WESTPORT, CONN. — Vidal Wettenstein has brokered the sale of a retail/restaurant building located at 1849 Post Road East in Westport. Fin-Max Realty acquired the property for $3.9 million. The 6,237-square-foot property is occupied by Shake Shack. Robert Lewis of Vidal Wettenstein was the sole broker in the deal.
NEW YORK CITY — Hersha Hospitality Trust (NYSE: HT) has signed definitive agreements to sell ownership interests in seven of its limited-service hotels in Manhattan for a total purchase price of $571.4 million. The Philadelphia-based hotel REIT sold its interests to joint venture partner Cindat Capital Management Ltd. Totaling 1,087 rooms, the hotels include Holiday Inn Express Times Square, Candlewood Suites Times Square, Hampton Inn Times Square, Hampton Inn Chelsea, Hampton Inn Herald Square, Holiday Inn Wall Street and Holiday Inn Express Wall Street. “Manhattan’s preeminence as a financial, cultural and technological hub, combined with the security and scarcity of its real estate, provides significant yield for a strategic, long-term partner such as Cindat,” says Neil Shah, president and chief operating officer of Hersha Hospitality. “We intend to utilize a portion of the sale proceeds to make hotel investments in Washington, D.C., and California, continue our share repurchase program and repay debt.” The proposed joint venture is structured with Cindat as the preferred joint venture partner holding a 70 percent ownership stake, while Hersha retains a 30 percent equity interest. Cushman & Wakefield represented Hersha in the transaction. Hersha will continue to fully own 10 hotels in New York City …
NEW YORK CITY — Eastern Consolidated has arranged the sale of all of the shares of a residential co-op building located at 61-63 Crosby St. in SoHo. The four-story, 20,600-square-foot property sold for $42 million, or more than $2,000 per square foot. The building consists of loft apartments on the second, third and fourth floors, and an artist studio/loft apartment and one retail space on the ground floor. The property also features 6,537 square feet of development rights. Peter Hauspurg and Michael Coghill of Eastern Consolidated, along with former Eastern brokers David Schechtman and Abie Kassin, represented the co-op owners, while Adelaide Polsinelli, also of Eastern, represented the buyer, Crosby 61 LLC, in the transaction.
NEWARK, N.J. — Prudential Mortgage Capital Co. (PMCC) exceeded $14.6 billion in total loan originations in 2015. The company provided financing driven by conventional agency loans and increasing originations in international loans. Some of the company’s 2015 achievements include lending more than $12.7 billion within the United States across multifamily, office, industrial and other sectors; international lending of $1.9 billion, including first time originations in Australia, France, Spain and re-entry into the Canadian market; nearly $3.4 billion in conventional and affordable multifamily loans across Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA; and agricultural debt and equity investments of $1 billion. PMCC is the commercial mortgage lending business of PGIM, the global investment management business of Prudential Financial Inc.
EDISON, N.J. — Mack-Cali Realty has acquired Metroview, a 10-story office building located at 333 Thornall St. in Edison for an undisclosed price. Situated on 11.5 acres, the 196,128-square-foot office building features 21,000-square-foot floor plates and was 96 percent occupied at the time sale. Major tenants include AXA Equitable, ICAP Securities, Cohn Reznick, Lincoln National, Merrill Lynch and United Healthcare. Andrew Merin, David Bernhaut, Gary Gabriel, Brian Whitmer and Frank DiTommaso of Cushman & Wakefield represented the undisclosed seller in the transaction.
WESTPORT, CONN. — Southport, Conn.-based Angel Commercial has arranged the sales of two properties in Westport owned by the Kowalsky family for a combined value of $10.8 million. In the first deal, a limited liability company controlled by Investment Capital Holdings LLC acquired a 42,624-square-foot multi-tenant office building at 1777 Post Road East for $6.8 million. In the second transaction, a limited liability company controlled by Coastal Construction Group purchased a 9,184-square-foot office building located at 1141 Post Road East for $4 million. Coastal Construction Group plans to develop a mixed-use development on the 5.4-acre site. Jon Angel and Brett Sherman of Angel Commercial represented the seller and buyers in the transactions, which both closed the last week of January.
NEW YORK CITY — SL Green Realty Corp. and The Moinian Group have signed a lease with Nordstrom to anchor three levels of retail space at 3 Columbus Circle in New York City. The store has signed a 23-year lease for 43,000 square feet of retail space. The new location will serve as an expansion of the Nordstrom full-line flagship store, which is debuting on West 57th Street. Derek Trulson of JLL and Stephen Stephanou of Crown Retail Services represented Nordstrom, while Jeff Winick of Winick Realty Group represented the landlord in the lease transaction.
The Stamford, Connecticut, office market has everything going for it: proximity to New York City, a good transportation system, a wonderful quality of life, a superior public school network, great recreational possibilities being on Long Island Sound and great professionals. The one negative: almost zero growth in the state for the past 25 years in terms of both population and office-using jobs. This lack of growth has led to a very soft economic climate as it relates to office space. The vacancy rate for class A office space has hovered at more than 20 percent for the last seven years or more and has dipped below that only a few times since 1990. Vacancy Rate Favors Tenants In Fairfield County, the point of equilibrium is an office vacancy rate of approximately 15 percent. In other words, when the vacancy rate is 15 percent, neither landlords nor tenants have the upper hand in the negotiation of a lease transaction. In Stamford, the current vacancy rate resides at just over 23 percent — and that gives significant negotiating leverage to tenants that are looking for space. Interestingly enough, landlords of some of the better Class A institutional buildings are willing, and able, …
With an increasing number of tenants seeking to relocate to New Jersey from parts of New York City, including Brooklyn and the Bronx, the Garden State’s industrial market is at its healthiest since first-quarter 2008. The amount of vacant space has now reached pre-recession levels, decreasing from 7.5 percent to 7.2 percent during the third quarter of 2015. Moreover, the vacancy rate experienced its best year-over-year improvement since the first quarter of 2014. Strong markets include central New Jersey submarkets Exit 8A, Exit 9/Brunswick, and Route 287 West, while the Meadowlands area remains the strongest submarket in northern New Jersey, followed by Exit 14/Newark near the port, and the Route 46/23/3 submarket. While transactions by large tenants, such as Amazon, dominated activity during the first half of the year, industrial buildings were filled up by smaller and mid-sized tenants during the third quarter of 2015. Retailers/wholesalers led the way, which is not surprising considering the continually growing e-commerce sector and recent increases in consumer spending. Supporting the recent economic resurgence of the sector, tenants in the manufacturing industry were also very active during the quarter, though many of their leases were small in size. Transportation companies also took space, enhancing …
NEW YORK CITY — Nets Sports and Entertainment, a subsidiary of Forest City Realty Trust, has completed the previously announced sale of its equity interests in Barclays Center arena and the Brooklyn Nets basketball team to Onexim Sports and Entertainment Holding USA. The purchase price for the non-controlling 20 percent equity interest in the team was $125.1 million, and the purchase price for the 55 percent equity interest in the arena was $162.6 million. The transaction values the team at approximately $875 million and the arena at $825 million, inclusive of debt for each asset. Evercore ISI advised Net Sports and Entertainment in the transaction.