WHIPPANY, N.J. — Lee & Associates New Jersey has opened a new 3,361-square-foot office at 110 S. Jefferson Road in Whippany, located in Morris County. The team is subleasing a newly built-out space and relocating from a smaller Cedar Knolls location to accommodate its growing brokerage team. Suzanne Kiall of Lee & Associates and Roger Cantor of Cornerstone Real Estate negotiated the terms of the sublease. The full-service real estate firm has three offices in New Jersey including this one, with the headquarters space located in Elmwood Park.
NEW YORK CITY — New York City-based Lument has launched an investment sales and advisory group dedicated to affordable housing. Cliff McDaniel will head the initiative and serve as senior managing director. McDaniel’s team includes managing directors Derek DeHay and Chris Bergmann. They will join Timothy Bracken, also a managing director, who moved to Lument earlier in 2021, as founding members of the group. Lument is a commercial real estate finance company comprised of legacy firms Hunt Real Estate Capital, Lancaster Pollard and RED Capital Group. Lument is an FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and proprietary lender. The investment sales and advisory functions of the new group will complement existing financial services. According to McDaniel, the affordable housing team will provide access to thousands of lending, asset management and LIHTC relationships that Lument has established over the years.
SEATTLE — Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) will add 125,000 local employment opportunities through the United States, on top on the 40,000 corporate and technology positions the company announced in early September. The new roles in fulfillment and transportation offer an average starting wage of more than $18 per hour, and up to $22.50 per hour in some locations. Additionally, the company provides full-time employees with comprehensive benefits from day one, including health, vision and dental insurance; 401(k) with 50 percent company match; up to 20 weeks paid parental leave; and Amazon’s Career Choice program that pays full college tuition for the company’s full-line employees. Employment opportunities are available in hundreds of cities and towns across the country. Some states with the most roles include Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Washington. In 2021, Amazon opened more than 250 new fulfillment centers, sortation centers, regional air hubs and delivery stations in the United States and will open over 100 more buildings in September alone.
SEATTLE — Amazon is expanding its presence in the Mid-Atlantic by opening several new delivery stations and a career center in Maryland and Virginia. The first facility set to open is a 72,000-square-foot delivery station located at 2100 Van Deman St. in Baltimore, Amazon’s first delivery station in Baltimore City. The e-commerce giant also plans to open a 194,000-square-foot facility at 7226 Preston Gateway Drive in Hanover, Md., which will be Amazon’s third delivery station in the city. Since 2010, Amazon has created more than 29,000 jobs in Maryland, and the company has invested over $9.5 billion for infrastructure and compensation in the state. Additionally, Amazon announced it will open an Amazon Career Center at 1989 S. Military Highway in Chesapeake, Va. This center will be used for hiring and orientation duties for the company’s Hampton Roads operations facilities. Additionally, the company will open two new delivery stations in the area including a 165,000-square-foot facility at 1400 Sewells Point Road in Norfolk and a 111,600-square-foot facility at 223 W Mercury Blvd. in Hampton, which was formerly a Kmart store. Since 2010, Amazon has provided more than 27,000 jobs in Virginia. The company has 15 delivery stations in the Commonwealth.
