NEW YORK CITY — Gene Kaufman Architects has been selected to design 500 Metropolitan Ave., a 200,000-square-foot, mixed-use development in Brooklyn. The 15-story building is slated to include 189 hotel rooms, 58 condominiums and street-level shops. The property will also contain athletic facilities, catering and event space and a spa. The Chetrit Group is the project developer.
METHUEN, MASS. — Beech Street has arranged an $11.2 million Fannie Mae loan for the acquisition of Colonial Village, a 148-unit apartment complex in Methuen. The six-building property was built in 1970, with a club house added in 1978. Michael Edelman of Beech Street's New York office originated the 10-year, fixed-rate loan. The loan has 2.5 years of interest-only payments.
PRINCETON, N.J. — The Landis Group has completed renovation work on the 120-room The Residence Inn by Marriott at Carnegie Center in Princeton. The plan included upgrading the guest rooms, expanding the breakfast area and installing a new buffet and enhancing the lobby. The hotel, which is located at 3563 U.S. Route 1, was developed by Landis. Paramount Hotel Group manages the property.
Driven by robust demand from tech and media companies, operations in Manhattan will recover at a moderate pace, though trouble looms in the financial industry. Turbulence in the global economy, a political gridlock in Washington, D.C., and new regulations will prompt hedge funds and investment banks to shed jobs. A few of these users will offer space for sublease to cut costs, which will encourage landlords in Midtown to offer lucrative concessions to compete for tenants. Midtown South will boast the tightest vacancy in Manhattan in 2012 as media and tech firms backfill space, while the redevelopment of Hudson Yards will ignite leasing activity in the area. Tenants priced out of Midtown will target downtown, where Condé Nast expanded its lease at One World Trade Center to 1.2 million square feet. In Brooklyn, the New York City Human Resources Administration will consolidate operations into 400,000 square feet near Atlantic Yards this year, which will further transform the area. New York City fundamentals remain among the best in the country. Citywide, payrolls will grow 1.5 percent this year, or 56,000 jobs, while office-using sectors will gain 15,000 positions. In all five boroughs, approximately 1 million square feet of office space will …
Restrained development, an unsettled single-family housing market, and growing rental housing demand are driving a robust turnaround in the Hartford multifamily sector, making the market one of the strongest in the country. Vacancy will fall to less than 3 percent in 2012, enabling property owners to raise rents significantly. Some of the greatest gains will likely occur in the North/West Hartford and South Hartford/North Middlesex submarkets, where vacancy rates are less than 3 percent. Overall, vacancy and rents have likely improved sufficiently to justify construction, and many planned projects may accelerate through the pipeline in the quarters ahead. The track record of recently delivered projects will likely embolden developers. For example, in the North/West Hartford submarket, vacancy fell 60 basis points last year after a 264-unit complex came online. The multifamily sector is also getting a lift from the still-struggling single-family housing market, where sales volume fell 20 percent last year. Mortgages remain hard to obtain, and many would-be homebuyers will remain in rentals for an extended period as a result. The Hartford market continues to attract attention from investors, perhaps to a greater extent than other markets of similar size. A slight decline in transaction velocity over the past …
PHILADELPHIA — A groundbreaking was held for a $60 million hotel in Philadelphia — one of the city's first ground-up hotels in nearly a decade. Home2 Suites by Hilton, with 246 guest rooms, will be located across from the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Wurzak Hotel Group and Parkway Corp. will develop the project. The project calls for 2,000 square feet of meeting space and 9,750 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurants. The hotel will be largest hotel for the brand to date. A summer 2013 opening is planned.
NEW YORK CITY — Beech Street has provided a $20.9 million Fannie Mae loan for the acquisition of Gramercy East Apartments in New York City. Built in 1974, the property is a 117-unit mid-rise apartment complex with a 6,000-square-foot health club. Avi Weinstock and Matt Texler of Meridian Capital Group originated the 10-year, fixed-rate loan.
UNION, N.J. — Atlantic Star Trucking Inc. has signed a long-term lease for 60,000 square feet of industrial space at 1835 Burnet Ave. in Union. The company, which specializes in importing and exporting, will use the site for warehouse and distribution purposes. Barry Cohorsky of NAI Hanson represented the owner, Miller Industrial Properties, in the deal. Jones Lang LaSalle's Iselin, N.J. office represented the tenant.
CAMBRIDGE — The Beal Cos. has selected Roundhill Construction to create two separate office and lab space build-outs at One Kendall Square in Cambridge. Roundhill will create 10,000 square feet of laboratory and office space for GnuBIO, a privately held company that develops gene sequencing technology for clinical applications. Roundhill will also fit out 4,500 square feet of office space for Crashlytics, a start-up company that creates debugging and crash reporting software for mobile computer device applications. Owned by The Beal Cos., One Kendall Square is a 770,000-square-foot, mixed-use property.
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Beech Street Capital has arranged a $32 million Freddie Mac loan to refinance Raritan Crossing Apartments, a 376-unit apartment complex in New Brunswick. The property is currently 99 percent occupied. Avi Weinstock and Josh Rhine of Meridian Capital Group originated the fixed-rate loan on behalf of the borrower, a real estate owner and operator. The 7-year loan has a 30-year amortization schedule.
