ST. LOUIS, MO.— Lakeside Property LLC, a private investment group, has acquired a 23,500-square-foot, mixed-use building in St. Louis for more than $2 million. BankLiberty was the seller of the building, which is located at 11401 Olive Blvd. The multi-tenant building is anchored by ground floor tenants Enterprise Bank and an insurance firm. The second floor of the building, totaling approximately 12,500 square feet, is vacant but fully furnished. Champion Bank developed the building in 2008. It occupied approximately 20,000 square feet of space until April 2010 when the bank’s assets, including this piece of commercial real estate, were taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. BankLiberty was assigned the assets. David Biales and David Steinbach of Jones Lang LaSalle represented BankLiberty in the transaction.
SOUTHFIELD, MICH. — Ciena Healthcare, a leading provider of skilled nursing and rehabilitation care facilities in Michigan and Connecticut, has obtained a five-year, $29 million loan from Capital One Bank. The loan proceeds will be used to refinance three skilled nursing facilities in Michigan that were built since 2005. Southfield-based Ciena Healthcare operates 32 skilled nursing communities across the state and four communities in Connecticut. The company provides long-term care and short-term rehabilitative services. Capital One Bank is based in McLean, Virginia.
ST. LOUIS, MO. — HOK has been named executive architect on the long-term renewal project for the medical center campus on Kingshighway Boulevard in St. Louis, which encompasses Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. The campus renewal project will extend for 10 years. The overall project calls for increased critical care capabilities and additional private inpatient rooms, along with development of programs in medical and surgical services. BJC’s selection committee cited HOK's experience designing some of the world's most transformative healthcare facilities. These projects include the Barnes-Jewish Center for Advanced Medicine in St. Louis, and the expansion of the Ohio State University Medical Center campus in Columbus, Ohio.
MILWAUKEE — Harbor Pointe, a 596-unit apartment property in Milwaukee, has sold to a Denver-based buyer for $27 million. The 531,186-square-foot property is located at 9200 North 75th St. Units range from 502 square feet to 1,359 square feet and amenities include a clubhouse, indoor pool and tennis courts. Scott Harris and Matthew Whiteside of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller, a private investment group. They also represented the buyer.
MINNEAPOLIS — First and First LLC has purchased three office buildings in Minneapolis located at 244, 248 and 252 First Ave. in the Historic Warehouse District for $1.2 million. The buildings, known as the Yamamoto Moss Offices, total 42,000 square feet. Together, there are three office users that occupy 75 percent of the buildings. Josh Floring of The Ackerberg Group represented the seller, Yamamoto Moss Leasing Co., in the transaction.
ST. PAUL, MINN. — The Ramsey County Regional Rail Authority has selected Jones Lang LaSalle as the property manager and retail leasing agent for St. Paul Union Depot. The historic facility is undergoing a $243 million transformation from a defunct rail station to an active transit center in St. Paul's Lowertown neighborhood. It will be the terminus of the Twin Cities' new light rail transit line, which connects the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul, local and inner-city bus service, taxis, Amtrak and, in the future, high-speed rail service to Chicago.
OAK LAWN, ILL. — The Boulder Group has arranged the $1.1 million sale of a single-tenant Budget Rent A Car property at 8940 S. Cicero Ave. in Oak Lawn. The 2,500-square-foot retail building was developed in 1985 and is fully leased to Budget, which has four years remaining on its lease. Randy Blankstein and Jimmy Goodman of The Boulder Group represented the seller, a Midwest-based partnership, in the transaction. The buyer was a high-net-worth individual in Canada.
COLUMBUS, OHIO — The Connor Group has purchased River Oaks, a 288-acre apartment community in Columbus. The buyer acquired the 24-acre foreclosed property from Wells Fargo Bank. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. River Oaks was built in 1998 and is located between the Columbus suburbs of Hilliard and Upper Arlington. Following the acquisition, The Connor Group now owns and operates nine apartment communities in the market.
The Chicago downtown office market is on a roll. Vacancies have fallen for more than 12 months straight as corporations pull the trigger on new or rehabbed office space in marquee locations to accommodate consolidation and growth. One of the big stories is that the market is far more geographically diverse today. We are seeing the suburban sprawl in reverse as corporations leave far-flung business parks to seek out trendier 24-hour neighborhoods such as River North (Chicago’s tightest submarket), the West Loop and the Millennium Park/East Loop-area. Where you work is also increasingly where you live. Chicago’s 136.7 million-square-foot office CBD market reported a 14.9 percent vacancy rate at the end of the first quarter, a welcome decline from the 15.4 percent reported during the fourth quarter of 2011. According to CBRE Group, downtown vacancy has fallen in every quarter since the end of 2010, when the rate was 17 percent. It peaked at 17.3 percent midway through 2010. Overall vacancy numbers include sublease space. Direct vacancy was 13.6 percent in the first quarter of 2012, down from 14 percent in the prior period. Compare that to the suburbs, where the first-quarter vacancy rates rose to 24.6 percent after consecutive …
BELLEVILLE, ILL. — Contegra Construction Co. is building a new $37.8 million laboratory facility for the Illinois State Police and other law enforcement agencies in southwest Illinois that will quadruple the space dedicated in the region to crime-solving forensic science technology. The two-story, 64,100-square-foot building is taking shape on a 2.3-acre site at the intersection of 23rd and West Main streets in Belleville. When operational, it will serve 154 police agencies in a contiguous eight-county area in Illinois.The building will include more than 40,000 square feet of lab space housing research infrastructure and equipment for crime scene services such as trace chemistry, polygraph, latent prints, firearms and forensic biology/DNA testing. The building will replace 15,000 square feet of antiquated forensic science space the law enforcement agency currently leases in Fairview Heights, Ill. and is being funded by the state's Illinois Jobs Now! Capital Development Board. Joining prime contractor Contegra on the project team are Pyramid Electrical Contractors Inc., Amsco Mechanical Inc. and Bi-State Fire Protection Corp.