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The competition is on to acquire Macklowe Properties’ 1.8 million-square-foot General Motors Building in Midtown Manhattan, and Silverstein Properties has thrown its hat into the ring. A source familiar with the bidding process has confirmed to CPN that Silverstein Properties, the New York City real estate company behind the World Trade Center redevelopment, has made an offer of more than $3 billion. Faced with a $7 billion debt on a portfolio of office buildings acquired last year from Equity Office Properties, Macklowe is in a hurry to sell the GM Building (pictured) to pay off part of the obligation. Bids…

Dubai-based Zabeel Investments has taken a 50 percent stake in the Light Group, a Las Vegas-based hospitality development and management company.The Light Group’s most notable development is the Harmon Hotel, Spa & Residences in Las Vegas, which is currently under construction with an opening slated for 2009. The company is also planning a resort and residential development on an island called Blackadore Caye off the coast of Belize.The deal marks the first foray into the United States by the Dubai investment house, which was formed in 2006. It has recently taken major stakes in European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co….

Capital Corp. has made a quick move, and a neat profit; it has sold its Rockville Business Center. Covington Capital, based in Santa Monica, Calif., and Columbus, Ohio, acquired the center, a 630,000-square-foot former RCA manufacturing facility in Indianapolis in Sept. 2005. The building was bought out of bankruptcy from GMAC, and Covington spent about $3.8 million to redevelop the property, almost 70 percent vacant at the time, into a multi-tenant bulk warehouse by reconfiguring interior spaces, adding dock doors, and remodeling the office spaces and the exterior. Covington pushed leasing up to 97 percent and has now closed on…

M1 Real Estate, a Monaco-based real estate investment and development company that has acquired a 99-year leasehold on Manhattan’s Argonaut building, plans to invest over $800 million in commercial real estate in key markets around the world, the CEO said today.”The Argonaut was definitely a home run acquisition and it will reflect the portfolio that we will continue to grow in the New York area,” Moustapha El-Solh told CPN this morning. El Solh said the privately-owned firm, an affiliate of M1 Group, is “looking at two other transactions in the New York area.” The firm does not own any other…

In a deal worth $445 million, as reported by the Nikkei Business Daily, Citigroup has sold its headquarters building in Tokyo. As part of the deal, Citigroup is leasing back the property.The move comes in the wake of historic losses for financial services giant Citigroup due to its exposure to subprime mortgages. In January, Citigroup announced that it wrote off more than $18 billion in bad investments in the last quarter of 2007; currently, the company in the midst of a plan to raise an infusion of billions from overseas investors and the sale of assets. The 22-story building is…

In a market where the vacancy rate for distribution centers is a tight 1.8 percent, a joint venture of Birtcher Development & Investments and Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers L.L.C. have purchased a 608,000-square-foot industrial building in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., for $68 million. The building was sold by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. The facility has been leased by Liz Claiborne as the retailer’s West Coast distribution hub since 2000. It is located at 9400 Santa Fe Springs Road.The original building was developed in 1980 and served as the headquarters for Fedco, a food and product wholesale company, and predecessor…

With a $39.1 million loan in hand, EB Developers has taken a big step in the development of a 242-room hotel near Ground Zero in New York City. The project will cost an estimated $180 million to complete. Acting on behalf of EBD, Multi Capital Group orchestrated the loan, which is being utilized to fund pre-construction costs, as well as the acquisition of the land. EBD purchased the parcel, totaling less than one-fifth of an acre at 133 Greenwich St., for $45 million last year from the Cooper Group. In addition to the upscale guestrooms, the 33-story hotel will feature…

Fine arts services provider SurroundArt has tapped Steven Kratchman Architect to oversee the “greening” and unification of its new Museum Resource Campus that is currently underway at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. SurroundArt’s campus will encompass 167,000 square feet of leased space in three separate buildings at the waterfront locale. Ultimately, SurroundArt’s occupancy at the Navy Yard will encompass a new 89,000 square-foot structure that is currently underway on Perry Ave., the 7,000 square-foot Paymaster Building, an adaptive reuse endeavor, and 71,000 square feet the company already leases in Building Three at the 300-acre industrial park. Kratchman will unify the three…

Follow through…It seems like a pretty basic concept. When I was just starting out in business one of my original mentors told me “to just do what you say you’re going to do, and that, in and of itself, will place you in a very select group within the business world.” When I was younger it seemed impossible to me that doing something so basic could lead to great success. Well, now that I’m older and more experienced all I can say is “how right he was!” It never ceases to amaze me at the number of people that fail…

At a reported price of nearly $700 million, 650 Madison Ave. in Midtown Manhattan may turn out to be a bargain for Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., according to local deal-watchers. Led by investor Ben Ashkenazy, the Manhattan-based private firm was reported by RealEstate Weekly’s Dan Geiger to have submitted the winning bid for the 600,000-square-foot office tower owed by Hiro Real Estate Co. “I think (Ashkenazy) got a great deal,” Dan Fasulo, director of market analysis for Real Capital Analytics Inc., told CPN this morning. “This asset easily would have traded for 10 percent higher earlier in 2007.” Representatives of Ashkenazy…