Regions

For most of the country, this will be a long weekend, but for residents of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans in particular, it will be a long wait. As of shortly after noon Eastern time today, Tropical Storm Gustav was just off Jamaica and heading almost due northwest, its most likely path, according to the National Hurricane Center, bringing it to landfall just west of New Orleans on Tuesday morning. Although Gustav is not yet officially a hurricane, according to the hurricane center’s latest bulletin, “Strengthening is likely during the next couple of days, and Gustav is expected to…

Seattle-based Columbia Pacific has closed its second round of financing for Columbia Asia, the money management firm’s hospital consortium, adding $135 million to bring the fund’s total amount of equity raised to $325 million. Columbia Asia develops and operates hospitals in Asia, having made its debut in 1994 with the opening of a property in Malaysia. The company presently operates 13 medical facilities in India, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, and the new investments will fuel the development of more. The group behind the Columbia Asia Fund includes the Baty Family of Seattle as principal investor, and individuals and families based…

Developer Horizon Properties has received a $74 million forward permanent loan for the just-completed two-building, 384,000-square-foot corporate headquarters for CONSOL Energy Inc. in Canonsburg, Pa., a Pittsburgh suburb.The 10-year, fixed-rate financing was arranged by the Pittsburgh office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P. through Nationwide Life Insurance Co. Mark Popovich, managing director of HFF’s Pittsburgh office, told CPN that Nationwide committed to the loan around the time construction on the buildings began, in December 2006, and held to the agreed-on terms despite the gyrations in the credit markets since then. CONSOL is leasing both buildings, a three-story, 75,000-square-foot facility and a…

Four wellness centers operated by Life Time Fitness Inc. have come under the ownership of Senior Housing Properties Trust, courtesy of a $100 million deal. Life Time Fitness will continue to occupy the properties under a triple-net lease agreement through its subsidiary, LTF Real Estate Co. The deal calls for the company to pay SNH rent totaling $9.1 million per-year, in addition to fixed increases over the life of the lease, which is scheduled to expire in 2028. The assets account for a total of nearly 460,000 square feet in Georgia, Illinois, Nebraska and Texas.Developed between 2005 and 2007 the…

Los Angeles-based Maguire Properties Inc. has closed the disposition of Main Plaza, selling the 607,000-square-foot trophy office complex in Irvine, Calif., to Shorenstein Properties L.L.C for $211 million including the assumption of $161 million of project level financing. The transaction reached completion two months after the parties entered into the agreement, and leaves Maguire with net proceeds totaling $48 million to be used for debt reduction and general corporate purposes. Maguire revealed in June that reducing debt through the sale of certain Orange County assets would be one component of its multi-faceted plan to revitalize the company, which has seen…

Los Angeles-based Wilshire Finance Partners has introduced Wilshire Income Fund II, its second real estate mortgage pool fund. The fund will raise $100 million to make commercial property loans. This time around, however, the company will be able to welcome investors and borrowers from beyond the borders of the State of California. Wilshire Income Fund II, like the first vehicle, is designed to tap into a market hungry for alternative lending sources in the face of a credit crisis and diminishing property values. The fund consists of several well-underwritten trust deed loans; investors purchase shares of the fund, and money…

In return for $126 million and change, Tel Aviv, Israel-based Elbit Imaging Ltd. has forked over part of its stake in a $3.4 billion mixed-use project portfolio in India via a new joint venture agreement. It’s a family arrangement, however. The investment comes from Elbit Imaging subsidiary Plaza Centers N.V., an emerging markets property developer focusing on projects in Central and Eastern Europe and in India. The deal leaves Plaza with a 47.5 percent ownership of Elbit India Real Estate Holdings Ltd., which owns interests in the aforementioned mixed-use development endeavors. Plaza actually contributed a minuscule amount for ownership of…

The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, owner of Uncasville, Conn.’s Mohegan Sun, a 3 million-square-foot casino entertainment destination and one of only two authorized gaming operations in New England, has just completed the first phase of its $925 million Project Horizon expansion endeavor. The new addition to the 240-acre property is the 64,000-square-foot Casino of the Wind, which cost $116 million to complete. Situated along Southeastern Connecticut’s Thames River on the Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut’s 405-acre reservation, Mohegan Sun first opened its doors in 1996 and underwent two major expansions prior to Project Horizon. Ground broke on Project Horizon’s…

A&B Properties Inc. has sold Boardwalk Shopping Center–a 184,600-square-foot retail center on 21 acres in the Austin submarket of Round Rock, Texas–with intent to reinvest the proceeds in another the burgeoning Savannah, Georgia, industrial market. A&B Properties, the real estate subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin Inc., sold Boardwalk Shopping Center to affiliates of Gemini Real Estate Advisors L.L.C.. A&B plans to apply the proceeds as part of its Section 1031 reinvestments program to a previously acquired logistics warehouse facility in Savannah with the balance to be reinvested in other replacement properties. Among A&B’s Savannah industrial properties are 1020 and 1024…

Hot on the heels of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s call to install wind turbines on the city’s high-rises and bridges as part of a green-energy plan, a California company has offered to donate a wind turbine to the city to demonstrate that the idea is indeed workable. Marquiss Wind Power, of Folsom, Calif., manufactures a patented ducted wind turbine (pictured) that little resembles the 200- to 300-foot-high turbines used in major wind farms. Marquiss’s Aeropoint turbines are in fact specifically intended for use on commercial and industrial buildings. According to information from Marquiss, its roof-top turbines are 19…