Uncategorized

Six months after announcing its plan to empty its portfolio of affordable housing properties, Associated Estates Realty Corp. has taken a big step toward fulfilling its goal with the disposition of 10 of its 11 affordable housing assets, all of which are located in Ohio.The multi-family REIT will make its final departure from the low-income property business with the sale of the last remaining apartment community, which is currently under contract.A private regional buyer snapped up the 995-unit portfolio, which had an average occupancy rate of 99 percent as of the close of 2007. The communities are between 26 and…

Faced with the need to infuse the company with more cash during the tightest credit crunch in recent memory, Borders Group Inc. today announced it was considering selling all of its business or parts of it.The bookseller also said it had received a $42.5 million secured loan from its largest shareholder, Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P., and a backstop purchase offer up to $125 million to buy some of the company’s international businesses.Bloomberg.com reported today that competior Barnes & Noble said it would consider looking at acquiring Borders.Shares of Borders stock dropped today as the news was announced first by…

Adding to its Los Angeles-area holdings, Houston-based Hines REIT purchased the Raytheon and DIRECTV buildings, which make up a two-building office complex in El Segundo, Calif., for $120 million. The buildings were purchased from Newkirk Segair L.P., which was represented by Eastdil Secured in the transaction. Hines is the sponsor of Hines REIT, and is responsible for the acquisition, management and leasing of its assets. Located near the Los Angeles International Airport, the two-building property is situated on a 6.14-acre site and includes 550,000 rentable square feet in two 11-story Class A office buildings, including two levels of office space…

A day after the stock market’s surge, investors pulled back a bit today, even with better than expected quarterly results from Morgan Stanley. As of early this afternoon, the Dow Jones industrial index fell approximately 60 points after yesterday’s 420 point surge, which came on the heels of the Federal Reserve’s announcement that it would slash the federal funds rate 75 basis points, to 2.25 percent. Though many observers had expected a 100 basis point cut, the Fed’s move was nonetheless greeted with optimism by the market. Also driving yesterday’s gains—the Dow saw its biggest jump in more than five…

Another economic indicator appears to have hit the skids. The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) plunged almost nine points in February. Assembled by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), ABI measures “work-on-the-boards” and predicts non-residential construction activity nine to 12 months into the future. In February, the ABI rating stood at 41.8, the lowest rating since October 2001 and down from 50.7 in January. A rating above 50 indicates an increase in billings and a possible increase in construction activity. Attributing the decrease in the ABI rating to the housing slump and tightening credit market, an AIA spokesperson told CPN today…

Twelve floors of Chicago’s 330 N. Wabash Ave.–the former IBM building–have been sold by Prime Group Realty Trust to Modern Magic Hotel L.L.C., a joint venture of an affiliate of Oxford Capital Group L.L.C. and LaSalle Hotel Properties.The JV plans to develop the approximately 375,000-square-foot space into a super-luxury hotel featuring up to 335 rooms and suites, as well as 17,000 square feet of conference and meeting facilities, including a 5,000-square-foot ballroom; a 9,000-square-foot restaurant; fitness center; indoor pool; and destination spa. The sale was based on a vertical subdivision, Jeffrey Patterson, Prime’s president & CEO, told CPN.“We just split…

Devin Murphy, previously global head of real estate investment banking for Deutsche Bank, has joined New York-based Coventry Real Estate Advisors as a managing partner. In his new role, Murphy will attend to strategic decision-making on behalf of the company in that position, along with managing partners Peter Henkel and David Hirschberg. Coventry is a retail and mixed-use real estate specialist, having acquired and developed over $2.5 billion of properties since its inception in 1998. The firm primarily acquires existing assets for re-development, develops properties with joint venture partners and acquires portfolios of stores from retailers. Recent transactions completed by…

Lighthouse Real Estate Ventures has snapped up 25 industrial assets from Baker Properties for $209 million. The facilities account for nearly 2 million square feet of warehouse and flex space in the Tri-State area. Baker had spent the last three decades amassing the portfolio, which has an average occupancy rate of 93 percent. Five of the properties are in Morris Plains, N.J.; 10 are in the Westchester County, N.Y. cities of Elmsford and Port Chester; and the remaining 10 are in Connecticut’s Fairfield and New Haven counties. Additionally, the portfolio includes developable land at two- and five-acre sites in Connecticut….

AMB Property Corp. has purchased nearly 50 acres of land in Jersey City, N.J., from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. The developer will erect the 878,000-square-foot AMB Pulaski Distribution Center on the former landfill site. Located on Route 1 within a few miles of the New Jersey Turnpike, the newly acquired parcel has gone unused for about three decades. The location of the property will handily accommodate tenants’ distribution activities, as it provides easy access to the bustling Port of New York and New Jersey, the Jersey City, Newark and Elizabeth seaports, as well as Newark Liberty International. According…

If there were any doubt that the sale-leaseback investment vehicle has caught on worldwide, a recent report by Real Capital Analytics confirms that sale-leasebacks not only form an important chunk of all real estate investment sales – worldwide – but also that European companies are increasingly keen on the idea. The growth of Euro-sale-leasebacks represents a marked shift in attitudes, considering that European companies were long known to be reluctant to sell the land on which their operations sat, especially their headquarters. “Corporate users capitalized on investor demand for property globally with $88 billion of dispositions in 2007, including $56…