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Capitalizing on China’s growing ski culture, Melco China Resorts, an associate of Melco International Development Ltd., has announced the launch of China’s first ski and leisure resort, the redevelopment of other ski areas and the groundbreaking of a luxury mountain home project. The company recently topped out two hotels in the Yabuli Sun Mountain resort, which is the core focus of MCR’s immediate development plan. The resort will include three premium hotels in total, including a luxury 24-suite boutique mountaintop hotel. The location is China’s most recognized ski resort area, and will host the World Winter University games in early…

In its second major purchase in the Galleria submarket of Houston since October, San Francisco-based Shorenstein Properties L.L.C. acquired the Class A office tower 5 Post Oak Park for an undisclosed amount. The seller was a partnership between GE Asset Management Inc. and Fort Worth-based Crescent Real Estate Equities L.P. The seller was represented by the Houston office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP.   The 28-story, 567,400-square-foot building (pictured) is located at 4400 Post Oak Parkway and is 93 percent leased with three tenants–Amegy Bank, UBS and Willbros USA–accounting for 50 percent of the building s leasable area. The purchase includes…

The saga of Maguire Properties Inc. continued to unfold today with word that Brookfield Properties Corp. is interesting in buying, along with other partners, Maguire’s interests in Downtown Los Angeles office properties for about $750 million.The Wall Street Journal reported the offer, citing a letter from Brookfield to Maguire that the newspaper had seen.”It’s hard to know how Maquire’s board is going to respond to Brookfield,” David AuBuchon, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co., told CPN this morning. “It seems like an adequate, though not stellar, offer. There’s really only one other current office trade in the same…

Following the lead taken by some of its larger neighbors, Ajman, the smallest in size of the seven federated states making up the United Arab Emirates, has broken ground on Al Zorah, a $59 billion master-planned “sustainable residential, business and leisure community,” according to a Reuters news report.  Al Zorah’s developer is Al Zorah Development Co., a JV between the Ajman government and Beirut-based Solidere International Ltd. Solidere, Lebanon’s largest publicly traded company, is widely credited as a major force behind war-torn Beirut’s gradual re-emergence as a cultural and commercial center, It was founded as a public-private partnership in 1994…

Boston Properties, developer of the 815,000-square-foot mixed-use Russia Wharf in Boston, has snagged an anchor tenant for the 552,000-square-foot office segment of the $500 million project. Asset management firm and investment advisor Wellington Management Co. will occupy 450,000 square feet under a 15-year lease agreement.”You don’t find a whole lot of deals like that in the Boston market,” Stephen Brodsky, senior vice president & managing director with real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis Co., told CPN today; the firm was not involved in the transaction. News of the lease was disclosed in Boston Properties’ first quarter 2008 earnings statement…

Beset by a slowing economy and continued fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis, commercial real estate will likely face challenges as demand slows in 2008. Yet factors such as a restrained construction pipeline are likely to prevent a more severe slowdown, according to a report issued Tuesday by ING Clarion on the state of commercial real estate investment. At a press conference on Wednesday in New York on the report, David Lynn, managing director of research and investment strategy for ING, said that, based on the company’s modeling, the recession will be what he termed a “short and shallow one.”…

As gas prices rise, people are driving shorter distances. Instead of driving 20 miles to the grocery store near a favorite mall, people are driving a half-mile to the local grocery store, which today offers a host of services, including dry-cleaning and banking.  As the economy slows, people are eating in restaurants less often and buying more prepared foods from the local grocery store. They can also take advantage of take-out Chinese food, pizza and other commercial meals being prepared in many of today’s new supermarkets.  The supermarket industry is attempting to tap into the trends spawned by rising energy…

AMB Property Corp. has acquired an industrial complex near the Port of Hamburg, Germany, totaling more than 930,000 square feet of existing buildings and 16 acres of land.Kuehne + Nagel, a Swiss logistics company and AMB customer in other parts of the world, has leased about 402,000 square feet of the park in connection with this purchase.According to San Francisco-based AMB, it intends to build out the site through a phased development plan. The undeveloped land, the company said, can hold about 414,000 square feet of additional industrial development.Currently, the Port of Hamburg is the second-largest container port in Europe…

IRSA Inversiones y Representaciones S.A. has acquired the Edificio Republica building in Downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina, for $70.3 million, adding 214,000 square feet to its portfolio.  With this purchase, the company also expects to soon close lease agreements for approximately 172,000 square feet. The building was designed by Cesar Pelli, who had also designed the World Financial Center in New York City and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Prices are expected to rise due to a demand and supply imbalance in city, as relatively few office buildings are scheduled to come online in the next few years. And since…

Even in an economy as unsettled as we’re currently going through, people buy food and medication, and for Newport Beach, Calif.–based Marinita Development, that’s the engine that keeps this small but established company chugging along.  The developer’s The Shops at Sycamore Creek, a $42 million, 94,000-square-foot supermarket/drug-anchored shopping center fronting I-15 in Corona, Calif., in San Bernardino County, just broke ground on its third building. Nearly 80 percent preleased, the 11.8-acre, six-building project is expected to begin opening next fall.  The anchor tenants are a Vons “Lifestyle” supermarket, Vons Fuel Station and CVS/Pharmacy. The buildings range from 4,000 to 48,000…