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.
AcquisitionsAffordable HousingCaliforniaCompany NewsMarylandMultifamilySoutheastTop StoriesWalker & DunlopWestern
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.
NEW YORK CITY — WHP Global, the parent company of Toys ‘R’ Us, has entered into an agreement with Macy’s (NYSE: M) to open more than 400 toy stores within the department store chain’s existing locations across the country in 2022. In addition to physical merchandise, the new stores will feature interactive experiences and activation centers to enhance the experience for both children and parents. The Wayne, New Jersey-based toy retailer originally announced its intent to close or sell off all of its 700-plus U.S. stores in 2018. New York City-based WHP Global acquired the controlling stake of TruKids Inc., the former owner of Toys ‘R’ Us, in March with plans to reopen some stores.
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PRP Sells Four Office Campuses for $1B, Makes $2B Commitment for Logistics and Data Center Acquisitions
WASHINGTON, D.C. — PRP, a privately held real estate investment and management firm based in Washington, D.C., is making a sea change as it looks to bolster its logistics and data center portfolio and churn its office assets. The company is in the process of selling four office campuses in separate deals totaling more than $1 billion. At the same time, PRP is allocating $2 billion to acquire logistics facilities leased to credit-worthy companies in primary and secondary markets, as well as data centers and land zoned for future data centers. The specific locations of the assets were not disclosed. “The assets that we are acquiring are located in attractive markets backed by solid demographics, high barriers to entry and historically high industrial occupancy rates,” says Joe Neckles, managing director of net lease acquisitions at PRP. “The logistics and data center sectors remained highly resilient throughout the pandemic and continue to grow at rates well in excess of inflation.” The office assets that PRP is selling include Sequoia Plaza, a 370,000-square-foot campus spanning three buildings in Northern Virginia’s Arlington County. The property houses the headquarters of Arlington County’s Department of Human Services and the Arlington County Public School System. An …
DALLAS — AECOM (NYSE: ACM) will relocate its global headquarters from Los Angeles to Dallas, the engineering and infrastructure consulting giant said in a statement earlier this week. Beginning on Oct. 1, select corporate leaders, including CEO Troy Rudd, will join the 1,200-plus employees who currently work at AECOM’s Dallas office at 13355 Noel Road, as well as the firm’s other offices across Texas. About 2,500 employees will continue to work in the California offices, including Los Angeles. The company cited the market’s talent pool for engineering and infrastructure consulting as a key factor in its decision to relocate, while also crediting the “additional benefits as a corporate hub” that Dallas offers. AECOM, a Fortune 500 company, accrued $13.2 billion in revenue in its 2020 fiscal year. The company’s stock price closed at $63.19 per share on Wednesday, Aug. 18, up from $38.19 per share a year ago.
LOS ANGELES — Standard Communities and Faring have formed a joint venture with plans to create more than $2 billion of middle-income housing across California over the next 18 to 24 months. The strategic partnership, Standard-Faring Essential Housing, will engage in both ground-up construction of middle-income rental housing and the acquisition and conversion of existing market-rate properties. The partnership recently created more than 650 units of dedicated middle-income housing in Southern California with a total capitalization of over $400 million. The transactions utilized tax-exempt bond financing provided by CSCDA Community Improvement Authority, a state program that seeks to improve the availability of housing for Californians earning approximately the same as the area median income (AMI). Upon taking ownership, CSCDA Community Improvement Authority worked with Standard-Faring Essential Housing as project administrator to immediately lower rents for new residents who qualify with incomes between 80 percent and 120 percent of AMI. “By focusing on middle-income housing, California cities can ensure that middle-income families and essential workers such as first responders, hospital and healthcare staff, and teachers can afford to live near their jobs in the communities they serve,” says Jeffrey Jaeger, principal and co-founder of Standard Communities. “This joint venture will provide …
CHICAGO — Hyatt Hotels Corp. (NYSE: H) has agreed to acquire Apple Leisure Group (ALG), a Pennsylvania-based firm that specializes in third-party operations of luxury wellness resorts, for $2.7 billion. The transaction comes as part of the Chicago-based hotel giant’s initiative to sell off $2 billion in real estate holdings by the end of 2024 and focus its growth strategy on the operations side of the hospitality business. Hyatt expects to sell $1.5 billion of its real estate assets by the end of this year, which would result in more than $3 billion in sales since the strategy was announced in 2017. Mark Hoplamazian, Hyatt president and CEO, notes that under this strategy, he expects that 80 percent of the company’s revenue stream will be fee-based earnings by the end of 2024. “The addition of ALG’s properties will immediately double Hyatt’s global resorts footprint,” says Hoplamazian. “ALG’s portfolio of luxury brands, leadership in the all-inclusive segment and large pipeline of new resorts will extend our reach in existing and new markets, including Europe, and further accelerate our industry-leading net rooms growth.” ALG’s operations portfolio spans 33,000 rooms across 100 properties in 10 countries. ALG’s resort brand management platform AMResorts provides …
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Merchants Capital, a Carmel, Ind.-based affordable housing lender, has opened a new office in Washington, D.C., that will be the company’s fifth location nationwide. Located at 505 9th St. NW, Suite 800, the new office serves as a hub for a dozen team members and is part of the company’s strategy to expand its national lending footprint with a concentration on the East Coast. “We are excited to be positioned in downtown Washington, D.C., as it is a natural fit for the firm to be in close proximity to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and other landmark institutions that support affordable multifamily housing across the nation,” says Dwayne George, the executive vice president and national head of production for Merchants Capital. The new office follows the announcement that Merchants Capital was named the No. 4 affordable multifamily lender nationwide in 2020 by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Last year, Merchants Capital closed $2.2 billion in affordable housing loans across 188 transactions, with an average transaction size of $11.8 million.