Uncategorized

The continuing recession has translated to growing office vacancy in central business districts across the country. Dallas, though, has been exception, as vacancy fell from 27.6 percent to 27.2 percent at the end of the first quarter, according to a Cushman & Wakefield Inc. report Not a huge decrease, to be sure, but Randy Cooper, executive director in the company’s Dallas office, believes that these numbers are more proof that office tenants are favoring locations in the CBD, which encompasses the Uptown and Downtown submarkets.That was not always the case, Cooper said. Many of the large, 1 million-square-foot office buildings…

Los Angeles County’s industrial sector experienced the largest amount of negative net absorption in the first quarter compared to all other industrial markets, with negative 8.8 million square feet. This is the largest quarterly hit to occupied space in the metropolitan area since the first quarter of 1990. This contraction in demand for industrial space increased the availability rate by 100 basis points for the quarter to 6.5 percent. The current economic turmoil is having a large effect on one of the nation’s largest industrial markets. The port is at a standstill, given the drop-off in trade activity, with both…

Hundreds or thousands of miles from the nation’s powerful coastal ports, second-tier industrial markets sometimes seem overlooked. But a handful of locations, most in the nation’s heartland, held their ground or improved occupancy during the first quarter compared to the same period of 2008.In 13 of 53 markets served by Colliers International affiliates, year-over-year industrial vacancy held steady or improved. Leading the list is Little Rock, Ark., which enjoyed the biggest vacancy drop of any industrial market surveyed by Colliers, from 17.2 percent to 10.6 percent. Cleveland trimmed its rate from 8.1 percent to 7.5 percent. In Memphis, vacancy dropped…

A major part of the federal government’s $800 billion economic stimulus package will be devoted to construction projects to improve the nation’s infrastructure, but a recent Center for Housing Policy study found that many of the jobs created by these construction projects will pay insufficient incomes to enable workers to afford rental housing in many U.S. markets.The study covered rental rates of two-bedroom apartments, as well as single-family homes. Typical rents in each metropolitan area are based on the fiscal year 2009 compared to the 2007 Fair Market Rents issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, effectively comparing…

Kimco Realty Corp. is the latest REIT to snag a successful refinancing for a trophy property. On Friday, Cushman & Wakefield Sonnenblick Goldman said that it had secured a $100 million refinancing for the REIT’s Suburban Square, a 360,000-square-foot retail center in Ardmore, Pa., an affluent Philadelphia suburb. Details on terms were not immediately available. However, the transaction appears to dovetail with Kimco’s stated strategy of identifying financing sources that enable it to minimize its use of bank lines of credit. So far this year, Kimco has obtained secured debt commitments valued at $212 million, closed $106 million in secured…

In the first three months of the year, the worldwide economic crisis dealt its biggest blow yet to the hotel investment industry. As per recently released research by  Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, global transaction volumes fell from a fourth quarter 2008 figure of $2.1 billion to an even more conservative $1.9 billion, the lowest point since the 9/11-induced downturn during the first quarter of 2002. However, signs indicate that the market may very well have reached a bottom.  Looking at regions around the world, the Americas, which had led the pack in transactions until the credit markets collapsed, continued to…

Another victim of the country’s shattered retail market, popular discount fashion store Filene’s Basement has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and has struck a deal to sell 17 of its 25 stores–including its flagship destinations in Boston and New York City–to Crown Acquisitions and The Chetrit Group for $22 million. The writing has been on the wall for the century-old Filene’s for quite some time. The bankruptcy filing comes just two weeks after Retail Ventures Inc. sold Filene’s to an entity formed by the Buxbaum Group, citing the chain’s considerable liquidity challenges. Even before the change in ownership, 11…

Despite the widespread financial challenges presented by the debilitated economy, commercial property owners continue to invest in retrofitting their buildings today in order to achieve great savings tomorrow, and it seems the trend is only going to grow. According to a new report by Pike Research, comprehensive efficiency retrofits will increase in annual revenue three-fold to $6.6 billion by 2013.As noted in the report, entitled Energy Efficiency Retrofits for Commercial and Public Buildings,approximately 20 billion square feet of the country’s existing 70 billion square feet of public and private commercial building space is in need of major renovations, presenting a…

With a trifecta of falling asset prices, a deep global recession and waves of loans coming up for refinancing in a Draconian lending environment, the roster of distressed commercial real estate assets is growing, as well as the number of companies seeing a market opportunity to pilot these assets through rough seas. Broad Street Development, an owner and manager of commercial and residential New York City properties, announced today it was entering the fray, launching an asset management equity investment arm. The new division will partner with institutional owners and lenders to provide asset management services, and has $500 million…

Retail property owners in Atlanta have done a lot more head scratching than trading in the past year. Even if debt had been more readily available, the virtual absence of local sales comparables would have made it almost impossible to price assets, noted Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. managing director Kris Cooper. “It caused not only us but also sellers and owners a huge challenge,” he observed. The often unanswerable question, he explained, was, “How do (you) value that property?”Countless investors, developers and lenders around the country could echo the frustration of Cooper’s clients. But the issue of valuing retail properties…