KILLINGLY, CONN. — Marcus & Millichap has brokered the sale of a 103,084-square-foot industrial building in Killingly, located in the north part of the state along the Rhode Island border. The property was net-leased to steel fabricator Siri Wire, which has occupied the building since 1994, at the time of sale. Harrison Klein, Laurie Ann Drinkwater and Seth Richard of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller, a limited liability company, and procured the buyer, a private investor.
EAST HAVEN, CONN. — Connecticut-based brokerage firm O,R&L Commercial has arranged the sale of a 24,272-square-foot medical office building in East Haven, located in the southern coastal part of the state. The property was fully leased at the time of sale. Frank Hird of O,R&L Commercial represented the seller and the buyer in the $2.5 million transaction. Both parties were limited liability companies.
NEW YORK CITY — Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) reported fourth-quarter results that exceeded the company’s expectations, thanks to 21 percent year-over-year growth in digital sales across all of its brands. In addition, the department store chain reported that comparable in-store sales during the period that included the holiday shopping season were down 17 percent. However, that performance beat the company’s projections, and contributed to Macy’s posting its first profitable quarter in a year, CNBC reported. Product categories such as home beauty and jewelry led the pronounced spike in digital sales, and Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said that the company anticipates that within the next three years, it will reach $10 billion in annual online revenue. In February 2020, the company announced that it planned to close 125 underperforming stores, or about 20 percent of its total count, by early 2023. Macy’s stock price opened at $15.31 per share on Tuesday, Feb. 23, down slightly from $15.68 per share a year ago.
WEEHAWKEN, N.J. — Los Angeles-based Parkview Financial has provided $61 million to fund the predevelopment and entitlement process for 1400 and 1900 Avenue at Port Imperial in Weehawken, located across the Hudson River from Midtown Manhattan. The project will consist of an eight-story, 282-unit condominium building with 4,601 square feet of retail space and a 346-space parking garage. Residential amenities will include a lounge, indoor pool, spa, fitness center, basketball court, multi-media room, game room, library and coworking space. Outdoor amenities will include a pool, dining and kitchen stations, sun deck, fire pit and lounge seating. The development team expects the entitlement process to last about six months.
NEW YORK CITY — Locally based firm Caspi Development has topped out the Hotel Barrière Le Fouquet’s New York, a 96-room hotel that is being developed at 456 Greenwich St. in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. Upon completion in mid-2022, the eight-story hotel will house several food and beverage concepts, as well as a pool, spa and a screening room. Construction of the hotel, which will be operated under the French luxury brand Group Barrière, began in 2017.
NEW YORK CITY — Los Angeles-based chef Matthew Kenney will open a plant-based restaurant concept at a 7,900-square-foot space at 1245 Broadway in Manhattan. Anthony Stanford and Henry Rossignol of CBRE represented the tenant and the landlord, a partnership between locally based developer GDSNY and Stockholm-based Klovern, in the negotiations.
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — NAI DiLeo-Bram has negotiated a 5,600-square-foot office lease at Bridgewater Plaza, a two-building office complex in the Northern New Jersey city of Bridgewater. Marc Shein of NAI DiLeo-Bram represented the tenant, the Center for Psychological Treatment & Assessment, which provides services for adults with autism, in the lease negotiations. Shein also represented the landlord.
The pandemic has forced the appraisal business into a surreal experience: many valuation professionals had their physical connections to the market severed or diminished. The question became: how best to assign value to the properties that appraisers are tasked with assessing especially while the demand for valuation has grown. Where does the rise of automatic valuation systems (AVSs) fit in with the valuation process? Karl Finkelstein, vice president of Business Development and senior managing director for Valbridge Property Advisors, spoke recently to REBusinessOnline. He explains, “The appraisal business is still all about reporting on what we see in the marketplace. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is our physical connection to the market — talking with market participants and attempting to read the tea leaves.” As for many companies, the past few months have been a time of reassessment and reengagement with the technology and tools at hand. “We’ve had to rethink how we do inspections; we’ve had to rethink how we physically interact. Technology has given us a big hand with that, and it has changed some of the some of the ways we do business and enhanced others,” says Finkelstein. A Hands-On Business, Socially Distanced Physical inspections remain …
PHILADELPHIA — Republic Properties Corp., a privately owned real estate investment and management firm, plans to build Ultra Labs at University City, a $190 million life sciences facility in Philadelphia. The property will stand 11 stories tall and comprise 185,000 square feet of advanced research and development space for cell and gene therapy users. Republic Properties entered into a 90-year ground lease last year with Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) at the site, which is located adjacent to SEPTA’s Powelton Rail Yard station along North 32nd Street. Additionally, Ultra Labs at University City will sit within an Opportunity Zone between Powelton and Market streets overlooking the Schuylkill Expressway. The site is within close proximity to life science clusters including The Wistar Institute, University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The production center will be designed to ensure compliance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) standards for pharmaceutical and cell production facilities, according to Republic Properties. The Washington, D.C.-based developer has tapped Maryland-based brokerage firm Scheer Partners to lease the property, which is slated for completion in less than 36 months. Republic Properties’ investment partner on the project is an entity …
NEW YORK CITY AND NASVHILLE — SomeraRoad, a development and investment firm with offices in New York City and Nashville, has acquired a portfolio of eight industrial assets totaling 1.5 million square feet $137 million. Each of the properties, which are located in the Southeast and Midwest regions, was fully leased to a single tenant at the time of sale. The roster includes users such as FedEx, McFarling Foods and Black Gold Farms. Ian Ross, Fergus Campbell, Amit Patel and Blake Toline negotiated the transaction for SomeraRoad on an internal basis. The seller was not disclosed. Dustin Stolly and Jordan Roeschlaub of Newmark arranged a $91 million acquisition loan through Capital One on behalf of SomeraRoad.