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Lowe Enterprises Investors has taken a 517,000-square-foot office complex in Arlington, Va., off the hands of Equity Group Investments L.L.C., which made the sale on behalf of a client. The property, Jefferson Plaza, boasts an occupancy level of 96 percent.  Jefferson Plaza had been part of the portfolio of Equity Office Properties Trust, which was acquired by Blackstone last year in a $39 billion deal. Originally developed in 1970 and renovated a decade ago, the complex sits in Northern Virginia’s Crystal City submarket, located about three miles from the White House and just a stone’s throw from the Pentagon. The…

When it comes to productivity at the C-suite, many CEOs tend to struggle with deciding what constitutes highest and best use of their time. It has been my experience that all CEOs, regardless of tenure or ability, tend to find themselves conflicted with this issue at some point in time. While all employees deal with this same issue, it is infinitely more complicated for the chief executive. In this week’s column I’ll provide some thoughts about how to maximize the use of your time, while removing some of the more typical internal decisioning conflicts. One of the root issues that…

In yet another sign of the economy’s struggles, U.S. employers cut 17,000 jobs from payrolls in January, marking the first monthly employment decline since August of 2003. There were, however a few bits of good news for the economy today, as December’s job creation figure was revised upward, to a gain of 82,000 jobs from its original reading of just 18,000 new jobs. And unemployment dipped slightly, from 5.0 percent in December to 4.9 percent last month. “(The figures were) certainly weaker than expected,” noted Ken McCarthy, managing director of New York area research for Cushman & Wakefield Inc, who…

Digital Realty Trust Inc., a specialty REIT that owns corporate datacenters and Internet gateways, has undertaken a public offering of 12 million shares of Series D Cumulative Convertible Preferred Stock at $24.25 per share. All together, Digital Realty estimates that net proceeds of the underwritten public offering will be about $291 million, or $333.6 million if the overallotment option is exercised in full.Digital Realty plans to use the net proceeds to pay down debt from its revolving credit facility, and to fund acquisitions and redevelopment activities. Currently the company owns 70 properties in North America and Europe comprising about 12.3…

Macklowe Properties’ reported decision to give up control of a $7 billion Manhattan office portfolio to Deutsche Bank AG may be the prime example of how turmoil in the capital markets can cause havoc for refinancing. Only a year after buying seven trophy towers in the blockbuster deal, the firm is apparently on the verge of losing the portfolio because it cannot refinance $5.8 billion in debt provided by Deutsche Bank. Reports of Macklowe’s troubles in refinancing the properties began surfacing last year, so the latest twist comes as little surprise. According to a report by Jennifer Fortsyth in today’s…

Construction started this week on Hammock Landing, a 750,000-square-foot, regional shopping center just off Interstate I-95 in West Melbourne, Fla., that will have six major anchors along with smaller shops and restaurants.It’s the second Florida shopping center for joint venture partners CBL & Associates Properties Inc., a Chattanooga, Tenn.-based REIT, and The Benchmark Group, a private real estate development and management company headquartered in Amherst, N.Y. The two firms are also developing The Pavilion at Port Orange, in Port Orange, Fla., a 550,000-square-foot lifestyle shopping center, according to an Oct. 17, 2007, CPN story.Geoff Smith, vice president of development at…

With the city of St. Louis spoiling for a major league soccer team to make its home in the area, plans for the development of a mixed-use soccer stadium project have taken a much-needed step forward with the Collinsville City Council’s approval of a tax increment financing plan for the approximately $400 million endeavor. The city of Collinsville and St. Louis Soccer United, a professional soccer investment and development group, are working together to bring the massive project to fruition. A 400-acre site in Collinsville, about 10 miles from downtown St. Louis, has been designated for the project, which will…

The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in November 2007, was 87.6, down 19.2 percent below the November 2006 level of 108.4. The PHSI numbers also shows that, from a year earlier, home sales are down:* 19.8 percent in the South * 18.6 percent in the Midwest* 19.1 percent in the NortheastMeanwhile, the housing market drop-off has hit home furnishing retailers particularly hard. Consider:* Jennifer Convertibles reported same store sales dropped 2.6 percent for the fiscal quarter ended Nov. 24 compared to the same quarter in 2006* Havertys reported November same sales for the first…

Ranked in 2006 as the No. 1 Smart Place to Live according to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Nashville also pulls tourists in through its vibrant music and business environment. “In the last 20 years … (the) entertainment and the business communities have molded together,” noted Terry Smith, principal & CEO of Nashville Commercial Real Estate Services. “The city sees the music industry, the entertainment industry and the tourism as a unique element to its fiber. It’s an acceptance of a value sets that the entertainment business brings to Nashville that are key elements to our growth patterns.”

On the eve of this year’s Mortgage Bankers Association Commercial Real Estate Finance conference, mortgage bankers and others involved in real estate finance are grappling with significant challenges. Yet they remain largely optimistic both that the end of the tunnel will appear around midyear—along with a return of the CMBS market—and that the industry is undergoing some necessary adjustments in the meantime.While these expectations for recovery may indeed be optimistic—other prognostications postpone the market’s return until 2009—at least bankers are taking a more cautious stance now with their lending criteria, as we discuss in our mortgage banking feature, “Aftershocks” (see…