CHARLOTTE, N.C. —The Carolinas leasing team of Darrell Palasciano and Matt Henry has joined The Providence Group’s landlord division. Palasciano and Henry combined have nearly three decades of experience as landlord advisors. Matt Henry started working in commercial real estate in 2014, and Darrell Palasciano has about 18 years of retail development and leasing experience. The two have $600 million in career transaction volume with a total of 3 million square feet. Most recently, the team was with the Carolinas Division of The Shopping Center Group. Starting earlier this month, Palasciano and Henry joined The Providence Group as brokers, working from the firm’s new office in Charlotte. The Palasciano-Henry team continue to work as strategic retail advisors with national, regional and local owners and developers throughout both North Carolina and South Carolina. Palasciano currently serves as ICSC State Chair for both North and South Carolina, previously serving as Government Relations Chair and Carolinas Conference Chair. Henry has previously worked with clients including Kimco Realty Corp., Slate Asset Management, Echo Realty, Vanguard, Westwood and Seritage.
Company News
BENTONVILLE, ARK. — Walmart, a Bentonville-based discount retailer, has released plans to hire approximately 150,000 new store associates, with most of the job positions being permanent and full-time. The retailer wants to hire new employees ahead of the holiday season to ensure its stores are highly staffed for the predicted busy months. This July, the discount retailer announced it will invest approximately $1 billion over the next five years to pay college tuition and books for employees via its education program called Live Better U. Walmart also offers an average hourly wage of $16.40, with some jobs at the stores paying as much as $34 an hour. Other benefits include on-the-job and classroom training, affordable health insurance, a 10 percent discount on general merchandise and food for associates, as well as paid time off, no-cost counseling, 401(k) and parental leave. This hiring news follows the announcement the retailer made at the beginning of September in which Walmart planned to hire 20,000 new supply-chain employees in order to keep up with the company’s recent revenue growth. The company saw an increase of 2.4 percent year-over-year in revenue in its fiscal second quarter of 2021, which ended on July 31. The company …
DALLAS — Regent Properties, a Los Angeles-based investment firm with roughly $1.8 billion in assets under management, will open a second headquarters office in Dallas. New and existing members of the corporate team, as well as senior investor relations and other investment personnel, will relocate to the new office at 2000 McKinney Ave. Regent CEO Eric Fleiss also said that the company plans to acquire “a significant amount of high-quality office product in the Sun Belt region,” in the coming months.
Brookfield Asset Management, Elion Partners Form $1B Industrial Development Partnership
by Katie Sloan
TORONTO AND MIAMI — Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM) and Elion Partners have announced a $1 billion strategic partnership. The venture will expand Toronto-based Brookfield’s logistics portfolio across core infill markets in the U.S. Through the investment, Brookfield recapitalized Elion Logistics Park 55, a master-planned industrial park in Wilmington, Illinois, approximately 60 miles southwest of downtown Chicago. Located adjacent to the BNSF railway, the property features five Class A, fully leased industrial buildings totaling 4 million square feet. The site offers the potential to develop up to 15 million square feet of additional industrial space. Park Madison Partners acted as advisor for the recapitalization. Brookfield has also committed $80 million to Elion’s latest affiliated value-add fund — Elion Real Estate Fund V — which held its final closing last month, achieving a capitalization of $500 million. A majority of the fund’s portfolio was pre-specified prior to Brookfield’s investment and includes 3.2 million square feet of logistics properties across infill coastal markets in the U.S. “Industrial logistics real estate continues to experience positive momentum and now is the logical time to seek long-term capital,” says Juan DeAngulo, managing partner at Miami-based Elion. “This partnership structure and Brookfield’s support will enable Elion …
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 …