CPE Announces the 2013 Distinguished Achievement Award Winners

By Suzann D. Silverman, Editorial Director

CPE is proud to present the winners of the 2013 Distinguished Achievement Awards, representing leading transactions, strategies and projects that transpired in 2012. This year, we accepted submissions in eight categories and awarded first and second place in six, including the all-new Most Innovative Corporate Strategy category. Other awards went for Best Lease, Best Sale – Single Asset, Best Sale – Portfolio, Best Financial Structure and Best Development/Redevelopment.

The judges this year, representing an array of in-depth commercial real estate experience, included Steven Bandolik, director with Deloitte Financial Advisory Services L.L.P.; Glenn Brill, managing director of real estate solutions for FTI Consulting; Patricia Lancaster-Brown, clinical professor with New York University’s Schack School of Real Estate; Arthur Margon, New York partner with Rosen Consulting Group; and Ryan Severino, senior economist with REIS Inc. 

Following are the winners:

Best Lease:
First Place: Brookfield Office Properties, for leasing 1.2 million square feet at One New York Plaza in Lower Manhattan to Morgan Stanley, which had been subleasing a smaller space from Wells Fargo.

Second Place: Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., for its representation of Kilroy Realty Corp. in its lease of 350 Mission St., San Francisco, to Salesforce.com. The deal allowed the REIT to lease up the entire building across from the new Transbay Transit Center prior to development and locked in the technology firm’s efforts to establish a central hub downtown.

Best Sale—Single Asset:
First Place: Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. Hotels & Hospitality Group, Americas for its representation of Dubai Investment Group in the sale of the Essex House in New York City to Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc. and KSL Capital Partners L.L.C., lining up a new manager and financing as part of the process.

Second Place: Cassidy Turley for representing Vornado Realty Trust in the sale of the Washington Design & Office Center to affiliates of Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. for $250 million. The Office Center is leased to a number of government agencies, but the Design Center was considered a value-add opportunity that will be used to house a national Bible museum.

Best Sale—Portfolio:
First Place: Vulcan Inc. and CBRE Group Inc. for selling the multi-property Amazon Global Headquarters in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood to Amazon.com for $1.2 billion, completing the sale within four months of listing the portfolio.

Second Place: Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. for its representation of a large financial institution in the sale of 31 California bank branches to buyers including Footprints, retail branches, Fortus Property Group and Consolidated-Tomoka for a total of $70.4 million, or $243.4 per square foot.

Best Development/Redevelopment:
First Place: Brookfield Office Properties for the development of Brookfield Place Perth in Perth, Australia, a 953,000-square-foot property intended to bring vibrancy to the city and fully leased to three major tenants.

Second Place: Devon Energy Corp. and Hines for the development of Devon Energy Center, the energy company’s new world headquarters in Oklahoma City, which was intended both to attract and retain employees and to benefit the city.

Best Financial Structure:
First Place: Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels & Hospitality Group, Americas for arranging a complex financing package to help Thor Equities refinance the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago. The $365 million package was the biggest brokered financing in the Chicago MSA last year.

Second Place: Wells Fargo Multi-Family Capital for its $621.5 million refinancing of the 320-acre Co-op City in New York City’s Bronx borough, marking the first cooperative financed with an FHA Section 223(f) insured mortgage loan and the first time credit support was provided by a combination of the State of New York Mortgage Agency and the NYC Housing Development Corp.

Most Innovative Corporate Strategy:
First Place: Sprint Nextel and CBRE Sprint Real Estate for their joint Innovation Council and in particular the development of their Site Assessment Mobile Application to improve management of the Sprint real estate portfolio and apply to other real estate functions and properties, as well.

Second Place: Berkadia Commercial Mortgage for its acquisition of Hendricks & Partners, expanding the mortgage banker into investment sales with a solid purchase achieved within a tight timeframe.

The presentation of the winners appears in the July 2013 issue of Commercial Property Executive, along with links to a slideshow, a video with the judges and additional details on the winning entries.