Regions

Amid a flurry of announcements of delayed projects in New York City, Forest City Ratner Cos. has orchestrated the $161.9 million refinancing of a loan connected to its $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Downtown Brooklyn. Gramercy Capital Corp., which made the original loan to Brooklyn-based FCRC for the purchase of land for Atlantic Yards, provided the refinancing along with a group of co-lenders. Timing of the deal was just right, as the loan was scheduled to be repaid this month; the new loan is due in February 2011. To be developed in phases over a long-term period, the Frank…

It was the thud felt around the world. Last year, as the credit crunch and economic downturn spread from country to country, investment in commercial real estate across the globe plummeted 59 percent, going from just over $1 billion in 2007 to just $435 billion, according to real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield Inc.’s Investment Atlas 2009, which is scheduled to be published later this month. North America topped the list with a 73 percent decline in investment, followed by Europe, where investment plunged 52 percent, and then Asia, where numbers fell 45 percent. While investment activity slumped pretty…

Economic pain is spreading to a growing number of commercial real estate markets around the world, concludes a new assessment by CB Richard Ellis Inc. The report’s title, “The Quarter the Global Economy Stalled,” suggests that the end of 2008 was a turning point. “GDP reports or estimates for the world’s major economies are all down, and most nations are reporting declining industrial production and falling exports, the latter being quite severe in the largest exporting nations,” concludes the analysis, which was prepared by an international five-member team including Raymond Torto, Nick Axford, Andrew Ness, Kevin Stanley and Raymond Wong….

With its large governmental employment sector, Washington, D.C., is likely to fare better than many other cities as the U.S. fights the worst economic downturn in a decade, but the city is not impervious to the effects of the economic slowdown. That was the conclusion of investors who convened for the annual Transwestern-Commercial Property News Investor Roundtable, held last Thursday in Washington, D.C.Indeed, D.C. shines brightest when the U.S. enters crisis mode. “The Federal Government flips on a switch,” said Marc DeLuca, director at ING Clarion. In the last economic downturn in 2002, the city fared better than many other…

Just days after news broke that Manhattan’s $1 billion Hudson Yards project would be delayed, another major development in the city has been put on hold as a result of the economy’s continuing struggles. Boston Properties Inc.’s $980 million 250 West 55th St. saw one of its major planned tenants scrap plans to relocate to the 1 million-square-foot tower, forcing the developer to suspend construction. The delays are two of the most visible signs yet of just how much the office market has been battered by the recession, which is eroding tenant demand and limiting financing options for owners.Boston Properties,…

The gloomy economy has caused yet another hiccup for a major development project. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority revealed that the partnership period of conditional designation with Related Cos. and Goldman Sachs, the team the MTA selected to develop the $1 billion Hudson Yards project in New York City, has been extended one year beyond its originally agreed upon finalization date that was not to exceed Jan. 31. The announced delay involves the contract, not the development of Hudson Yards, as a construction schedule was never set. “We’re still moving through the government and zoning approval process so we can’t set…

On a day when a U.S. Report spelled out just how much American commercial real estate values are down, across the pond, properties also lost value. Commercial property valuation in the U.K. and Ireland lost a record amount in 2008, according to indexes compiled by Investment Property Databank Ltd.Values for U.K. office, industrial and retail properties collectively fell 26.4 percent in 2008, while the drop in Ireland was even more precipitous: 37.2 percent. According to IPD, that essentially means that the runup in valuation of British Isles’ commercial real estate from roughly the beginning of the 2000s until mid-2007 has…

Proving that, even in today’s stalled markets, large-scale deals are getting done, CB Richard Ellis Investors has acquired the 420,000-square-foot Metropolitan Center in East Rutherford, N.J., from ING Clarion. The deal represented the third time in five years that the Class A office property has changed hands and is more evidence that high-profile assets located in prominent markets are still attracting buyers. The deal was orchestrated by Cushman & Wakefield Inc.’s metropolitan area capital markets group, including Jose Cruz, Andrew Merin, David Bernhaut and Gary Gabriel. The 15-story property (pictured) is sited across from the Meadowlands Sports Complex and the…

O’Neill Properties Group is chalking up another large office tenant for Worthington Town Center, a $500 million master-planned project in Malvern, Pa. VWR International Inc., a global distributor of laboratory supply equipment, picked the project as the site for its new 150,000 square-foot headquarters. Next year VWR plans to move from its current location in West Chester to Malvern, an upscale community about 25 miles west of Philadelphia in Chester County, VWR’s offices will be located in a 240,000-square-foot building that will also include restaurants and a fitness center. Disclosed last week, VWR’s decision moves O’Neill Properties a giant step…

Washington, D.C., has turned off its development spigot, but projects already in the pipeline continue to move forward. Trammell Crow Co. managing director Tom Finan estimated that 10 million square feet of office projects are under construction and that very little has thus been stopped, despite the fact that pre-leasing is down from the 60 to 70 percent of a few years ago to 33 percent today.Among the largest projects are Boston Properties Inc.’s 2200 Pennsylvania Ave. in the West End, a 430,000-square-foot office building going up on a 60-year ground lease from George Washington University Hospital, and Trammell Crow’s…