HOLMES AND BROOMALL, PA. — The Flynn Co. has brokered the $12.2 million sale of a five-building industrial portfolio in Pennsylvania. Velocity Venture Partners, a Philadelphia-based industrial developer, acquired the properties, which are all located in Delaware County, directly southwest of Philadelphia. Four of the buildings are situated within the Ridley Business Center at 500 Pine St. in Holmes. The other building is located at 620 Parkway in Broomhall. All of the buildings were fully leased at the time of sale. Colin Flynn and Ben Conway of The Flynn Co. represented Velocity Venture Partners in the transaction. Holmes Partners LP was the seller of the Ridley Business Center buildings and 620 Parkway Partners LLC was the seller of the building at 620 Parkway.
Northeast
WEST HAVEN, CONN. — Arnold Peck’s Commercial World (APCW) has negotiated a 10,000-square-foot office lease in West Haven, a southwestern suburb of New Haven. Healthcare provider Cornell Scott Hill Health Center will occupy the freestanding building located at 410 Campbell Ave. on a 10-year lease. Mark Glassman of APCW represented Cornell Scott in the lease negotiations. Joel Nessno of Press/Cuozzo Commercial Services represented the landlord, Plimpton LLC.
NEW YORK CITY — Tri State Commercial has secured a 3,600-square-foot office lease in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Home care company Care Skills Home will occupy space on the third floor of an office building located at 1125 Fulton St. on a five-year lease beginning in March. Avi Akiva led a Tri State team that represented Care Skills Home in the lease negotiations. Akiva also represented the landlord, The Bawabeh Group.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Montessori-inspired school Rock and Roll Daycare has signed a 3,500-square-foot retail lease in Cambridge. The school will be located in the retail space at The Rand, a 19-unit condominium adjacent to the Porter Square MBTA Red Line station at 1975 Massachusetts Ave. The school will provide high-end childcare to infant, toddler and preschool-aged children with a music-focused curriculum. Urban Spaces LLC completed The Rand using modular construction in 2017 and Prellwitz Chilinski Associates served as the architect of the project. A partnership of Urban Spaces LLC and StoneRiver Properties is the landlord of The Rand.
At this point, it sounds like the movie “Groundhog Day,” but 2019 was another impressive year of growth and success for the greater Boston life sciences real estate market — and that growth shows no signs of subsiding any time soon. Duncan Gratton, Cushman & Wakefield Strong levels of venture capital investment, big pharmaceutical partnerships and merger and acquisition activity continued to fuel unprecedented demand for life sciences space, not only in and around Cambridge but also in submarkets like the Seaport, Watertown and certain Route 128 corridors. Venture capital (VC) funding for life sciences, while not quite at 2018 levels, remained robust with nearly $6 billion invested through the end of November. Major funding deals that closed in 2019 include Ginkgo Bioworks ($290 million), ElevateBio ($150 million) and Beam Therapeutics Inc. ($135 million), which all committed to leasing lab space in existing buildings and new developments throughout the area. Supply-Demand Balance The urban Massachusetts life sciences market, which includes Boston, Cambridge, and the inner suburbs of Watertown, Lexington, Medford and Waltham, now enjoys an inventory of about 20 million square feet and ended 2019 with a vacancy rate of just over 4 percent. Successful speculative developments at Arsenal Yards …
SL Green Realty to Sell West Manhattan Mixed-Use Tower, Adjacent Development Site for $446.5M
by John Nelson
NEW YORK CITY — SL Green Realty Corp. (NYSE: SLG) has entered into a contract to sell a 36-story mixed-use tower and an adjacent undeveloped parcel in Manhattan for $446.5 million. An affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM) is the buying entity for the 492,987-square-foot building at 315 W. 33rd St. on the borough’s west side. Also known as The Olivia, the mixed-use tower features 333 residential units and 270,132 square feet of commercial space. The residential portion is 96 percent occupied, and the commercial space is fully leased to tenants including AMC Theatres, Music Choice and Landmark Education. The Olivia’s community amenities include a residents’ lounge, laundry room, onsite parking, fitness center, bicycle storage, resident app, valet services, 24-hour lobby and rooftop terrace. The property is near Madison Square Garden, the Hudson River and Penn Station. Darcy Stacom of CBRE represented SL Green Realty in the sale transaction, which is expected to close in the second quarter. No details were released about Brookfield’s plans for the parcel. “This sale is another example of SL Green’s commitment to strategically divest of non-core assets and accretively redeploy the capital into our ongoing share repurchase program,” says David Schonbraun, co-chief investment …
PHILADELPHIA — Rittenhouse Realty Advisors has sold a nine-property student housing portfolio near Temple University in North Philadelphia for $23.7 million. The portfolio comprises 92 units totaling 253 beds. All of the properties in the portfolio were constructed within the last five years, and the majority are two- or three-bedroom units. At the time of sale, the portfolio was 100 percent occupied for the 2019 to 2020 school year. The buyer was undisclosed.
NEW YORK CITY — Barone Management has completed development of The Woodworks, an 89,024-square-foot industrial property in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens. The Woodworks is comprised of 44,950 square feet of office space and 44,391 square feet of warehouse space with 21-foot ceilings. The location offers convenient access to Long Island Expressway and Interstate 278. The property was constructed on a speculative basis and can be leased by one or multiple tenants. Cushman & Wakefield is leading the leasing effort.
NEW YORK CITY — Newmark Knight Frank (NKF) has negotiated a 52,412-square-foot office lease renewal for quantitative trading firm Susquehanna International Group LLP in the Financial District of Manhattan. The firm will occupy the entire 47th and 48th floors of 140 Broadway, a 1.2 million-square-foot office building, on a 16-year lease. Brian Goldman and Ross Perlman of NKF represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. Robert Constable of Cushman & Wakefield represented the building owner, a partnership of 140 BW LLC and German investment firm Union Investment Real Estate GmbH.
NEW YORK CITY — Education technology company App Academy has signed a 12,602-square-foot office lease in Midtown Manhattan. The company will occupy the entire second floor of 90 Fifth Avenue, a 140,000-square-foot office building near Union Square Park. The company is moving from its previous space at 22 West 38th St. A.J. Camhi and Ryan Silverman represented the building owner, RFR Realty, in the lease negotiations on an internal basis.