News

Can Chicago’s Tribune Tower sell, even in a market as sluggish for investment sales as the current one? Tribune Co. and real estate mogul Sam Zell didn’t address that question directly, but he did say that an attempted sale of the Chicago property, along with the company’s office building in Los Angeles, is well within the realm of possibility. “[The properties] are… under-utilized, and as employee-owners, it’s in our best interests to maximize the value of all our assets,” Zell said in a statement yesterday. Currently, according to Zell, the company is “exploring strategic alternatives” for the property, one of…

Reed Construction Data today announced their latest figures on the value of recent U.S. construction starts, and while those numbers are pretty unsightly, at least they shouldn’t be surprising. From January through May, according to Reed, starts were down 5.9 percent from the same period in 2007, continuing a downward trend that started in the middle of last year. But such overall figures don’t necessarily say much, so Reed provided some commercial construction stats broken down especially for CPN. The figures below cover various commercial sectors from January through May, with comparisons to the same period last year. * Office…

Bluerock Real Estate L.L.C. has purchased for $42.75 million a 260,000-square-foot office building belonging to chemical manufacturer Solutia in Town and Country, Mo., outside St. Louis. Solutia, whose headquarters is in St. Louis, will continue to occupy 120,000 square feet in the building under a 10-year renewable lease with Bluerock. The chemical company and its real estate advisor, Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, had begun marketing the building, at 575 Maryville Centre Drive, earlier this year. Pfizer Inc. and Savvis Inc. also lease space there. “Through this agreement, Solutia is able to free up cash to pay down debt and for…

Hilton Hotels Corp. plans to vastly increase its presence in Asia over the next 10 years with the addition of 300 more hotels to its existing portfolio of 47 properties there. The blossoming business and leisure travel markets in India and China will be among the areas targeted by Hilton, which has a list of brands that run the gamut from budget to upper-upscale accommodations. As per a report by hospitality consulting firm HVS, tourism arrivals in 2007 increased by 13 percent and 10 percent in India and China, respectively. According to a Wall Street Journal article, the company anticipates…

Starwood Vacation Ownership has unveiled plans to develop a third Hawaiian vacation ownership resort in Maui. SVO, a division of the hospitality management firm Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, will develop the property in Kā‘anapali North Beach, which is located near Lahaina on West Maui. The resort is expected to have 390 luxury villas with one to three bedrooms per unit. The new vacation ownership resort will join SVO’s two other resorts in Maui and one in Kaua’i. The firm plans to develop the new resort in accordance with guidelines of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification system. The…

The speed with which green building practices have caught on in commercial real estate has outpaced the legal and contractual tools that owners, developers, tenants and others need to make such green practices function as smoothly as possible. At the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International Conference and Office Building Show in Denver yesterday, BOMA and the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) took a stab at part of the problem by unveiling what they term the Energy Performance Contract Model, which would allow building owners to perform major energy retrofits to the existing buildings using standardized contract language. BOMA and…

SCI Real Estate Investments L.L.C. has purchased Campus Park, a student apartment community in Stillwater, Okla., from Internacional Realty Group. The property consists 10 apartment buildings totaling 138 units (384 beds), plus a clubhouse, on 19 acres, some of which is available for future development. The community also features a pool with spa, volleyball and basketball courts, a computer room and private study/conference rooms. It traded hands for an undisclosed price. Although he declined to disclose the purchase price, Scott Derrick, SCI’s chief investment officer, told CPN that the property traded hands at an 8.2 cap rate. The property is…

Retail REIT Simon Property Group has purchased a line of new enforcement vehicles for its security officers at various Simon properties around the country. Manufactured by Costa Mesa, Calif.-based T3 Motion Inc., the three-wheeled vehicles provide an elevated platform that enables officers to see over the tops of cars, travel at speeds up to 20 mph, and reduce crime. Yet, they cost less than 10 cents per day to operate. “The key for me is that the vehicles increase the mobility and visibility of our security officers and help reduce crime,” John Petruzzi, Simon’s vice president of corporate security, told…

Developer Black Bear Resort has cleared the last hurdle for the development of its 2,200-acre mountain resort community in Bear Lake, Idaho, now that the Bear Lake County Commission has given the project its approval. The commission signed off on the conceptual mater plan, as well as the preliminary plat for the first phase of the massive endeavor. Sited along the 20-mile long and 8-mile wide Bear Lake–one of the largest freshwater lakes in the western United States–Black Bear is located two hours north of Salt Lake City and two hours south of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The development will be…

CB Richard Ellis Inc. and China Vanke Co., a major residential developer in China, have formed a joint venture to provide property management services to high-end residential properties developed by Vanke. Under the terms of the JV, the new entity will be managed by executives from both companies, and be headquartered in Shanghai. According to CBRE, the JV will combine its skills in international property management best practices with Vanke’s knowledge of many local markets in China. Shenzhen-based Vanke currently operates in the Pearl River Delta Region, which includes Shenzhen, Guangzhou (Canton) and other cities; the Yangtze River Delta Region,…