TRENTON, N.J. — Garden State Commercial Properties has sold a 240,000-square-foot office building located at 240 W. State St. in downtown Trenton to an undisclosed buyer that plans to redevelop the 16-story building for residential usage. The new complex will offer studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments and amenities such as a fitness center, pool and ground-floor café. In addition, the company will renovate the building’s enclosed parking garage. Completion of the conversion is slated for 2026. Jerry Fennelly of Fennelly Associates represented both parties in the sale.
Development
OAK BROOK, ILL. — Skender has completed the transformation of the former McDonald’s corporate campus in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook into the new headquarters for Ace Hardware. The 250,000-square-foot development is located at 2915 Jorie Blvd. Ace’s new headquarters consists of open workstations, 150 conference rooms, 12 café/pantry spaces and a variety of collaboration areas and amenities. Originally built in the 1970s and designed by Dirk Lohan, grandson of famed architect Mies van der Rohe, the former McDonald’s campus consists of three buildings across more than 80 acres. The campus has sat empty since 2019 when the fast food giant moved its headquarters to downtown Chicago. The renovation repurposed many of the main building’s original architectural elements, including a large atrium in the center. The first floor of the parking garage is now an amenity suite that includes a fitness center, conference center, multipurpose room and large cafeteria with commercial kitchen. The project team included CBRE Design Collective as architect and ESD, now named Stantec Consulting Services, as engineer.
INDIANAPOLIS — The Life Properties, the property management and construction management affiliate of Olive Tree Holdings, is underway on a $6.1 million capital improvement program at The Life at Harrison Trails in Indianapolis. The project is currently 75 percent leased. Completion is slated for the fourth quarter of 2024. Upgrades include select interior renovations to 302 of the community’s 378 residences as well as upgrades to the office clubhouse and fitness center. Exterior improvements include new paint, repairs to the community’s sidewalk concrete, parking lot, dog park, resident pool, roofing, playground and signage. The project also includes the implementation of a new security system and significant landscaping improvements and cleanup. There are also sustainable upgrades, such as the installation of low-flow plumbing retrofits and LED lighting. The Life at Harrison Trails was built in 1973.
WOODBRIDGE, N.J. — New Jersey-based Woodmont Industrial Partners has completed a 54,113-square-foot project in the Northern New Jersey community of Woodbridge. The building features a clear height of 32 feet, eight exterior dock doors, one drive-in door and build-to-suit office space. Woodmont has also secured a full-building lease with Indiana-based R.A.S. Logistics. Mindy Lissner, Chuck Fern, Jason Barton and David Gheriani of Cushman &. Wakefield represented Woodmont in the lease negotiations.
RINCON, GA. — Atlanta-based Core5 Industrial Partners plans to develop Effingham Business Center, a 121-acre industrial park situated in Rincon, a city in the Savannah market of Effingham County. The site is approximately 9.5 miles from Port of Savannah’s Garden City Terminal and 10 miles from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport. The park will feature a 401,760-square-foot rear-load building, which will accommodate tenants 100,000 square feet and higher, and a 362,880-square-foot front-load building designed to accommodate tenants of 150,000 square feet and higher. Both buildings are being developed on a speculative basis and will feature 36-foot clear heights, automobile parking, office finishes, dock equipment, lighting and 185-foot truck courts. Delivery of both buildings is scheduled for the first quarter of 2025. CBRE’s Savannah office will handle leasing efforts on behalf of Core5 for both buildings.
By Taylor Williams Tenant demand and availability of capital for industrial deals are still healthy in Texas, but end users and developers are demonstrating a clear push for smaller footprints in their leases and projects. This shift reflects a marked departure from recent years, when massive speculative facilities were financed without hesitation or preleasing and industrial users had little choice but to accept staggering levels of rent growth. Spikes in interest rates bear some, but not all, blame for this emerging dynamic. Local and regional banks tend to be go-to debt providers on industrial projects, and these groups take defensive positions with their capital flows during high interest rate environments. And while reliance on e-commerce and third-party distribution remains deeply ingrained in consumer preferences, users still see value in rightsizing their footprints in today’s market. As such, the industrial landscape is changing in Texas, where exceptionally strong population growth nonetheless ensures that the sector remains on very solid footing overall. But changes are undoubtedly happening. Large-scale spec facilities are being swapped for smaller build-to-suits, and manufacturing deals are taking up a larger share of the development pipeline. Lenders are tightening leverage and demanding more upfront equity for projects that they …
Self-storage has had an amazing run since just before the pandemic. Cap rates started near 6 percent, with buildings starting at $150 per square foot. Then came the flood of pandemic capital pushing prices — by mid-2022 prices jumped to a point no one had previously experienced. “In some of the bigger markets, we were seeing per-square-foot prices of $300 and above for the first time,” says Denise Nunez, executive managing director with NAI Horizon. Cap rates fell to as low as 4 percent. “The low cap rates had gotten to such a point where many brokers were not even pricing deals because they didn’t want to miss that extra that they could get on the sale.” But rising interest rates have had an impact on self-storage, as they have had on every other commercial real estate asset class, with prices reversing again. Investors are still unsure of what the Federal Reserve will be doing in the near term with monetary policy. Building costs are high — final delivery construction costs are still higher by 40 percent or more than pre-pandemic. That reality has resulted in investors alternating between cold feet and, with some signs that the Fed may plan …
TOMBALL, TEXAS — Houston-based development and investment firm NewQuest Properties has announced that The Grand at 249, a $90 million retail project the northwestern Houston suburb of Tomball, is now 96 percent leased. The site spans 65 acres and fronts both Tomball Tollway/Texas Highway 249 and Grand Parkway/Texas Highway 99, and the center itself will feature 404,256 square feet of shopping, dining and entertainment space. Tenants that have already committed include AT&T, Boomer Jack’s, Gringo’s, Jersey Mike’s, Milano Nails and Two Pho Nine Asian Fusion.
ROUND ROCK, TEXAS — Minneapolis-based LS Black Development has broken ground on Preserve at Mustang Creek, an $88 million affordable housing project in the northern Austin suburb of Round Rock. Designed by Merriman Anderson Architects, Preserve at Mustang Creek will total 252 units that will be reserved for households earning 30 to 60 percent of the area median income (AMI). Units will come in one-, two-, three- and four- bedroom floor plans, and amenities will include a pool, playground, clubroom and outdoor grilling and dining stations. Construction is scheduled for a fall 2025 completion.
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — DC Blox, a data center provider based in Atlanta, has opened its Cable Landing Station in Myrtle Beach. The 125,000-square-foot facility is equipped with 19 megawatts (mW) of power and can host up to five subsea cables and colocation space for network and cable operators, communications providers, local enterprises and partners. DC Blox is also building a dark fiber route from the new facility to its communications hub in Atlanta. Google has announced two subsea cables that will land at the Myrtle Beach station, including the Firmina cable connecting Myrtle Beach to Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the Nuvem cable to connect to Portugal and Bermuda. Edge Holdings (a subsidiary of Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram) has announced that it plans to land its Anjana cable connecting to Spain.