December – Briefs/Leasing & Management

JLL Joins $1.4B M-U Project in W. Va.

Charles Point

The developer of a 1,700-acre, $1.4 billion master-planned project in central West Virginia has recruited Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. to help push the development forward over the next decade. The project, Charles Point, was set in motion by developer Genesis Partners and is West Virginia’s largest master-planned community and is believed to be the largest multi-use development by a public-private partnership in the United States. Jones Lang LaSalle and Genesis Partners will serve jointly as project development manager and lead brokerage team for the endeavor.

Charles Point, which is located in Bridgeport, already includes more than 250,000 square feet of office and retail space, two hotels and a conference center, recreation facilities, education facilities, parks and more than 200 residential units. Still to come is a total of 660 guest rooms, several shopping centers, a restaurant row, roughly 1,800 more housing units, a 40-acre resort, a health/wellness facility, and a baseball stadium and sports complex that will be home to local minor league baseball and hockey teams.

Prologis Leases 1 MSF in Brazilian Development Space

Prologis Inc. has completed two new lease agreements totaling 1.1 million square feet in Sao Paulo. The leases were signed with AGV Logistica, a third-party logistics provider, and Dafiti, one of Brazil’s largest online fashion retailers. AGV Logistica will occupy a 654,710-square-foot facility that will be the first distribution center in the new Prologis CCP Cajamar II Park, located in the Cajamar submarket of Sao Paulo. Construction began in November and should wrap up in August 2013. Dafiti will occupy a 412,729-square-foot building in Prologis CCP Jundai Industrial Park. At full build-out, the park is expected to total approximately 1.6 million square feet in the Jundai submarket of Sao Paulo. Prologis had approximately 11.7 million square feet of space developed or to be developed in Brazil as of June 30, 2012.

Sutter Health Signs for 295 KSF in California

Sutter Health has signed a 10-year lease on a 295,000-square-foot office building in Roseville, Calif., that will house more than 1,000 administrative employees—many of them new hires who will be phased into their positions over the next 18 months. Cushman & Wakefield Inc. represented Sutter Health in the transaction with the new landlord, Quality Investment Properties. The site is part of an office complex formerly occupied by Hewlett-Packard Co. The new administrative hub is expected to open in early 2013 and will centralize billing, finance and human resources into one location.

Pegasystems Settles into 162 KSF in Cambridge

Pegasystems Inc. has completed its relocation to One Rogers St. in Cambridge, Mass., having snapped up 162,000 square feet of premier office space in a tight market that is growing tighter. The business process management software firm committed to the 252,000-square-foot asset in July 2011, after signing a 12-year lease with owner Principal Global Investors. Pegasystems has set up shop on the top three floors, bringing the six-story building’s occupancy up to 93 percent.

Alexandria Leases 160 KSF of Lab/Office Space

Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. has signed four lease transactions aggregating approximately 162,000 square feet at 400 Technology Square in Cambridge, Mass. The asset is in the final stages of its complete redevelopment into a LEED Gold-certified laboratory/office asset. The four long-term lease transactions bring Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Epizyme Inc., Warp Drive Bio L.L.C. and Aramco Services Co. into the space. The building itself is one of seven state-of-the-art lab/office assets comprising the 1.2 million-square-foot Alexandria Technology Square.

Simone Brings LA Fitness to Metro Center Atrium

Simone Development Cos. has signed LA Fitness to 43,000 square feet of space at Metro Center Atrium, the firm’s new mixed-use project located in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx in New York. LA Fitness will open its new state-of-the-art fitness center, which is one of the first in a non-suburban location, in November 2013. Earlier this fall, Marriott agreed to open a Residence Inn-branded hotel at Metro Center Atrium, which is part of Simone’s successful Hutchinson Metro Center complex.

Chrysler Inks 110 KSF in Manhattan’s Auto Row

Chrysler Group L.L.C. has signed a lease for 110,000 square feet of auto showroom and service space at 629 W. 54^th St. in New York City. CBRE Group Inc. represented the firm in the transaction, which was a direct deal with the Friedland Estate, landlord for the building in the Auto Row district in Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton/Midtown West neighborhood on Manhattan’s Far West Side. The space will be occupied by Fiat of Manhattan and the service operations of Manhattan Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram. The move is slated for next April.

LeFrak Signs 62 KSF of Deals in Jersey City

The LeFrak Organization has signed nine new deals at 111 Town Square Place in Newport, N.J. The long-term leases, which total 62,440 square feet, bring a variety of financial institutions, transportation companies, tech firms and media companies into the Class A office property. The largest of the deals was a 27,915-square-foot lease with the Global Association of Risk Professions. The other deals involved Hartfield, Titus & Donnelly L.L.C., a municipal bond brokerage firm; Stagnito Media, a digital magazine publisher; West Legend Corp., a logistics and distribution supplier; Select Transportation Corp., a commercial freight transportation specialist; C.H. Powell, a global provider of transport and logistics services; Sportex L.L.C., an institutional foreign exchange platform; IP Blue Software Solutions, a VoIP provider; and Atlantic Capital, a commodities trading firm.

Hudson Pacific Properties Signs 246 KSF in San Francisco

Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. has signed a new lease at its 1455 Market Street property to Square Inc., an electronic payment service provider focused on mobile devices. The new lease encompasses 246,078 square feet of initial occupancy, and includes for an expansion option of 81,354 square feet. The asset is a 1 million-square-foot 22-story Class A office asset situated on 3 acres in San Francisco’s Mid-Market submarket. Square Inc. will start to move in July 2013, wrapping up in early 2014.