NEW YORK CITY — KW Commercial, the commercial real estate arm of Keller Williams Realty, has negotiated a new master lease for the 100-room Z Hotel in Long Island City in Queens. Sonder, a flexible stay hospitality startup, will lease and operate the entire hotel for a term of seven to 17 years. The property is located at 11-01 43rd Ave and includes 45,000 square feet of retail, office and amenity space. Julia Maksimova of KW Commercial represented the landlord, Merchants Hospitality. David Behin and J.D. Cohen of Newmark Knight Frank represented Sonder.
PITTSBURGH — Two new retail tenants have signed leases totaling 23,243 square feet in the retail space at The Cork Factory, a 297-unit luxury multifamily property in Pittsburgh. Southern fast casual restaurant Coop De Ville leased 11,947 square feet, which is expected to open this spring. Health and fitness franchise TruFusion leased 11,296 square feet, which is expected to open in early 2021. The two leases bring the 43,000-square-foot retail space on the ground floor of The Cork Factory up to full occupancy, Other tenants include Cioppino Restaurant & Cigar Bar, Italian restaurant Osteria 2350 and fitness concept Meraki Studio.
The country’s largest commercial real estate services firm recently selected Boston as its choice for strongest U.S. gateway multifamily market performer for 2020, and with good reason. The Eastern Massachusetts economy gained momentum in 2019, propelled by its world class “Eds and Meds” cluster and resurgent high tech, R&D and financial management communities. Income growth and job creation ran ahead of national averages and apartment markets remained tight and rent growth robust regardless of elevated supply. Investor demand for metro apartment properties surged, especially after mid-year, while cap rates remained accessible by primary market standards, especially in the suburban Class B segment. Metro job creation trends fell into a bit of a funk in the fall and winter of 2018-2019 but rebounded vigorously in the second half. Payrolls increased at a brisk 31,200-job, 1.7 percent year-on-year pace after mid-year, representing the fastest growth recorded in three years. Sector leadership was provided by Boston’s top knowledge industry sectors, headed by higher education (8.5 percent), research and development (9.8 percent), software and computer network design (4.9 percent) and financial management (2.6 percent). Only softness in the consumer-driven side of the labor market – construction, retail trade, personal services and government – held …
Chad Thomas Hagwood of Hunt Real Estate Capital discusses growth opportunities in 2020 and the different drivers that make for a positive atmosphere, especially in secondary and tertiary markets around the country. Previously overlooked areas offer more opportunity to develop and less competition. Many secondary and tertiary markets are seeing corporate growth and increasing populations, which is driving more demand for multifamily housing. Limits on development include construction cost, scarcity of labor and shortages of materials, but uncertainty over the upcoming election is also keeping investors wary of planning too far in advance. People are waiting on the sidelines to see what happens, with some investors waiting until after November to create their four-year plans. Watch the video to hear more about what Hagwood expects to see in 2020. This video is posted as part of REBusinessOnline’s Finance Insight series, covering MBA CREF 2020. Click here to subscribe to the Finance Insight newsletter, a four-week newsletter series, followed by video interviews from MBA CREF.
NEW YORK CITY — Urban Edge Properties, a New York City-based REIT, has acquired Kingswood Center and Kingswood Crossing, a pair of adjacent mixed-use buildings in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, for $165 million. The two buildings comprise a total of approximately 335,000 square feet, including 134,000 square feet of Class A office space and 106,000 square feet of retail space. The properties also include 60,000 square feet of space available for office or residential development and 250 parking spaces. At the time of sale, retail tenants included Target, TJ Maxx and Marshalls. Visiting Nurse Services of New York was the anchor office tenant. A partnership between Infinity Real Estate and Nightingale Properties was the seller in the off-market transaction.
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.
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 …