News

CBL and Associates Properties Inc. and Tenco Realty of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, have announced the opening of the new 243,000-square-foot shopping center, Plaza Macae in Macae, Brazil. CBL has a 60 percent interest in the center. Plaza Macae is anchored by Lojas Americanas, C&A, Marisa, a five-screen Cine Ritz and Leader as well as over 56,000-square-feet of specialty store and restaurants. A second phase of Plaza Macaé, opening in December, will include a 68,000-square-foot WalMart. The center is approximately 92% leased and committed. For CBL, according to its president, Stephen Lebovitz, the opening is a significant milestone, marking its first…

Grubb & Ellis Realty Investors has purchased The Retreat at Peachtree in Peachtree City, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. The 312-unit multi-family property consists of 15 separate residential buildings totaling more than 300,000 square feet on 26 acres. Additionally the community features recreational facilities and an executive business center on site. Each unit is equipped with modern appliances and averages a square footage of 980 feet. Currently, the property is 94 percent leased. Grubb & Ellis purchased the property as part of a joint venture with AMLI Residential and Prudential, which was represented by Engler Financial Group. Capstone Realty Advisors…

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. will bring its high-end St. Regis brand to Las Vegas with the opening in two years of The St. Regis Residences at the Venetian Palazzo, LasVegas. Starwood and Las Vegas Sands Corp. reached an agreement for Starwood to manage 398 private luxury residences in a $600 million residential tower under construction on The Strip between The Venetian and The Palazzo.No financial terms were disclosed in a joint news release from the two companies, but they did project total sales could be as much as $2 billion. Various news reports stated it was the first…

Schuff Steel Co. has topped out the new conference center that is part of the L.A. Live development in Los Angeles. The 27-acre development began with the construction of the Staples Center where the Lakers play, in 2002. L.A. Live is a sprawling mix-use development that also includes a Regal Cinema movie theatre complex, the Nokia Theater, restaurants and retail, condominium and apartments, sports, entertainment centers, and hotel venues. “L.A. Live is a tremendous project for Schuff Steel Company. As the largest development in Los Angeles, the project will not only invigorate downtown, but position the city as a major…

The Olympics may be over in China, but the exciting events haven’t stopped there. The highest publicly accessible built space (pictured), part of the tallest building in the world—the 101-floor, 1,614-foot Shanghai World Financial Center, has now opened. The Sky Walk occupies the buildings 94th through 100th floors of the Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates-designed building, which was developed by Japanese developer Mori Building Co. Glass walls and a glass floor offer views of the Shanghai skyline, downtown streets and the Huangpu River. The 97th floor features a roof that opens to the sky when weather permits, and the Sky Arena…

NTS Realty Holdings L,P, has announced an agreement to purchase Courtney Estates in Raleigh, N.C., from Courtney Estates Holdings L.L.C. for a price of $39 million. NTS will conduct due diligence on the property by Sept. 26 and must close on the purchase by Oct. 26 if satisfied with the results. The firm will fund the purchase with working capital and a mortgage secured by the Country Estates property. Country Estates is a 300 unit multi-family property located within North Carolina’s Research Triangle, affording the property access to a wide variety of universities and businesses. The property has convenient access…

The Adler Group has acquired a 252,400-square-foot industrial portfolio in Naples, Fla., from Lund Capital Group for $31 million. The two-building portfolio is located near Naples Municipal Airport and is 96 percent occupied. The portfolio consists of Collier Park of Commerce, a seven-building, 189,500-square-foot park and Commerce Center, a four-building, 62,900-square-foot park. Collier County is among the tenants, according to Mike Davis, executive director of Florida’s West Coast capitals market group for Cushman & Wakefield Inc., who negotiated the sale of the portfolio for the owner, Naples-based Lund Capital Group.Jason Hochman, managing director of acquisitions for Adler Group, told CPN…

Microsoft’s newest generation of data centers, including one that was announced last week for West Des Moines, Iowa, could represent a turning point in green data center design, according to a data center industry expert.Rich Miller, editor of DataCenterKnowledge.com, told CPN that Microsoft hasn’t yet unveiled full plans for the West Des Moines center. However, although the $500 million, 500,000-square-foot data center being developed by Microsoft outside Chicago, will feature a traditional raised-floor configuration on the upper floor, the servers on the ground floor will be housed in up to 220, 40-foot shipping containers. The Northlake center will be Microsoft’s…

San Francisco-based Spear Street Capital has acquired an office property portfolio consisting of Riata Corporate Park and Riata Crossing in Austin. The complex includes 13 buildings totaling about 1.1 million square feet in the northwest submarket of that city, not far from the JJ Pickle Research Campus of the University of Texas at Austin, a center for electronic, aerospace, mechanical, petroleum and environmental-health engineering research. The tenant base of the Riata complex, which all together is about 98 percent occupied, likewise sports a good many tech-oriented companies, including Apple Inc., ACS–an information technology company–and Nvidia, a specialist in visual computing…