LOS ANGELES — BH Properties has started an investment initiation into affordable housing with the goal of building a $1 billion portfolio of assets. The new platform will focus on Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), Section 8 and age-restricted housing throughout the United States. William Stoll, who BH Properties hired as a managing director, will lead the initiative. Prior to joining BH Properties, Stoll worked at Steadfast Cos. for 14 years. He joined the firm in 2009 as the manager of a Southern California portfolio of 10 LIHTC properties and eventually rose to the role of executive vice president of acquisitions. Stoll graduated from San Diego State University.
MIDDLEBOROUGH, MASS. — Massachusetts-based Christmas Tree Shops will close all of its roughly 70 stores, according to reports from multiple mainstream news outlets including CNN and USA Today. Previously, the chain planned to sell, following filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. Now, all stores will be closed, unless a last-minute buyer comes forward. Formerly, the brand was owned by Bed Bath & Beyond, which sold the concept to Handil Holdings in 2020 and filed for bankruptcy itself earlier this year.
FORT WORTH, TEXAS — NAI Robert Lynn has relocated and expanded its Fort Worth office to a 6,000-square-foot space at 201 S. Adams St. in the city’s Near Southside neighborhood. The 10,000-square-foot complex previously housed a vet supply and distribution facility and was renovated to suit the Dallas-based firm’s needs. NAI Robert Lynn opened its Fort Worth office, led by Todd Hubbard, in 2012, and its team has completed more than 400 commercial transactions since that time.
SEATTLE — Amazon Web Services (AWS), a division of Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) that offers on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies and governments, plans to make a big investment in Central Ohio. The company, along with Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, announced the firm will invest approximately $7.8 billion to expand its data center operations in the region by the end of 2029. AWS is currently undertaking a site selection process across numerous localities in Central Ohio for the new data center campuses, the total number of facilities of which was not disclosed. Final site selections will be decided and announced at a later date. The move is expected to create 230 new jobs and an estimated 1,000 support jobs, according to J.P. Nauseef, president and CEO of JobsOhio, an economic development corporation based in Columbus. The AWS data center project represents the second-largest single private sector company investment in Ohio’s history, according to the governor’s office. The new data centers will contain computer servers, data storage drives, networking equipment and other forms of technology infrastructure used to power cloud computing. “Amazon is already one of the largest private-sector employers in Ohio, and the company’s continued growth …
SAN FRANCISCO — Westfield has made plans to pull out of San Francisco and surrender the San Francisco Centre mall to the property’s lender, reports CNN. The decision follows the closure of stores including Banana Republic and Nordstrom. A spokesperson for Westfield previously attributed the closure of the latter to “unsafe conditions for customers, retailers and employees.” According to SFGATE, Westfield and its partner, Brookfield Properties, have ceased loan payments on the mall. In a statement provided to the publication, Westfield noted that it has operated San Francisco Centre for more than 20 years and that it has “made the difficult decision to begin the process to transfer management of the shopping center to our lender,” citing “declines in sales, occupancy and foot traffic.” The company also stated that the property’s debt “is nonrecourse and this action has no impact on the rest of [Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s] debt.”
DALLAS AND TAMPA, FLA. — SRS Real Estate Partners has expanded its Florida presence with the acquisition of full-service, Tampa-based firm Meridian Retail Group, which provides advisory services to retail, restaurant and entertainment clients. Meridian co-founders John Fahey and Tyler McRae will join SRS as senior vice presidents and market leaders, heading the Tampa office in conjunction with John Artope, executive vice president and managing principal of SRS. Fahey and McRae have 20 and 15 years of experience, respectively. Grant Burt, Caroline Connelly and Jacob Rasnick of Meridian will also join SRS, with a focus on tenant representation and leasing for retail clients.
WASHINGTON — Veda Living, the management company spin-off of ETROS Management Firm, has taken on a 10-property management agreement in Washington state. ETROS Management Firm, founded in 2016, specializes in turnaround management solutions for underperforming senior living assets. The properties are all branded as Greenlake Senior Living communities, which target middle-market seniors in the Pacific Northwest. With this most recent management deal, Veda Living now operates a portfolio of 15 properties across the nation.
BENTONVILLE, ARK. — Walmart has opened its second in-store fulfillment center, dubbed Market Fulfillment Center (MFC), at a store in its headquarters city of Bentonville. The Walmart store (Store 100) is located at 406 S. Walton Blvd. The retail giant’s MFC strategy calls for high-tech fulfillment centers to be built within existing Walmart stores and powered by Alphabot, a proprietary storage and retrieval system. “This new order fulfillment system is truly game changing,” says Ryan Simpson, store manager at Store 100. “Not only does it enhance the customer experience through quicker, more accurate online order fulfillment, it also provides us the runway to continue growing our business now and in the future.” Walmart’s proof of concept store for the MFC strategy was in Salem, N.H. Walmart plans to continue opening MFCs in select stores in the coming years.
BOISE, IDAHO — Capstone Cos. has expanded its brokerage firm with a new regional office in Boise. Colton Yasinski, who has transacted hundreds of units in the Idaho market, including affordable LIHTC product, value-add multifamily and Class A market rate assets, leads the new office. Expanding into Boise reinforces Capstone’s presence in the Western U.S. as the company seeks rapid growth and expansion in the multifamily sector. With the opening of this new office, Capstone continues its nationwide growth with a total of 21 offices and more than $12 billion in sales.
NEW YORK CITY — Global Net Lease (NYSE: GNL) and The Necessity Retail REIT (NASDAQ: RTL) have entered into a merger agreement under which GNL will acquire RTL in an all-stock transaction. The combined company is expected to own and manage over 1,350 properties with an aggregate real estate asset value of approximately $9.6 billion. Under terms of the merger agreement, GNL stockholders are expected to own approximately 45 percent of GNL post-closing, RTL stockholders are expected to own about 39 percent, and the owner of the former external manager is expected to own up to 17 percent. The merger is projected to generate approximately $21 million in annual cash savings realized within 12 months of transaction close, according to the companies. The combined entity will be internally managed, with external asset and property management functions to be performed by AR Global. Internalizing management is expected to result in approximately $54 million in annual cash savings. Headquartered in New York City, Global Net Lease is a publicly traded REIT that focuses on commercial properties with an emphasis on sale-leaseback transactions involving single-tenant, mission-critical, income-producing net lease assets across the United States and in Europe. Its portfolio features 311 properties totaling 39.3 million square feet across 11 …