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Spanish property firm Colonial announced it enjoyed a substantial increase in profits in 2007, as the firm faced an acquisition deadline of today from Investment Corp. of Dubai.  The investment group has offered $4.5 billion for the Barcelona-based developer.   Colonial said net profit jumped last year to $129.7 million from $26.1 million, due to its acquisition of Spanish mall developer Riofisa, and a nearly $840 million increase in the value of its assets. Many real estate firms in Spain have been confronting significant financial problems of late, especially if they have large residential divisions, as residential housing has been overbuilt…

Forest City Enterprises Inc. has refinanced Promenade Bolingbrook town center in Chicago’s southwestern suburbs with a $100 million mortgage loan from The Prudential Insurance Co. of America. The mortgage, which replaced the property’s construction loan, illustrates that the capital markets are providing liquidity to borrowers with strong track records, high quality assets and strong management teams, a Forest City spokesperson told CPN today.  “The terms of specific transactions may be less attractive than 18 months ago, but we have plenty of access to liquidity,” he added. “In fact, we recently exercised the accordion feature in our revolving credit facility and…

The Silverman Group has just taken a premier office property in downtown Hartford, Conn., off the hands of New Boston Fund. The Silverman Group snapped up the building, which will soon have a total vacancy of about 50 percent, for $18 million, according to sources familiar with the transaction. New Boston Fund had owned 100 Pearl (pictured) since 1999, when it acquired the property for nearly $33 million via its Fund IV. Located in the heart of Hartford’s Central Business District,100 Pearl was developed nearly two decades ago by Fusco Corp. as the headquarters for Mechanics Savings Bank and Bank…

Real estate developer the Related Group and franchise operator Meritage Hospitality Group have formed a joint venture called TRG-Meritage Bahamas L.L.C. to develop an 884-acre resort property on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas.The partnering comes in the wake of the project’s approval in principal by the Bahamian government’s National Economic Council.According to the JV’s plans, the project is intended to be a low-density, low-rise resort community. Eleuthera is a narrow island about 110 miles long and a mile wide at places, roughly 50 miles east of Nassau. Currently, many of its resort properties are on the small offshore…

Capella Healthcare Inc. has completed the purchase of nine acute care facilities from Community Health Systems Inc. The transaction, valued at aggregate $315 million, involved a total of 1,070 beds located in Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Oregon and Tennessee. Capella and CHS, both headquartered in Franklin, Tenn., first announced the deal in late November of last year. “Each of these hospitals is located in a steadily growing market that offers potential for expansion of healthcare services,” Tom Anderson, president of Capella Healthcare, told CPN today. With four hospitals, Alabama is the site of the majority of the portfolio. The properties–Decatur’s Parkway…

With flourishes like 24-karat gold–plated sinks and solid white marble vanities, The Plaza Hotel in Manhattan reopened Saturday following a two-year, $400 million renovation by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. A grand opening celebration is scheduled for May.  “This dramatic renovation has restored The Plaza’s famous spaces to their previous opulence and raised standards for luxury hotels around the world through unrivaled service and extraordinary amenities,” Fairmont president & COO Chris Cahill said in a prepared statement.  The hotel, which includes 180 guest rooms and 102 suites, is managed by Fairmont and owned jointly by the El Ad Group, based in…

Each year, our Hot Brokers feature reveals interesting characteristics to which the brokers’ success may be attributed. Some traits are unique and tough to emulate, but other ideas may be applied elsewhere. Still other qualities seem to be quite common among star brokers, if not across the brokerage world at large.This year’s crop of top dealmakers, presented on page 25, is no exception. Reviewing their profiles, I find a great deal of enthusiasm for making deals and getting to know clients. Interest in their clients’ business and respect for the importance of relationships are also oft-quoted values. Other terms that…

Any thought beyond the daily crush of deals and deadlines often falls to the bottom of a real estate executive’s to-do list. Still, imagine trying to accomplish all those everyday tasks without the support of a team. Many real estate companies will face just that pinch as Baby Boomers begin to retire en masse, leaving large gaps in management.Succession planning should be an integral part of any company’s strategy, whether large or small, public or private. Without an integrated, long-term view of its importance to the company’s success—and sometimes even its survival—an unexpected staffing change, particularly at the middle- and…

Though larger office investment has been profoundly affected by the credit crunch, the smaller office-condo subsector has not been hit as hard in certain U.S. markets.Ford Gibson, principal of Gibson Development Partners, has mainly seen big lenders pulling away from buyers in South Florida. “The buyers just went out and found another lender,” he said. “It seems like the big lenders have made a portfolio decision not to finance these properties.” Local banks swooped in quickly, however, noting that transactions did not lose much time.    As an office condo developer, Gibson is careful where he builds. “We did not go…

Rather than close the market-starved Desert Sky Mall, built in 1981, Westcor transformed the center late last year into a retail destination targeting the West Valley’s large Hispanic population. The newly relaunched retail center includes a Mexican-film movie theater, Cinema Latino, and a 100,000-square-foot La Curacao, a first-to-market department store carrying appliances and electronics serving the Latino customer, noted Rick Murphy, senior vice president of retail brokerage services for CB Richard Ellis Inc. “Westcor took what was an unsuccessful mall and went with the demographics around it,” he said. “It will likely be 100 percent Hispanic-geared in the next few…