DEDHAM, MASS. — RPT Realty (NYSE: RPT) is under contract to purchase a 510,000-square-foot, grocery-anchored shopping center in Dedham near Boston for $131.5 million. Stop & Shop is the anchor tenant. Other tenants at the property, which is nearly 92 percent occupied, include TJ Maxx, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Starbucks and Chipotle. The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter. R2G Venture LLC, RPT’s joint venture platform focused on grocery-anchored assets, will be utilized to acquire the property.
PARSIPPANY, N.J. — Regional office owner and manager Signature Acquisitions has begun the renovation of 100 Kimball, a 175,000-square-foot office building in Parsippany, located in the northern part of the Garden State. The building is currently leased to accounting giant Deloitte, which will be vacating the premises next year. Designed by Studio 1200, the project will include a revitalization of the lobby, a redesign of the café to feature more culinary options and upgrades to the fitness center and conference facilities. Avison Young has been tapped to lease the building following completion of the project, which is scheduled for August 2022.
EAST HANOVER, N.J. — New Jersey-based developer CHA Partners is nearing completion of LIVIA, a 123-bed senior living community in East Hanover, about 30 miles west of New York City. The 100,000-square-foot facility will offer skilled nursing, memory care, assisted living and long-term care/rehabilitation services. Amenities will include restaurant-style dining options, outdoor courtyards, a theater, game room, full-service bar/lounge, beauty salon, and a café. CHA Partners expects the facility to be operational before the end of the month.
PISCATAWAY, N.J. — LIXIL, a provider of water and housing products, has signed a 60,000-square-foot lease for its new headquarters at Middlesex Science Center, a 685,000-square-foot office and life sciences campus in the Northern New Jersey community of Piscataway. Keystone Property Group owns the campus, which formerly served as an office and data center for AT&T. Scott Lesh and Scott Stange of JLL represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. CBRE represented Keystone.
By Matthew Harding, CEO, Levin Management Corp. Serving as one-stop destinations to meet consumers’ daily needs, open-air shopping centers — especially those with grocery anchors — have long been a fan favorite of shoppers, tenants and investors. Over the past 18 months, this asset class has again proven its ability to adapt and serve in any market climate — and under the most challenging of circumstances. Operational Flexibility Is Key By their nature, neighborhood, community and power centers provide a higher level of operational flexibility than other commercial product types. For example, during pandemic-fueled business interruptions, open-air environments enabled tenants to be more creative and accommodate new or expanded uses. This included increasing outdoor space for dining or fitness classes and expanding fulfillment options by setting up curbside pick up. Levin Management’s own mid-year survey of store managers within our leased and managed portfolio, which is comprised largely of open-air product, showed that many of the changes that were made out of necessity last year are now being kept as best practices. For the most part, tenants are responding to stepped-up prioritization of customer convenience. We have seen how quickly shoppers came back out once they could. Ultimately, people like …
NEW JERSEY — Evans Senior Investments (ESI) has arranged the sale of a 120-bed skilled nursing community in New Jersey for $24 million. The property, the name and location of which were not released, was built in the last 20 years with multiple renovations since. ESI represented the seller, an independent owner-operator that sought to exit the long-term care industry. The buyer was an East Coast-based owner-operator of skilled nursing communities that wanted to grow its presence in New Jersey.
BOSTON — Developer MG2 Group is nearing completion of 319 & Park, a 38-unit apartment project in East Boston. The luxury rental community will feature one-, two- and three-bedroom units with stainless steel appliances, quartz countertops, slab cabinetry and hardwood flooring. Private outdoor spaces will also be available in select units. Elevated Cos. is leasing the property. Full completion is slated for early 2022.
NEW YORK CITY — Opentrons, a provider of lab automation technology, has signed a 47,790-square-foot life sciences lease at Innolabs, a facility located in the Long Island City area of Queens. Pandemic Response Lab, a subsidiary of Opentrons, moved in to a 13,000-square-foot space in late August. Neochromosome, another subsidiary, and Opentrons will occupy the balance of the space beginning in early 2022. Bill Harvey, Jared Horowitz, Jordan Gosin and Emma Kistler of Newmark represented the landlord, a partnership between King Street Properties, The Carlyle Group and GFP Real Estate, in the lease negotiations.
BILLERICA, MASS. — Avison Young has negotiated an 18,600-square-foot office headquarters lease for pharmaceutical and biotech research firm PureHoney Technologies at 3 Federal Street in Billerica, a northwestern suburb of Boston. Kirk Weller and Jason Levendusky of Avison Young represented the tenant, which will relocate from 44 Manning Road in the fourth quarter, in the lease negotiations. Brian Tisbert of JLL represented the landlord, Rhino Capital.
WALTHAM, MASS. — Design-build firm Dacon Corp. has completed a 19,000-square-foot office renovation project in the western Boston suburb of Waltham. The building will serve as the new headquarters of Mass Electric Construction, a locally based firm founded in 1928. As part of the project, Dacon replaced closed-off wall partitions with glass-walled offices and conference rooms and built collaborative areas along the reception area and amid employee offices.