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Lower Manhattan has been busy, as demolition is set to resume at the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St. and a major tenant enters final negotiations for a lease renewal at the World Financial Center, according to media reports. The New York Times reports that after nearly five months of inactivity, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is close to restarting the demolition of the Deutsche Bank building. Work on the building stopped last August after two firefighters died while trying to bring a fire in the tower under control. According to government sources quoted in the report, a…

McLean, Va.-based JER Partners has made its first move in Germany with the acquisition of the 348-room Marriott Munich hotel from Marriott Internatioanal, which had acquired the four-star property from Blackstone Group L.P. in 2005.  Built in 1990 the Marriott Munich (pictured) sits near Parkstadt Schwabing within close proximity to the Munich city center. The seven-story structure encompasses 9,300 square feet of meeting space, three restaurants and a fitness facility. JER’s purchase of the hotel marks the third time the property has changed hands in the last five years; Blackstone had purchased the hotel in 2003 before selling it to…

Class A properties continue to attract plenty of buyers in all four major commercial property sectors.  “A plethora of buyers interested in Class A properties are still in the market,” Kevin Nunnink, chairman of New York City-based Integra Realty Resources, Inc., told CPN today. “Of course, there aren’t as many buyers as there were before. The declining demand may be flattening prices and giving these investors opportunities to corner institutional grade property at a good price. This is very real.” Nunnink’s observation is one of the major conclusions of an IRR report on the commercial real estate markets released yesterday….

Houston-based SITUS Co. has invested in software-developer Conjunction Consulting’s CLOSER, a software package for commercial loan origination, securitization and enterprise reporting for commercial real estate lenders. Situs, in business since 1985, has been working with CJS for two years. The key advantage of this package, according to Conjunction CEO Brett Williams, is that it lets commercial lenders move away from internal systems into a scalable off-the-shelf product. “We got tired of seeing shortcomings in the market with other applications, so we created our own product,” he told CPN. “We brought out CLOSER at the beginning of the year.” The software…

Archibus has partnered up with San Rafael, Calif.-headquartered CAD software firm Autodesk for 25 years, but this is the first time that Archibus, the privately held, Boston-based provider of real estate management, will be able to sell Autodesk products. The products covered by the new deal include AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture, Autodesk FMDesktop and the Revit series of software products.Autodesk provides graphics; Archibus the data. The Autodesk AutoCad product, for example, is used to design the skeleton and skin of a building, and to show exterior surfaces, such as steel frame supports, floor and window dimensions, stairs cases, and ventilation systems….

Risk Integrated’s Profitability Analysis Program, called PAP, provides lenders with an integrated profitability tool, according to the New York and British Isles-based privately-held software and consulting firm. The software, which used macroeconomic Monte Carlo simulation techniques, is of particular value to banks and asset managers, insurance and industrial companies, corporations and governments, who need to assess current risks on loans. PAP is designed for companies to use in preparation for Basel II compliance regulations, which are to be required in the United States beginning in January.Chris Marrison, CEO of Risk Integrated told CPN, “PAP is the first and most advanced…

Thinking of specialized software to handle your valuation processes? Amcore Bank chose the OASIS Bidding System and is happy with the results. The bank, with assets of $5.3 billion, has just completed a year-long implementation of the software system, which manages commercial real estate valuation processes. OASIS is a product of OASIS of Global DMS, a privately-held business based in Lansdale, Penn.“It was a bit bumpy at first, but the vendors were very sensitive to our training needs. And now, using OASIS is much faster than making a bunch of phone calls, and then faxing out an engagement letter” Phil…

When the Freedom Tower rises its 1,776 feet above Ground Zero, it will be made, in part, with a newly patented concrete. It will be the first major project for the new iCRETE technology, which is produced by the just-founded, privately-funded, Los Angeles-based iCRETE company. The concrete provides record-breaking strength and environmental improvements and will be used for a 186-foot inner core support as well as the tower itself.Tony Arnold, president of iCRETE, told CPN “When they put the design specifications together for the tower, there were lots of safety challenges.” To meet those challenges, Arnold turned to John Quadrozzi…

The San-Clemente, Calif.-based Strategic Hotels & Resorts REIT has paid $6.3 million to Chicago-headquartered Sunstone Hotel Investors for a 50 percent stake in BuyEfficient, a purchasing management internet-based software designed for the hospitality industry. It provides increased organization, streamlined purchasing and accounts processing for all hotel paper goods and foods, and hotel amenities. It also manages negotiated discounts, incentives and rebates. Ken Barrett, vice president for asset management at Strategic, told CPN, “When you take a look at the volume of products a hotel buys, whether it’s food, guest supplies and toiletries for the bathroom, linen and terry and light…

AdaptivCool, a new product from Milford-based Degree Controls, offers a thermal management solution that can save more that 20 percent of the energy use at a datacenter–or other heat-intensive industrial building. According to Degree Controls, when the system was recently installed at a large electrical management company in New England, it immediately cut energy use 22 percent, eliminated hot spots and reduced both humidification and dehumidification problems. Founded in 1997, privately-owned Degree Controls serves the international telecom industry and the medical, military and critical containment enclosure markets selling both custom-designed solutions and standard products including high performance heat sinks, precision…