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Rent-A-Center has contracted Excess Space Retail Services Inc. to manage the disposition of 220 of its closed stores. The move follows its December announcement of plans to close approximately 280 stores across the U.S. The plan calls for the closure of the locations and for the merger of some of these locations with existing stores. The process is slated for completion in March.The company expects to incur pre-tax restructuring charges related to the store consolidation plan and other restructuring items in the range of $36 million to $43 million. These estimated costs are due mostly to lease terminations, fixed asset…

Behringer Harvard announced today that Behringer Harvard Opportunity REIT I, a non-traded real estate investment trust, reached full subscription. The REIT generated approximately $530 million in gross offering proceeds through the sale of approximately 53.1 million shares in its primary offering. The firm’s opportunity-style programs primarily invest in commercial real estate properties with value-added and opportunistic characteristics that are either operating or newly constructed, and that may require development, redevelopment, or repositioning to achieve favorable returns at exit. The Behringer Harvard Opportunity REIT I portfolio currently holds investments in nine office buildings, both domestic and international; four multi-family communities and…

Chicago-based First Industrial Realty Trust and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System–CalSTRS–have formed a joint venture to invest $475 million in industrial real estate in The Netherlands and Belgium. The venture called First Cal Industrial Europe L.L.C., is First Industrial’s first foray outside the western hemisphere. First Industrial announced plans to enter The Netherlands and Belgium markets last July. In a statement prepared then, the company said that both countries offer significant growth opportunities due to rising volumes of containerized cargo, growing demand for modern distribution facilities, and an emerging trend toward leasing versus direct ownership by corporate customers. The…

The U.S. economy added just 18,000 jobs to payrolls during December, far fewer than had been expected, and down from the 115,000 jobs created in November. In addition, the nation’s unemployment rate climbed to 5.0 percent, the highest in two years. The numbers, released late last week by the Department of Labor, continue to show a trend of an overall slowdown in economic growth. The 18,000 new jobs created in December were the fewest in a month since August of 2003, when a decrease in new jobs was reported.  Another decrease was reported this past August, but that number was…

Plans for the development of Cadillac Centre, a mixed-use project designed to help spur Detroit’s renaissance, have come to the fore. Northern Group Inc. will develop the property at a cost of $150 million. Cadillac Centre will cover the entire Monroe Block downtown on Campus Martius Park.  In terms of architecture, Cadillac Centre will encompass both the old and the new. Leading architect Anthony Caradonna, principal of New York and Roem’s OPUS Architecture and Design Studio Inc., is behind the design of the project, which will feature two 24-story skyscrapers that will be physically linked to Northern Group’s 80-year-old, Beaux-Arts-style…

Development of the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore has just gotten a big boost now that Las Vegas Sands Corp. has gotten its hands on a major loan package. The company entered into a credit agreement that makes $3.8 billion available for the project. The financing for Marina Bay Sands comes in the form of a Singapore dollar-denominated facility that marks the largest such private financing package ever. Goldman Sachs, DBS Bank Ltd., UOB Asia Limited, and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. served as the coordinated the financing. Marina Bay Sands will be Singapore’s first integrated resort, incorporating the Waterfront Promenade with…

Every professional, regardless of his or her position or stature, should go back to basics on a regular basis to ensure that bad habits have not been formed. In that vein, I cannot think of a better time to review some fundamentals than at the beginning of a new year. I have watched the undisciplined and casual choice of vocabulary cause even the most savvy executives to lose productivity and leverage without even realizing it. The simple reality for leaders is that what you say, and how you say it, does in fact matter. In today’s column I want to…

As economic uncertainty and consolidation create challenges for investment sales nationwide, NorthMarq Capital Inc. is quietly laying the groundwork to expand beyond its long-time capital markets business and become a major investment sales player. This year, NorthMarq will open as many as three dedicated investment sales offices, company CEO Edward Padilla told CPN exclusively today. By the end of January, NorthMarq plans to reveal the location of one of those offices. All told, NorthMarq could end 2008 with investment sales offices in California, Texas, Washington, D.C., and the Minneapolis area, where NorthMarq’s corporate headquarters is located. Padilla (pictured) detailed NorthMarq’s…

There were new developments at the end of this week for Centro, the credit-squeezed owner of retail properties in the United States and the Antipodes. According to statements the company made to the Australian Securities Exchange earlier today, Centro can no longer extend its interest rate hedges. “As a result,” the statement said, “Centro’s current interest rate hedging is now below historical levels. This has increased Centro’s exposure to interest rate movements, and could translate into volatility in Centro’s earnings if interest rates rise or fall significantly.” The company noted that about half of its Australian-dollar debt and about 40…

A Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P. managing director said today that the firm’s New York office had secured a $163.5 million acquisition and pre-development loan enabling the joint venture between Taconic Investment Partners and Square Mile Capital to buy a nearly 1.1 million-square-foot condominium interest in Lower Manhattan’s 375 Pearl St. As reported Dec. 18 by CPN, the partnership had acquired 29 stories in the 32-story building at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge from Verizon. The joint venture is planning extensive renovations that reportedly may cost as much as it did to buy the space, including installing a new façade,…