Regions

The gloomy economy has not prevented AMB Property Corp. from luring in tenants, despite widespread downsizing among companies. On Wednesday, the firm announced it has leased approximately 250,000 square feet of space at its AMB Millcreek Distribution Centre in Toronto to a leading global transportation services and logistics management company. This lease, in conjunction with the previously announced 225,000-square-foot lease to Hershey Canada Inc., brings the project to full occupancy.”This new lease at AMB Millcreek Distribution Centre is our fifth lease with this customer in North America and speaks to the quality of our portfolio and the strength of our…

Embattled insurer American International Group Inc., which has made headlines this week due to shelling out millions in executive bonuses after receiving a $173 billion bailout from taxpayers, said today that it is putting its Downtown Manhattan headquarters building up for sale, along with another nearby office owned by the firm. The story was first reported by the New York Post. According to multiple reports, AIG spokesman Mark Herr said that the company is “evaluating the sale” of both its 66-story, 775,000-square-foot headquarters building at 70 Pine St., as well as 72 Wall St., a 16-story building measuring 279,000 square…

As major cities across the nation see office projects put on the sidelines for lack of pre-leases, in Calgary developers of speculative office projects like the 1 million-square-foot Phase I of the $1 billion Eighth Avenue Place aren’t giving much thought at all to the idea of bringing construction to a halt. “We’re not slowing down at all; we’re on moving as planned and we’re on schedule,” John Smith, vice president of Eighth Avenue Place’s manger VIC Management Inc., told CPN. It’s a comment rarely heard these days in the States. Montreal-headquartered international investor SITQ, Calgary’s Matco Investments Ltd. and…

While Northern New Jersey remains one of the most dynamic retail markets in the nation, the vacancy factor in retail properties along the region’s six major shopping corridors jumped to 6.6 percent during 2008 from 3.6 percent a year earlier, according to R.J. Brunelli & Co. With recent retailer bankruptcies and downsizings adding to an inventory, it could take several years for the vacancy factor to get back to its usual levels.             R.J. Brunelli, an Old Bridge, N.J.-based retail real estate brokerage, in January conducted its 19th annual study of the northern New Jersey market and found 1.9 million…

Before the real estate market took a plunge, Washington, D.C., consistently ranked among the top tightest office markets in the country. In the last 18 months, vacancy rates have headed south, but with the District of Columbia being home to a plethora of government agencies that will get a boost from the government’s stimulus package, the area is due to sprout a bevy of new jobs over the next decade. And as noted in a recent report by real estate services firm Cassidy & Pinkard Colliers, with those new jobs will come new employees, who will need new places to…

Chicago’s office trends aren’t much different from the rest of the country as companies of all sizes are terminating their leases or are downsizing, but the Sears Tower is as popular as ever. About a week after expanding the lease for a major tenant in the tower, the building may be changing its name to the Willis Tower after global insurance broker Willis Group Holdings inked a lease in the world-famous Chicago high-rise.Under an agreement with the building’s owners, the Chicago icon and tallest building in the Western Hemisphere will be renamed Willis Tower, according to Willis Group Holdings information.Willis…

With the finance industry on its knees, securing a loan for a suburban New York City office property is not the cakewalk it used to be. However, lenders are still willing to fork over the funds for certain area assets, like Livingston, N.J.’s 385,000-square-foot Eisenhower Corporate Campus, which recently attracted a $64.8 million financing package. Property owners Eastman Cos. and The Sagner Cos. turned to Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P. to mine the market for money–and the commercial real estate capital intermediary came through with a $44.7 million adjustable-rate loan from Wells Fargo and TD BankNorth, and just over $20 million…

Despite an overall bleak picture for Chicago’s industrial and office product, the market is still seeing activity.  Over the past few days, the city has seen both an industrial lease deal and the announcement of an office development, but such deals are becoming a rarity rather than the norm. Bristol Group Inc. agreed to terms on a lease with PODS of Chicago, which will occupy some 81,250 square feet of warehouse and distribution space in recently constructed 11240 Katherine’s Crossing, a facility located within Wood Hill Crossings Business Park in Woodridge, Ill. With the PODS lease, Bristol Group has now…

With the real estate market in a slump, property owners in sale-leaseback deals aren’t walking away with as much money as they would have just a few years ago, but they can still get a relatively sizeable chunk of change, just as the New York Times Co. will in its arrangement with investment management firm W. P. Carey & Co. The newspaper concern just entered into a sale-leaseback agreement involving the 750,000 square feet of office space it owns and occupies in the 1.5 million-square-foot Midtown Manhattan building at 620 Eighth Ave. For W. P. Carey, the deal means adding…

With big property trades as rare hen’s teeth in Manhattan these days, the sale of the office portion of 1540 Broadway in Midtown for a heavily discounted price–rumored at $355 million–is sending ripples through the city’s investment market. Disclosed by CB Richard Ellis Investors, which made the purchase on behalf of a commingled international fund, the sale is one of only four significant Manhattan office trades confirmed so far this year. Some $775 million in office assets have change hands so far in 2009, about half the $1.6 billion volume tallied during the same period in 2008, according to Real…