DALLAS — RREAF Communities, a division of Dallas-based RREAF Holdings, has acquired 3,173 acres at the intersection of State Highways 130 and 80 in Central Texas’ Caldwell County for the development of a master-planned community. Preliminary plans call for thousands of residential homes in various product types, as well as retail, restaurants, hotels, offices, healthcare and light industrial uses and future school sites. A construction timeline has not yet been established.
DALLAS — Weitzman has completed the renovation of Meadow Central Market, a 107,778-square-foot shopping center in North Dallas. The project centered on the remodeling of the store of the anchor tenant, grocer Tom Thumb, which now features an expanded beer and wine selection, a full-service seafood department, expanded bakery and remodeled produce, dairy and meat departments. Weitzman also upgraded the center’s façade, signage, landscaping, parking and security. Other tenants at Meadow Center Market include CVS, Edible Arrangements, The UPS Store and Sylvan Learning Center.
EVERETT, MASS. — South Carolina-based development and management firm Greystar has broken ground on 35 Garvey Street, a 450-unit apartment community in the eastern Boston suburb of Everett. The project will transform a vacant former industrial site in Everett’s evolving Commercial Triangle into a transit-oriented development. About 5 percent (23) of the units will be reserved as affordable housing. The community will also include a 564-space parking garage and 6,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space. A tentative completion date was not disclosed.
SMITHFIELD TOWNSHIP, PA. — Co-developers DEPG Associates and ARCTRUST have broken ground on a 40,000-square-foot medical office building in Smithfield Township, located in Lehigh Valley. The project, which represents the first of a larger, five-building development for St. Luke’s University Health, will be situated within the 120-acre Smithfield Gateway mixed-use development. Completion of the building is slated for January 2023, and the first phase of the larger project is scheduled for a 2024 delivery.
DEKALB, ILL. — Facebook parent company Meta has unveiled plans to expand its data center that is currently under construction in DeKalb, more than doubling the square footage from two buildings to five. With the increased footprint, the project now represents a total investment of more than $1 billion. Meta previously announced that it was building its 12th U.S. data center in DeKalb in June 2020. Development costs were estimated at $800 million at that time. Crain’s Chicago Business reports that the five-building campus will be the largest data center in the state of Illinois. Meta says it selected DeKalb, which is located about 65 miles west of Chicago, for its access to renewable energy, talent pool and community partners. Meta is collaborating with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a pilot program with the goal of developing a more sustainable concrete mix to help reduce the carbon footprint. Meta has also invested in two new wind energy projects in the Illinois counties of Morgan and DeWitt.
CHICAGO — Skender has completed construction of 609 W. Randolph, a 15-story boutique office building in Chicago’s West Loop. Developed by Vista Property, the building spans more than 100,000 square feet and includes a tenant lounge, rooftop terrace, executive conference room, wellness studio and meeting spaces. The property has received WELL and LEED certifications and features high-performance air filters, motion-sensor restroom fixtures and touchless, automatic doors. CBRE is the leasing agent. Antunovich Associates designed the base of the building, while Partners by Design handled the design of the spec office suites.
SEATTLE — Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. (NYSE: HPP) has completed its purchase of Washington 1000, a fully entitled office development site in Seattle, for $85.6 million. The Los Angeles-based REIT will break ground immediately on a 546,000-square-foot office tower at the site. The total project costs, including the purchase price of the land, is anticipated to range from $340 million to $360 million. Washington 1000 is located at 1000 Olive Way within Seattle’s Amazon-anchored Denny Triangle submarket. The project will sit directly adjacent to the $1.9 billion Washington State Convention Center Addition project, which is adding numerous retail amenities and streetscape improvements to the neighborhood. Project architects LMN and Callison RKTL are designing Washington 1000 to achieve LEED Gold and Fitwel certifications. The design will appeal to post-pandemic office needs with enhanced HVAC filtration units and antimicrobial finishes at key touchpoints. The design will also allow for flexibility with 36,500-square-foot, column-free floorplates, as well as maximum natural light with high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. The project will feature more than 22,000 square feet of amenity-rich outdoor space, including an indoor-outdoor rooftop lounge and two 5,000-square-foot terraces off the second-floor main lobby. The property will also have an end-of-trip facility that …
SAN FRANCISCO — SHVO and architects Foster + Partners have unveiled plans for Three Transamerica at 545 Sansome St. in San Francisco, including the expansion and upgrade of the building to a contemporary, high-design office building. Built in the 1930s, the historic Art Deco structure was originally designed for the California Ink Co. The building’s new design emphasizes sustainability while revitalizing the historic structure. The building’s interior will be completely modernized and brought up to date with current building codes while preserving the integrity of the historic structure. Its two Art Deco façades will be restored, and the building floor plates extended toward Washington Street and Redwood Park creating double-height office spaces. Additionally, new office space will be created above the existing building, set back from the historic Sansome Street façade, creating an additional 50,000 square feet of office space. Estimated development costs were not disclosed. The 10-story building is part of Transamerica Pyramid Center, which also includes an iconic, 48-story, pyramid-shaped anchor building built in 1972. SHVO bought the two buildings and the small, urban park between them in October.
ALEXANDRIA, VA. — St. Louis-based Twain Financial Partners has plans to redevelop Hotel Heron, an approximately 90,000-square-foot hotel redevelopment in Alexandria. Construction on the $76.5 million adaptive reuse project is set to begin in June and wrap by November 2023. Twain Financial provided $59.2 million in financing through a mixture of sale-leaseback financing and both federal and state historic tax credit equity on behalf of the developers, May Riegler Properties and Potomac Investment Properties. The Hotel Heron project will restore the original George Mason Hotel building, which was constructed in 1925. The hotel will contain 134 rooms and 30,000 square feet of amenities, meeting space, restaurant space and ground-floor retail. Aparium Hotel Group will manage the hotel and restaurant upon completion. The property is currently being used as an office building and parking garage.
MCKINNEY, TEXAS — South Carolina-based development and management firm Greystar has broken ground on Phase I of McKinney Airport Trade Center, a 70-acre industrial project located north of Dallas. Phase I will consist of three buildings spanning 320,000 square feet. Phase II will feature two buildings totaling 434,000 square feet. Completion of Phase I is slated for the end of the year. NAI Robert Lynn and Carey Cox Co., which jointly represented Greystar in its acquisition of the land, have also been retained to market and lease the property.