JERICHO, N.Y. — New Jersey-based investment firm The Birch Group has acquired 1 and 2 Jericho Plaza, a 665,592-square-foot office complex on Long Island, for $212 million. The property was 95 percent leased at the time of sale to tenants such as AIG, Deloitte, Morgan Stanley, Ernst & Young, Valley Bank, Sterling National Bank and UBS. The seller was a partnership between New York City-based private equity firm DRA Advisors and New Jersey-based Onyx Equities.
NEW YORK CITY — Touro College & University System, a nonprofit higher and professional learning institution, has signed a lease to open a 243,305-square-foot campus within 3 Times Square in Manhattan. Touro will occupy the third through ninth floors and part of the ground and second floors at the 30-story building, which originally opened in 2001 as the North American headquarters of Reuters. Today, The Rudin Family owns the building and is currently in the midst of renovating it. The lease term is 32 years. Designed by Michielli + Wyetzner Architects, the campus will include classrooms, labs, a library, event spaces, student lounges and cafés. Touro plans to move into the building in January 2023. Richard Bernstein, Steve Braun, Troy Elias and Jared Thal of Cushman & Wakefield, along with internal representative Jeffrey Rosengarten, represented Touro College in the lease negotiations. John Cefaly, Lou D’Avanzo, Ron Lo Russo, Paige Engeldrum and Lauren Hale of Cushman & Wakefield, along with in-house agent Tom Keating, represented building ownership.
NEW YORK CITY AND DALLAS — CBRE Investment Management has agreed to acquire a portfolio of logistics real estate assets in the United States and Europe from Hillwood Investment Properties, an industrial developer and owner based in Dallas. Under terms of the $4.9 billion acquisition agreement, affiliates of New York City-based CBRE Investment Management will purchase the 57-property, 28.4 million-square-foot portfolio from Hillwood. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, and CBRE Investment Management expects to close on the assets in stages. The portfolio includes 33 properties in the United States totaling 19.2 million square feet and 24 assets in Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom totaling 9.2 million square feet. “This milestone transaction reflects our ability to leverage the strong financial capacity of our parent company to secure compelling opportunities that help to drive strategic real assets solutions for our clients,” says Chuck Leitner, CEO of CBRE Investment Management. “Backed by a $35 billion AUM global logistics platform and a skilled team with deep domain expertise, we are positioned to be one of the world’s leading investors and operators of logistics assets.” The portfolio is one of several multi-market portfolio transactions in the industrial sector in the past …
NEW YORK CITY — The Howard Hughes Corp. (NYSE: HHC) has received approval from the City of New York for the development of an $850 million mixed-use project in Manhattan’s Seaport District. The 26-story building at 250 Water St. will house office, retail and multifamily uses, with the housing component comprising 80 percent market-rate and 20 percent affordable units. The residential element of the project will also include for-sale and for-rent units. More specifically, current plans for the 324-foot-tall building call for 270 multifamily units to be developed above five stories of office and retail space. The site currently houses a parking lot that spans a full city block. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is the architect of the project, which was originally announced in October 2020. The Dallas-based developer estimates that the project will generate more than $1 billion in economic impact, including the creation of more than 3,000 construction and permanent jobs. Howard Hughes Corp. plans to begin remediation of the site this year, with the commencement of vertical construction to occur after that process is completed. “This project will play a vital role in New York City’s recovery through the creation of a new mixed-income rental building, office …
NEW YORK CITY — Boston Properties (NYSE: BXP) has acquired 350 Park Avenue South, a 450,000-square-foot office building in Midtown Manhattan. Enterprise Asset Management sold the 20-story building for approximately $300 million. The new ownership plans to implement a capital improvement program to enhance building systems, work suites and common areas. Boston Properties also secured a $220 million loan for the refinancing of the existing debt attached to the property.
NEW YORK CITY — Locally based firm Ariel Property Advisors has arranged a $5.5 million construction loan for a 24-unit multifamily project in the Morrisania neighborhood of The Bronx. Matt Dzbanek and Matt Swerdlow of Ariel Property Advisors arranged the loan. The borrower was an international family office, and the direct lender was a local debt fund. Both of those parties involved in the transaction requested anonymity.
NEW YORK CITY — Locally based investment and development firm HAP Investments has received a $76.7 million loan for the refinancing of a portfolio of three multifamily buildings totaling 160 units in East Harlem. The buildings are located at 2338 Second Ave., 329 Pleasant Ave. and 2211 Third Ave. Allegiant Real Estate Capital provided the three-year loan, specific terms of which were not disclosed.
NEW YORK CITY — Locally based developer L&L Holding Co. has received $911.4 million in financing for 425 Park Avenue, a 47-story office building that is nearing completion in Midtown Manhattan. L&L Holding, which is developing the building in partnership with BentallGreenOak and Tokyu Land Corp., will use the proceeds to retire existing construction debt and fund the final stages of development, including lease-up costs. Global asset management firm Citadel has already committed to roughly half of the space as the 670,000-square-foot building’s anchor tenant. Additional tenants include Wafra Capital Partners, Hellman & Friedman and Medical Properties Trust. Michael Tepedino and Michael Gigliotti of JLL arranged the financing through a consortium of lenders led by Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies.
CONEY ISLAND, N.Y. — A joint venture between two locally based firms, Cammeby’s International Group and Rybak Development, will build a 499-unit multifamily property on Coney Island. The property, which will house 40,368 square feet of commercial space, will be developed as part of the Neptune/Sixth mixed-use redevelopment. Units will come in one-, two- and three-bedroom formats, with 30 percent of the residences to be designated as affordable housing. Demolition work is underway at the site, and vertical construction is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2022.
NEW YORK CITY — American Finance Trust Inc. (NASDAQ: AFIN) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a portfolio of 81 retail centers from CIM Real Estate Finance Trust, a REIT managed by Los Angeles-based CIM Group. The transaction is valued at $1.32 billion. The 9.5 million-square-foot portfolio comprises power retail and grocery-anchored shopping centers, as well as two single-tenant properties. The weighted average lease term of the portfolio is five years, according to CIM. The names and locations of the retail properties were not disclosed. The transaction price comprises primarily cash considerations, as well as $53.4 million in AFIN’s stock and additional considerations based on performance metrics achieved in the first 180 days after closing. The transaction is scheduled to close in the first quarter of 2022. “This immediately accretive off-market transaction represents a unique value creation opportunity,” says Michael Weil, CEO of AFIN. “We are adding significant scale while further enhancing our best-in-class portfolio with pandemic-tested assets on accretive terms.” For CIM Real Estate Finance Trust, the sale repositions the REIT’s retail portfolio to 437 credit-leased retail properties with a weighted average lease term of 10.8 years. The remaining portfolio totals 13.2 million square feet across 45 …
