GPSS) group based in Washington, D.C. McShea and Larkin, who will both hold the title of executive vice president at CBRE, and will provide strategic planning and real estate advisory services for local, municipal, state and federal government entities, as well as institutions of higher learning. The duo are joining CBRE from the Staubach Co., which was recently acquired by Jones Lang LaSalle. McShea, with…

Morgan Stanley Real Estate has completed the sell-off of the former Crescent Real Estate Equities Co.’s Dallas office portfolio with the sale of Stanford Corporate Centre to Prime Income Asset Management. Stanford Corporate Centre (pictured)–consisting of a 13-story, 275,000-square-foot office building and the adjoining 63,000-square-foot Telos Fitness Center–is located in the Far North Dallas office corridor, and is the last piece of Crescent’s Dallas Class A office portfolio. On July 31, 2007, Crescent sold about a dozen properties for $382 million. “Stanford Corporate Centre and the North Dallas Athletic Club (now the Telos Fitness Center) were not included in the…