Manulife, Allianz to Invest Up to $1B in U.S. CRE

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

1100 New York Ave.

Manulife Asset Management Private Markets, an arm of Manulife, of Toronto, has entered into an arrangement with Allianz, a leading Germany-based insurance and asset management company, to co-invest up to $1 billion in U.S. real estate, the parties announced Friday. The partnership reportedly “will seek to invest in … high-quality office properties in U.S. gateway cities.”
To kick off that process, John Hancock Real Estate, the U.S. CRE unit of Manulife Asset Management Private Markets, has sold to Allianz majority interests in two of its Class A office assets, 1100 New York Ave. N.W. in Washington, D.C., and 191 N. Wacker Drive in Chicago. Manulife retains a partial interest and will continue to manage both assets.

In the announcement of the partnership, Manulife Asset Management Private Markets president/CEO Kevin Adolphe called Allianz “a highly-regarded and established institutional investor that is very much aligned to our long-term investment philosophy.”
“Allianz has ambitious goals to continue to expand its real estate presence in the U.S.,” Christoph Donner, CEO of Allianz Real Estate of America, said in the same release, “and we are pleased to do so with 1100 New York Ave. and 191 North Wacker Drive, two buildings that represent the type of high- quality assets in which we seek to invest.”

Sited roughly midway between the White House and the Washington Convention Center, 1100 New York Ave. is a unique property, in that the lobby of the 12-story atrium building, completed in 1991, is the former Greyhound Bus Terminal, which was constructed in the 1940s Art Deco/Moderne style. Home to five restaurants, the building also features on-site parking and a 10,000-square-foot fitness center.
Tenants include the federal Overseas Private Investment Corp., law firms Cohen Milstein and Sterne Kessler Goldstein Fox, the Partnership for Public Service, the U.S. Travel Association, and the American Clinical Laboratory Association.

191 W. Wacker, in Chicago’s West Loop, is a 37-floor Class A property totaling about 734,000 square feet. Designed by Kohn Pederson Fox, it was completed in 2002 and is certified LEED-EB Gold.
Manulife bought the building from a limited partnership of its developer, Hines, and CalPERS in September 2004 for a reported $222 million. Tenants include Heitman L.L.C. and law firms Drinker, Biddle & Reath, Much Shelist and Handler Thayer.