CHICAGO — Clune Construction has completed Sterling Bay’s new headquarters in Chicago’s Fulton Market. IA Interior Architects designed the 28,000-square-foot space, which pays tribute to Chicago and its architectural history. Sterling Bay owns the property, which is located at 333 N. Green St. Construction began in February 2020 and the project was severely impacted by COVID-19 a month later. Sterling Bay is a Chicago-based real estate investment and development company.
PALMYRA TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A partnership between St. Louis-based development firm Sansone Group and a private equity real estate fund backed by Crow Holdings Capital is underway on construction of Tac-Pal Logistics Center. The 702,450-square-foot industrial facility is located in Palmyra Township. The development team expects to complete the single-building property, which will feature modern design and build-to-suit opportunities, during the first quarter of 2022. Cushman & Wakefield and Avison Young have been tapped to lease the project.
PHILADELPHIA — GoldOller Real Estate Investments, a locally based multifamily owner-operator, will develop a $20 million, 157,000-square-foot self-storage facility in Philadelphia. The site of the new five-story, climate-controlled facility is located at 3145 Greys Ferry Road, adjacent to the Schuylkill Expressway in the University City area. The facility will be GoldOller’s second following the development of an 80,000-square-foot property in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood. CubeSmart operates that facility. GoldOller plans to break ground on the project in the coming weeks. A tentative completion date was not disclosed.
HAVERHILL, MASS. — Monogram Food Solutions, a manufacturer of prepared foods based in Memphis, will open a 135,000-square-foot production facility within Cedar Brook Park in Haverhill, a northern suburb of Boston. Paradigm Properties is developing the facility as a build-to-suit for Monogram that will consist of 109,000 square feet of multi-temperature warehouse space and a 26,000-square-foot sandwich assembly area. Massachusetts-based design-build firm Dacon Corp. is the design-build firm. Construction is underway and scheduled for completion in mid-2022.
Whether you are buying undeveloped land or assessing a property for potential redevelopment, thorough due diligence is critical to good decision-making. With the speed at which today’s commercial real estate market operates, you may face time constraints and you definitely want to limit expenditures related to due diligence — but you don’t want to cut corners. An incomplete understanding of the challenges at the site will limit your ability to scope out the project and could impact your ability to keep it on schedule and within budget. Even if you need to complete due diligence on an expedited timeline, make sure you check all the boxes. Here are six key items that should be on your checklist to ensure you limit unexpected costs and delays. 1. Geotechnical and Environmental Investigations Depending on your project scope, some form of a geotechnical investigation makes sense. Prior to design, it’s important to find out if soil constraints pose risks or design challenges. Geotechnical due diligence will disclose information about the physical properties of the underlying soil including rock, historic fill, unsuitable organic layers, seasonal groundwater and/or buried debris. Environmental due diligence will provide information about existing site challenges including wetlands, floodplains, brownfields, archeological factors …
RALEIGH, N.C. — Avison Young has secured a $40 million senior loan to fund the pre-development activities and horizontal infrastructure construction for Midtown Exchange, a $1 billion mixed-use development underway in Raleigh. The developer of Midtown Exchange, Dewitt Carolinas, received the funding for the 353,000-square-foot office tower. Wes Boatwright, Mike Yavinsky and Jon Goldstein of Avison Young led the financing transaction through an undisclosed lender. At full buildout, Midtown Exchange will include 790,000 square feet of Class A office space, 1,275 residential units, 300 seniors housing units, 300 hotel rooms, 125,000 square feet of retail and dining space, a convention center and more than seven acres of green space and park amenities. Raleigh-based Dewitt Carolinas is active in development, ownership, management and acquisition of real estate throughout the Carolinas. The firm has completed more than 600 developments and over $2 billion of construction.
CANTON, GA. — A joint venture between Lumpkin Development, MacArthur Holdings and Live Oak Capital Partners has broken ground on a 93,000-square-foot self-storage facility located at 7222 Cumming Highway in Canton, close to the Northside Hospital Cherokee campus. The property is slated to be open to the public in the spring of 2022. The self-storage facility will be located on 9.2 acres and will comprise of drive-up, climate-controlled units. JM Williams Contractors will construct the facility, and Renasant Bank is providing the debt financing for the project. Max Design Group is the project’s architect, and Travis Pruitt & Associates is serving as the civil engineering. The facility is Lumpkin Development’s first Class A storage property in the area. Lumpkin Development builds and operates self-storage, retail and industrial real estate throughout the Southeast. MacArthur Holdings is a New York City-based real estate business, and Live Oak Capital Partners is a real estate developer based in Atlanta.
ALLEN PARK, MICH. — Ford Motor Co. has unveiled plans for a new battery testing center named Ford Ion Park in the Detroit-area town of Allen Park in effort to accelerate research and development of battery and battery cell technology. A team of 150 experts in battery technology development, research, manufacturing, planning, purchasing, quality and finance will assist Ford in more quickly developing and manufacturing battery cells and batteries. Plans call for a $185 million, 200,000-square-foot collaborative learning lab in Southeast Michigan that is dedicated to developing, testing and building vehicle battery cells opens late next year. Ford’s Battery Benchmarking and Test Laboratory, which spans 185,000 square feet, opened late last year in Allen Park.
OCONOMOWOC, WIS. — Developer Mandel Group has selected McShane Construction Co. to build Hackney House Apartments at Pabst Farms in Oconomowoc, about 35 miles west of Milwaukee. The apartment community will include 302 units across 20 garden-style and townhome buildings. Amenities will include a 4,000-square-foot clubhouse, fitness center, outdoor pool, grill area, dog wash and bike storage. HUD 221(d)(4) financing will be used to finance the project. Completion is slated for April 2023. BSB Design is the architect.
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Atlanta-based developer Cousins Properties will develop Domain 9, a 335,000-square-foot office building that will be located within The Domain, a mixed-used development on Austin’s north side. Total project costs are anticipated to be about $147 million. Cousins plans to break ground on Domain 9 in the second quarter and to deliver the building in mid-2023. The company’s current office portfolio within the Domain submarket spans 2.1 million square feet and is 98 percent leased.
