KANSAS CITY, KAN. — Block & Co. Inc. Realtors has acquired a former Best Buy store located at 10500 Parallel Parkway in Kansas City. The purchase price was undisclosed. The 46,538-square-foot freestanding building sits on 4.2 acres within the 850,000-square-foot Plaza at the Speedway shopping center. David Block, Alex Block and Max Kosoglad of Block & Co. represented the buying entity. David Hickman of CBRE represented the undisclosed seller. Block & Co. will handle leasing and management of the vacant space, which can be leased to a single tenant or subdivided to allow for multiple tenants.
CHICAGO — Marcus & Millichap has brokered the sale of a 6,000-square-foot retail building occupied by Chase Bank and European Wax Center in Chicago for $3.7 million. The property is located at 3730 N. Southport Ave. Mitchell Kiven of Marcus & Millichap marketed the building for sale on behalf of the seller, a private investor. Kiven also procured the buyer, a New York-based developer specializing in boutique hotels. The property went under contract at the end of February, but as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened and the tenants closed doors, the buyer became wary of proceeding. Dean Giannakopoulos of Marcus & Millichap Capital Corp. assisted the parties in restructuring the transaction, which closed in July.
KANSAS CITY, KAN. — Urban Outfitters (Nasdaq: URBN) has announced plans to develop a $350 million omni-channel distribution center near Kansas City. The 880,000-square-foot development will be located on ancillary land owned by the Kansas Speedway in Wyandotte County, roughly 15 miles outside downtown Kansas City. The Philadelphia-based retailer is set to begin construction on the facility this fall with completion scheduled for early 2022. Documents obtained by The Kansas City Star identify Hillwood Development Co. as the developer for the project. Fort Worth, Texas-based Hillwood is led by Ross Perot Jr., son of the late Ross Perot, a billionaire who ran for president twice in the 1990s. Urban Outfitters selects the locations of its distribution centers based on a combination of factors, including location, available workforce and transportation infrastructure. Kansas City’s central location was cited as critical to the company’s distribution network. “Our priorities in identifying the home for our new omni-channel distribution center focused on people, and it was the quality of the local workforce and the commitment of their representatives in the state that convinced us this is the right place to be,” says Dave Ziel, chief development officer of Urban Outfitters. “This facility will be at the …
FENTON, MO. — Kadean Construction has completed construction of a new 185,590-square-foot headquarters and logistics facility for 1st Phorm, a manufacturer and distributor of nutrition supplements and athletic apparel. The multi-million-dollar facility is located in Fenton Logistics Park in Fenton, a southwest suburb of St. Louis. The project includes corporate offices, 16 Zoom rooms, a 222-seat education and training auditorium, private library, podcast studio and a 16,000-square-foot athletic facility with a weight training room, basketball court and batting cages. The company is relocating from its headquarters in South St. Louis County and consolidating several warehouses around the St. Louis area. More than 400 employees will work at the building. U.S. Capital Development is the developer and owner of the project. M+H Architects served as architect.
DETROIT — Detroit-based Rocket Cos. Inc. has begun trading today on the New York Stock Exchange. Rocket, which operates billionaire businessman Dan Gilbert’s Quicken Loans Inc. and Rocket Mortgage, is offering 100 million shares at $18 each for a valuation of $1.8 billion. The company has downsized its initial public offering (IPO) from an earlier filing that announced shares would be priced between $20 and $22. Investors viewed the business as more of a consumer finance company than a technology-driven organization, which contributed to the lower valuation, according to Bloomberg. The shares are trading under the ticker symbol RKT.
CHICAGO — Bellwether Enterprise Real Estate Capital LLC has arranged $20.5 million in financing for the rehabilitation and preservation of nine affordable housing properties in the West Town and Humboldt Park neighborhoods of Chicago. The nine properties are collectively known as Victory Apartments and span 107 units. Victor Agusta of Bellwether arranged an FHA loan on behalf of the borrower, Bickerdike Redevelopment Corp. The financing also included tax-exempt bonds, a 4 percent low-income housing tax credit and a subordinate mortgage from the Illinois Housing Development Authority. The existing Section 8 Housing Assistance Payments contract was renewed for 20 years.
CHICAGO — Sloan, a manufacturer of commercial plumbing systems and touchless restroom solutions, has signed a 20,000-square-foot office lease at 333 N. Green in Chicago’s Fulton Market. Sloan will use the space for its first Chicago showroom. Owned by Sterling Bay, 333 N. Green is now 93 percent leased. Russ Cora and Gillian Keebler of Sterling Bay negotiated the lease transaction. Larry Cohn of @properties represented the tenant.
WINCHESTER, IND. — Timber Development has acquired a 12,000-square-foot retail property shadow-anchored by Walmart in Winchester, which is located in East Central Indiana. The purchase price and seller were not disclosed. The property was 40 percent leased at the time of sale. Tenants include Kubachi Japanese & Hibachi restaurant, Mimi Nails and Verizon.
OMAHA, NEB. — McCarthy Building Cos. has completed construction of the Omaha VA Ambulatory Care Center, an $86 million, 157,000-square-foot outpatient facility for veterans. The property includes seven primary-care units, an outpatient surgery suite and a specialty medicine unit allowing 400 additional patients to visit the clinic each day, as well as a dedicated women’s health clinic area. The new facility, which is connected to the existing 12-story VA Medical Campus, will open to patients this month. This is the first center in the country to take advantage of the C.H.I.P.I.N. for Vets Act passed through Congress in 2016, according to McCarthy. Under the law, the VA is permitted to accept private donations to complete construction projects. The VA entered a public-private partnership with nonprofit group Veterans Ambulatory Center Development Corp. (VACDC) to save taxpayers roughly $30 million. The law also requires the builder to use innovative delivery techniques that fall outside federally prescribed specifications and methods. Such initiatives include subsurface utility mapping, virtual design and construction, and using a design-assist subcontracting approach instead of a hard-bid approach. McCarthy claims it completed the project four months ahead of schedule. “Breaking from the traditional design-bid-build delivery format allowed for creative solutions, more …
By Brian Niven As we begin to reopen most parts of our society following the COVID-19 pandemic that devastated our country and economy earlier this year, many in the commercial real estate industry are beginning to take stock of the massive shifts it may have put into motion. While the pandemic has decimated many sectors — shuttering retail shops, leaving offices empty and setting off an exodus of urban apartment dwellers — prospects for industrial properties have remained strong. Demand for warehouses of all kinds has been soaring in recent years, largely on the back of the growing e-commerce industry, and the sidelining of brick-and-mortar stores has only strengthened those tailwinds. However, that does not mean that the sector will not face challenges in the years to come. While most of the country’s core markets have a healthy pipeline of dry warehouse development that will help meet demand from users, the same cannot be said for an increasingly essential part of our supply chain — cold storage facilities. Vacancy for cold storage was already at or near zero across the country, but the pandemic has set off a chain of events that is likely to place significant stress on our …