SHELTON, CONN. — GTJ REIT has acquired an industrial building located in Shelton for an undisclosed price. Situated on 22 acres, the 125,000-square-foot building features an industrial portion with 24-foot clear heights and a central lobby on the second floor with office space. The facility is currently leased and occupied by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and guaranteed by United Technologies Corp. pursuant to a lease that expires April 2018. Sikorsky has a five-year extension option on its lease.
GROTON, CONN. — CBRE/New England’s Capital Markets team has brokered the sale and arranged financing for The Ledges, a multifamily community located in Groton. The 339-unit asset traded hands for $48.3 million. Built in 2005, the community consists of one single-story leasing center and 14 garden-style apartment buildings offering a mix of 148 one-bedroom units, 155 two-bedroom units and 36 three-bedroom townhomes with an average unit size of 1,022 square feet. Unit amenities include fully equipped kitchens, in-unit washer and dryers and more than eight-foot ceilings throughout. Community amenities include a clubhouse with a resort-style outdoor swimming pool with sundeck, resident lounge with gas fireplace and partial kitchen with built-in bar area, billiards rooms with pool table, business center, conference room, two fitness centers with bathrooms and showers, picnic areas with barbeque grills and a children’s playground, as well as walking trails and a Fit-Trail with 12 exercise stations. Simon Butler, Biria St. John and Mike Stone of CBRE/NE represented the seller, LCOR Groton Apartment LLC, an affiliate of LCOR, and procured the undisclosed buyer. Mike Riccio, Susan Larkin and Anna Pfau of CBRE Debt & Structured Finance team placed $39.21 million in acquisition financing for The Ledges.
NEWINGTON, CONN. — NorthMarq Capital has secured $24 million to refinance Newington Commons Shopping Center located at 196 Kitts Lane in Newington. The 189,864-square-foot shopping center is tenanted by Stop & Shop, Bob’s Stores, Party City, Petco, Planet Fitness and Michaels. The 10-year loan features two years of interest-only payment and a 30-year amortization schedule. Keith Braddish of NorthMarq Capital’s New York office arranged the financing for the borrower through NorthMarq’s relationship with a CMBS lender.
MERIDEN, CONN. — O,R&L Commercial has brokered the sale of 75 South Colony Street in Meriden. Efrain Valentin of Valentin Karate School purchased the 15,641-square-foot property for an undisclosed price. The buyer plans to fully renovate the property and use it as the headquarters for Valentin Karate. Frank Hird and Tim McMahon of O,R&L Commercial represented the seller, The Record-Journal Company, in the transaction. John Murphy of John J. Murphy Law Offices also represented the seller and Neil Ivers represented the buyer. The financing was provided by Ion Bank of Naugatuck and Community Investment Corp. was the SBA lender.
VERNON, CONN. — The Boulder Group has brokered the sale of a newly constructed single-tenant retail property located at 426 Talcottville Road in Vernon. The property, which is net-leased to Dollar General, sold for $1.6 million. Situated on 1.11 acres, the 9,262-square-foot property is leased to Dollar General for at least a 15-year term. Randy Blankstein and Jimmy Goodman of The Boulder Group represented the buyer, a California-based investment firm, in the transaction. The seller was a Northeast-based developer.
Westport, Conn. — Marcus Partners has purchased two office buildings, located at 8 and 10 Wright St. in Westport, as the company’s first investment in its new fund, Marcus Capital Partners Fund II. The buildings, which total 84,000 square feet, offer views of the Saugatuck River and historic Westport Center. Marcus Partners has a $4 million comprehensive renovation planned for the buildings. The renovation will include new enlarged windows, and redesigned and upgraded landscaping, parking decks, lighting, paving, entrances and signage. Terms of the transaction were not released.
SEYMOUR, CONN. — Marcus & Millichap has arranged the sale of Maplewood Commons, a 50-unit apartment property located in Seymour. Built in 1970, the garden-style apartment community consists of four detached wood-frame buildings. The buyer plans enhance the property with modest kitchen, bath and hallway upgrades. Blake Barbarisi, Adam Mancinone and Gary Witten of Marcus & Millichap’s New Haven, Conn., office listed the property on behalf of the seller, a limited liability company and secured the buyer, a private investor.
STAMFORD, CONN. — Institutional Property Advisors (IPA), a division of Marcus & Millichap, has arranged the sale of Cornerstone at Bedford in Stamford. Delaware-based Cornerstone Apartments Property Owner LLC purchased the 368-unit apartment community for $75.1 million or $204,000 per unit. Located at 1425-1435 Bedford St., the 13-story property features a swimming pool with sundeck, a fitness center, a clubroom, a business center, a play area and a picnic area with gas grills. Steve Witten and Victor Nolleti of IPA, along with Eric Pentore of Marcus & Millichap, represented the seller, Fairfield Bedford LLC, in the transaction.
The rapid evolution of e-commerce — including the relationships between the companies that manufacture product and the e-tailers that distribute and sell that product — is arguably the most significant factor impacting the Philadelphia-area and larger regional industrial real estate market today. And for those of us following this phenomenon closely, it feels like we may just be in the second inning of a nine-inning game at Citizens Bank Park. Simply put, e-commerce is creating strong industrial demand. A number of new companies are popping up on the radar, particularly along Pennsylvania’s I-81/I-78 distribution corridor. In the fourth quarter, Walmart’s 1.2 million-square-foot lease at a Liberty Property Trust asset in Bethlehem announced a new neighbor — Walmart again! Adjacent to Liberty’s building will be an additional 1 million square feet to be occupied by Walmart and the space is being developed by Majestic specifically for e-commerce. Earlier in 2013, One Kings Lane leased 500,000 square feet from DCT Industrial in Kutztown. Amazon now has a 4.8 million-square-foot footprint in Pennsylvania with constant threats of additional growth. The list goes on. These sizable transactions drove leasing volume up to nearly 9.7 million square feet at the end of the third quarter …
Low vacancy persists in the Fairfield and New Haven county apartment sector behind respectable job growth and the accompanying creation of new rental households. Multifamily rentals also continue to derive support from the region’s pricey single-family home market. In New Haven County, rentals remain the most cost-effective housing option for many households and younger residents. An acutely low level of single-family home affordability also exists in the most sought-after neighborhoods in Fairfield County, driving many residents to apartments for extended tenures. With high single-family prices posing a barrier to homeownership for many households and creating a large pool of renters, multifamily developers are ramping up production, especially in Fairfield County. Thus far, new construction has been rather well received. Vacancy in recently built properties in Stamford/Norwalk was up slightly to the mid-3 percent range this year as complexes coming online stabilized, despite average rents in excess of $2,500 per month. Tight vacancy also persists in lower-priced 1990s-era rentals in the submarket. By the end of 2013, employers in the market are projected to create 11,500 jobs, marking a 1.5 percent expansion of payrolls. Gains in education and health services, and professional and business services primarily accounted for an increase of …