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ProLogis has just revealed plans for the development of ProLogis Park Howbury, a 2.1 million-square-foot environmentally-friendly distribution center complex in Southeast London. Development of the rail-served project dovetails with the U.K. government’s new strategy for facilitating sustainable distribution throughout the country, particularly through the conversion of road usage to rail usage wherever feasible. Sited on 158 acres off the vital M25 motorway about 12 miles from the heart of London, Howbury will encompass four industrial warehouses and a new intermodal facility. ProLogis expects to commence construction of the park early this year. Howbury will be just one of a bevy…

Redback Networks, a maker of telephone and broadband routers that was acquired by telecommunications equipment giant Ericsson last January, has doubled its space in San Jose’s Corporate Technology Center. The 318,000-square-foot lease was reportedly one of the three largest office leases in San Jose in 2007. The lease covers four buildings that will also accommodate employees from other Ericsson acquisitions in Silicon Valley, including Entrisphere, which makes fiber access gear, and Tandberg TV, which makes equipment for Internet television. Overall, the Redback-Ericsson campus will be the R&D center for most of Ericsson’s fixed and mobile Internet infrastructure. Redback has doubled…

Development of Capitol View, a new 317,000-square-foot trophy office building in Washington, D.C., has recently reached completion. Clark Construction Group L.L.C. was behind the construction of the Class A property, which is owned by Square 537 Associates. Carrying the address of 425 3rd St., SW, Capitol View sits sit in just south of the U.S. Capitol. In addition to the office space, Capitol View also features approximately 24,000 square feet of street-level retail, as well a three-level underground parking facility. The architectural firm of Shalom Baranes Associates designed the 12-story structure, the construction of which Clark kicked off less than…

Houston-based developer Lasco Ventures L.L.C. has purchased 9.4 acres of undeveloped property with plans for an office tower in the Galleria area of Houston.Financials of the transaction were not disclosed. The property was sold by Rich Oak Properties L.L.C. of New York. Located at the northwest corner of Richmond Avenue and Post Oak Boulevard in Houston’s Galleria area, the site is currently a vacant parking lot, CB Richard Ellis Inc. first vice president Simmi Jaggi, who represented the seller, told CPN today.“It is an undeveloped tract that has been sitting there,” she said. “The whole south side of Post Oak…

Construction on Cameron House, a 15-story, 325-unit, luxury apartment building in Silver Spring, Md., is expected to begin within a month and take nearly two years to complete, a Behringer Harvard executive told CPN. Behringer Harvard, a Dallas-based real estate company, is investing in its third luxury apartment community in the suburban Washington, D.C., market and it’s first in Maryland. All three projects are being developed by Fairfield Residential, based in Grand Prairie, Texas, and San Diego. Two of the three, including Cameron House, are also being funded through a joint venture with the Brookfield Real Estate Opportunity Fund. “We…

Phoenix-based mall builder and operator Westcor is poised to receive a permit allowing it to make plans for the future development of 12,000 acres of state-owned land in southeastern Tucson. Arizona Star reporter Rob O’Dell wrote in the newspaper’s Jan. 2 edition that officials of the Arizona State Land Department and Westcor, a wholly owned subsidiary of Macerich Co. in Santa Monica, Calif., are about a week away from signing off on a deal that would allow Westcor to create a master plan for the area. City officials told O’Dell that Westcor could spend up to $12 million in the…

The Little River Golf & Resort in Carthage, N.C., has been snapped up by a new owner that will submit the 630-acre property to a $500 million redevelopment project. Portugal-based Oceanico Group, making its entrée into the U.S. market, acquired the resort from a group of nine owners and will move forward with the group’s previous plans to expand the resort into an upscale mixed-use destination. Located about an hour from Raleigh in the prestigious Pinehurst golf enclave, the 12-year-old Little River is home to a celebrated Dan Maples-designed 18-hole golf course, as well as a 20,000-square-foot clubhouse (pictured), 64…

A two-part permanent financing package valued at an aggregate $230 million has been put in place for NCH-Transwest Corp.’s $310 million purchase of Tucson’s Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa, along with the Westin Hilton Head Island Resort in Hilton Head, S.C..Commercial mortgage banking firm Newmark Realty Capital Inc. orchestrated the financing, securing a $209 million first mortgage loan through JP Morgan Real Estate and a $21.5 million mezzanine loan from Ashford Hospitality Inc. News emerged in early December of last year that Tucson-based NCH-Transwest would acquire the upscale properties from an affiliate of lodging property managing firm Starwood Hotels…

Centro, the beleaguered Australian retail property landlord with large holdings in the United States, has remained in the news at the beginning of 2008, first with word that the company is exploring other options to resolve its debt problems, as reported in CPN yesterday. Such options might include selling assets, or stock, or even the company as a whole. Earlier today, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services cut Centro NP L.L.C’s issuer credit rating to from BB+ to CCC+. Centro NP is associated with the senior unsecured debt, almost $1 billion, that formed part of the $6.3 billion purchase of New…

Following its initial $100 million commitment last May, Dutch pension fund PGGM has made a commitment to invest an additional $100 million in Behringer Harvard’s growing portfolio of Class A apartment communities. PGGM has an option to expand its commitment to a total of $300 million. PGGM is a pension fund for Dutch healthcare workers, Mark Alfieri, BH senior vp/real estate, told CPN today, and with more than $100 billion in assets, it’s the second-largest pension fund in The Netherlands, the 8th-largest in Europe and the 17th-largest in the world. In a prepared statement, Robert Behringer, founder & CEO of…