FRANKLIN PARK, ILL. — Colliers International has arranged a 55,251-square-foot, long-term flex lease for Tax Air Freight. The 142,447-square-foot building is located at 10700 Waveland Ave. in Franklin Park, a northwest suburb of Chicago. Tax Air Freight will join two other tenants and will bring the facility to 100 percent occupancy. The building is situated on 8.2 acres and offers immediate access to I-294. Tax Air Freight’s facility includes 3,500 square feet of office space, 23 dock positions, 27 trailer stalls and room for 14 truck-parking stalls. Tax Air Freight will occupy the space starting March 2016. Tom Rodeno of Colliers International represented Tax Air Freight in the transaction. Jim Estus of Colliers International represented the landlord, CenterPoint Properties.
ALLENTOWN, PA. — The Waterfront Development Co. has broken ground for a $400 million mixed-use development along the western banks of the Lehigh River in Allentown. Spanning 26 acres, the project will include six office buildings, including the 157,498-square-foot 615 Waterfront Drive and the 131,457-square-foot 645 Waterfront Drive; three residential complexes, totaling 425 market-rate apartments; three parking structures; a main street and half-mile River Walk. Additionally, each of the 12 new buildings will offer retail and restaurant space. The development company comprises Jaindl Properties LLC, Dunn Twiggar Company LLC and Michael Dunn Co. LTD. Site-wide infrastructure is slated to take approximately 18 months, though building construction will be phased in and begin at any time during that timeframe. The project is expected to take approximately eight years for full build-out.
TEANECK, N.J. — CBRE Group Inc. has brokered the sale of a former data center, located at 1500 Queen Anne Road in Teaneck. The fully fenced, 55,000-square-foot center features three buildings and electric gates on more than three well-landscaped acres sold for an undisclosed sum. After being vacant for approximately eight years, the property will be repositioned as He’atid Yeshivat Day School, which is slated to open in January 2016. The repositioning will include rehabilitation of the existing buildings, construction of an additional floor to one building and the creation of 20 classrooms at the site. Elli Klapper, Charles Berger and Bill Hassan of CBRE represented both parties in the transaction. The names of the seller and buyer were not released.
DALLAS — Buchanan Street Partners has acquired Tollway Plaza, an office property located at 15950 and 16000 N. Dallas Parkway in Dallas. This is Buchanan Street’s third purchase in the greater Dallas area this year. Tollway Plaza is a LEED-certified property consisting of two eight-story buildings totaling 370,073 square feet. Onsite amenities include a fitness center, conference facility and café. Buchanan Street is planning upgrades to Tollway Plaza’s campus lobbies, elevators and restrooms to match the design of the property exteriors. Tollway Plaza is located in the Dallas North Tollway submarket and was 95 percent leased at the time of the sale to tenants such as Travis Wolff LLP, Axxess Technology Solutions, HQ Global and Stewart Title. Tommy Nelson, Shannon Brown and Kenzie Killgore of CBRE will handle leasing for Tollway Plaza. HFF’s Dallas investment sales team represented the seller, which was unnamed. Buchanan Street Partners represented itself.
MILWAUKEE AND GREENFIELD, WIS. — Siegel-Gallagher has arranged two office leases in Wisconsin in separate transactions. In the first transaction, Penrod Software leased 7,151 square feet at the Phoenix Building located at 219-239 N. Milwaukee St. in Milwaukee. Phoenix 219 Investments LLC is the landlord. Shaun Dempsey and Dan Walsh of Siegel-Gallagher brokered the transaction. In the second deal, 2YS & 1K LLC leased 1,838 square feet to Thrivent Financial at Forest Green Executive Center I. The office building is located at 8555 W. Forest Home Ave. in Greenfield. Shaun Dempsey brokered the deal.
Operating as our state’s political core and as the “live music capital of the world”, Austin’s real estate market is as distinctive as the people that make this city great. Austin is a one-of-a-kind place that’s unique to Texas and the entire country. It defies stereotypes with its progressive and fiercely entrepreneurial spirit, and continually gets top marks for its quality of life, pro-business culture and pro-environment views. WalletHub recently ranked Austin as the 2015 best large city to live in and the data matches up — the city ranks second among 2015’s fastest-growing cities in the U.S., according to Forbes, behind Houston and ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth. In the era of ‘Walker, Texas Ranger,’ Emmitt Smith and ‘the Dream Team,’ and the release of ‘Dazed and Confused,’ the tech boom of the 1990s drove the Austin office market. During that same time, Austin’s total population increased 35 percent and close to 1,750 companies employed over 110,000 people in technology-related jobs in Austin. By the end of the 90s, Texas’ capital city was widely known as Silicon Hills, home to a critical mass of institutional technology knowledge and major tenants like Dell, IBM, Motorola and other software and gaming companies. …
LOS ANGELES — Lincoln Property Company has completed its renovation of 800 Wilshire, a 226,797-square-foot office tower in Downtown Los Angeles. The 16-story tower is located at 800 Wilshire Blvd. Lincoln acquired the property with its joint venture partner Angelo, Gordon & Co. in 2013. Since then, the company established a new tenant base, upgraded common areas to cater to creative office users, improved the aesthetics of the building and recruited new retailers on the ground floor. Occupancy rose from 65 percent to 95 percent, according to Lincoln. The tower was originally built in 1972. It was last renovated in 2004. Cross Campus recently signed on at 800 Wilshire, as did 800 Degrees Pizza, which now occupies some of the ground-floor retail space. The JV sold the property to Onni Group last month for about $80 million. Marc Renard of Cushman & Wakefield’s Capital Market Group executed the transaction.
EXTON, PA. — Swope Lees Commercial Real Estate has arranged the acquisition of an office building located at 111 Summit Drive within Whiteland Business Park in Exton. Jacquette Consulting Inc. acquired the property for an undisclosed price. The 6,000-square-foot office building features private offices, restrooms, an open bullpen area, conference room and kitchen. Chuck Swope of Swope Lees Commercial represented the buyer, while Jim Dugan of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank and Eric Stretch of First Liberty Partners represented the seller in the transaction.
RALEIGH, N.C. — CBRE | Raleigh has brokered the sale of Carolina Place, a five-story, 99,181-square-foot office building located at 2626 Glenwood Ave. in Raleigh. The Class A building was 90 percent leased at the time of sale. Houston-based Griffin Partners purchased the asset from New Boston Fund for $20 million, according to the Triangle Business Journal. Ben Kilgore of CBRE | Raleigh, along with John Boylan and J.D. McNeil of Spectrum Properties, represented New Boston Fund in the sale.
Improving real estate fundamentals in the St. Louis office market are opening the floodgates to new construction that is greatly needed as large occupiers are finding limited, if any, existing available options. Over the past few years, the gap between rent for existing office properties and new properties was too great to justify construction. Until now, that is. The St. Louis employment base is finally reaching a pre-recession level with continued growth in the healthcare, information technology and engineering industries. The centrally located and more affluent residential areas — the West County and Clayton submarkets in particular — are experiencing higher occupancies and increasing rental rates. Clayton historically has been the best-performing submarket in St. Louis and still is today, while West County is situated near mid- to upper-level income workers. Development has and will continue to follow these highly sought after submarkets as they offer the metro area’s best real estate fundamentals and returns. Add to all of those factors a lack of new product in the past several years — plus a Class A vacancy rate of 10 percent — and you have an ideal climate for new construction. Pivotal project is catalyst The announcement that St. Louis-based …