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF. AND NEW YORK CITY — Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO) has entered into a definitive agreement with Columbia Property Trust (NYSE: CXP) to acquire the New York City-based office REIT. Funds managed by PIMCO will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Columbia’s common stock in a deal valued at $3.9 billion, including debt. Columbia owns 15 office properties spanning more than 6 million square feet in the gateway markets of New York City, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The firm’s portfolio also includes four office properties under development and 8 million square feet under management for private investors and third parties. The U.S. office sector has been severely impacted by the outbreak of COVID-19 and rise of the Delta variant as millions of office-using employees are currently working from home. According to The Wall Street Journal, New York City and San Francisco reported the lowest usage rates among the 10 major office markets tracked by Falls Church, Va.-based Kastle Systems, which monitors access swipes of office buildings. New York City had a usage rate of 22.3 percent and San Francisco had a 19.7 usage rate for the week ending Aug. 25. Despite the headwinds facing …
BENTONVILLE, ARK. — Walmart Inc. plans to hire 20,000 more supply chain employees in order to keep up with the retailer’s recent growth. Walmart released a statement a few weeks ago saying that the company saw an increase in revenue by 2.4 percent year-over-year in its fiscal second quarter of 2021, which ended on July 31. The new employees will be hired across more than 250 Walmart and Sam’s Club distribution centers, fulfillment centers and transportation offices. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer will offer job roles including order fillers, freight handlers, lift drivers, technicians and management positions. The roles will be on a permanent basis and the new employees will be hired for both full-time and part-time positions. The average wage for the supply chain positions is $20.37 per hour. For new employees, Walmart has opened six new Walmart Academies, which have been established to train associates with both classroom and floor training in specialized supply chain skills, as well as soft skills such as leadership and communications. During the company’s fiscal year in 2021, 5,900 employees were trained via the Walmart U.S. Supply Chain Academy. In July 2021, the national discount retailer also announced that it will invest about $1 …
HOUSTON — Whitebox Real Estate, a Dallas-based advisory and development firm, has opened a new office at 5847 San Felipe St. in West Houston. In its decision to expand to Houston, Whitebox president and managing director Grant Pruitt cited the healthy volume of businesses relocating to Houston from California, Illinois and New York as a key factor. Industry veteran and Houston native Andrew Brod will lead the new office as managing director.
PLANO AND HUTCHINS, TEXAS — CarMax Inc. (NYSE: KMX) will open a new technology innovation center at Granite Park in the northern Dallas suburb of Plano, a move that is expected to create about 200 new jobs. The square footage and expected opening date of the center were not disclosed. In addition, the Richmond-based used vehicle retailer will open an 11-acre auction facility in Hutchins, located south of Dallas. CarMax expects to hire about 25 people at the auction house and to begin hosting virtual events by October. Lastly, the company will launch a new customer experience center (CEC) to serve its Dallas-area customers. This initiative will result in the hiring of about 75 remote positions, resulting in total employment growth of about 300 jobs. In addition to its more than 220 stores, CarMax’s corporate footprint includes its headquarters in Richmond; CarMax Auto Finance in Atlanta; and CEC locations in Atlanta, Phoenix, Richmond, Raleigh and Kansas City.
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Walker & Dunlop Bolsters Affordable Housing Business with $696M Acquisition of Alliant Capital, Affiliates
BETHESDA, MD. AND WOODLAND HILLS, CALIF. — Walker & Dunlop (NYSE: WD) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Alliant Capital Ltd., a privately held affordable housing asset management firm based in Woodland Hills. Under the terms of the purchase agreement, Walker & Dunlop will acquire Alliant and its affiliates, Alliant Strategic Investments and ADC Communities, at a total value of $696 million. Alliant is the sixth-largest syndicator of low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC) in the United States and has participated in the development of over 100,000 affordable units serving over 400,000 families. ADC Communities is the affordable housing development arm of Alliant, which has financed 29 developments and over 5,400 units in eight states since 2014. Alliant Strategic Investments focuses on non-LIHTC affordable housing preservation, workforce housing and opportunity zone investments. The acquisition will bring Walker & Dunlop’s total affordable housing assets under management to $16 billion, with $14 billion of those assets under management belonging to Alliant. The move is expected to be accretive to Walker & Dunlop’s existing $112 billion servicing portfolio. “Alliant is one of the largest and most respected tax credit syndicators and affordable housing developers in the country. The addition of their people, …
NEW YORK CITY — Chicago-based real estate consulting firm Project Management Advisors Inc. (PMA) has signed a lease for approximately 5,000 square feet in the Empire State Building. The new office — the company’s seventh across the country — will bring together PMA’s existing New York staff and the team from LPE Management Services, which PMA recently acquired. The office is scheduled to before the end of the month.