NEW YORK CITY — Japanese alcoholic beverage supplier Suntory has signed a 100,000-square-foot office headquarters lease at 11 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. About 150 employees will work in the full-floor space, which includes two bar areas, a tasting room, interactive conference room, a digital art exhibit and flexible workstations. David Kleinhandler, Joe Cybulski, James Whalen and Maura Flanagan of CBRE represented Suntory, which is relocating from Chicago, in the lease negotiations. Zach Freeman, David Kaufman and Neil Kessner represented the landlord, SL Green, on an internal basis.
JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Veris Residential Inc. (NYSE: VRE), a publicly traded REIT with offices in New Jersey and Massachusetts, has agreed to sell Harborside 1, 2 and 3, a trio of adjacent office buildings in Jersey City. The unnamed buyer will purchase the properties for an aggregate price of $420 million, subject to closing adjustments. The three office buildings anchor Harborside, a 25-acre development that fronts the Hudson River and also houses five apartment communities, a Whole Foods Market, shops, eateries, the Harborside 5 and Harborside 6 office buildings, onsite daycare, urgent care and primary care medical space, and two parking garages. Veris recently signed Collectors Holdings, parent company of Professional Sports Authenticator, to a 130,000-square-foot lease at Harborside 3. Veris recently also closed on its $346 million sale of 101 Hudson Street, a 42-story office tower in Jersey City spanning nearly 1.3 million square feet of space. With sale of this and the Harborside portfolio, Veris is taking a big step toward the corporate goal of being a “pure-play multifamily REIT.” With these office sales and the stabilization of Haus25, a 750-unit apartment community underway in Jersey City, multifamily will represent 98 percent of Veris’ net operating income, …
MELVILLE, N.Y. — Melville-based A&G Real Estate Partners has secured the sales of 21 properties in Maryland, Delaware and Florida at a real estate bankruptcy auction. All assets were formerly owned by the late Zebulon J. and Beatrice Brodie. In the Aug. 16 bankruptcy auction, 19 properties in Maryland and one each in Delaware and Florida fetched a total of $18.4 million. The transactions included: the $6.7 million sale to different buyers of four contiguous, largely undeveloped properties in a busy commercial district on Legion Road in Denton, Md.; the $1.5 million sale of the Carter Building at 300 Market St. in downtown Denton; the $2.1 million sale of the Alexander Building at 315 High St. in Chestertown, Md.; and the $2.2 million sale of 300 Bulle Rock Farm Lane in Centreville, Md., which is a family compound formerly owned by John Raskob, builder of the Empire State Building in Manhattan. “A&G’s comprehensive marketing campaign for this middle-market disposition triggered inquiries from more than 560 prospective buyers across the country, and nearly 50 of those interested parties eventually placed baseline, qualifying and/or prevailing bids, some for multiple properties,” says Emilio Amendola, co-president of A&G. After two rounds of bidding, 13 …
AUSTIN, TEXAS — The Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) has sold Waterloo Innovation Center, a 198,972-square-foot office complex located at 1000 Red River St. in downtown Austin that houses the organization’s headquarters. Russell Ingrum, Peter Jansen, Troy Holme, Jennifer Joseph, Patrick Benoist and Jared Chua of CBRE represented TRS, which will continue to operate out of the building for two more years until its new facility in northeast Austin is complete. The Austin Business Journal reports that Alexandria Real Estate Equities purchased the property for $108 million.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Chicago-based investment firm Syndicated Equities has acquired a 111,500-square-foot office building in Oklahoma City’s Automobile Alley neighborhood. The seven-story building was constructed in 2020 as a build-to-suit for the corporate headquarters of financial technology firm Heartland Payment Systems, which occupies the entire property on a net-lease basis. The seller and sales price were not disclosed. Old Second National Bank and Gateway First Bank provided acquisition financing for the deal.
NEW YORK CITY — Applause, a Massachusetts-based provider of digital testing and quality control services, has signed a 17,500-square-foot office lease at 355 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Chris Foerch of Savills represented the tenant, which plans to take occupancy of the entire seventh floor later this month, in the lease negotiations. Robert Steinman internally represented the landlord, Rudin, which originally developed the 270,000-square-foot building in 1959.
FRANKLIN, TENN. — Foundry Commercial has arranged a 125,008-square-foot office lease at McEwen Northside, a 45-acre mixed-use campus in Nashville’s Cool Springs submarket. Located in the city of Franklin, the development features 1 million square feet of office space, 113,000 square feet of restaurants and specialty retail, a 150-room hotel, 770 luxury apartment units and green spaces. The tenant, procurement and supply chain management organization OMNIA Partners, will occupy all five floors of office space at the project’s Block A building starting in early 2023. The building also houses 19,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space on the ground level. OMNIA is relocating from its current headquarters, which is also in Franklin. Vince Dunavant of Foundry Commercial represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. The landlord is Boyle Investment Co., co-developer of McEwen Northside alongside Northwood Ravin.
NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEV. — Pacific Group has broken ground on Helios, a 135-acre medical campus located in North Las Vegas. Construction costs for the project are set to total between $4.5 billion and $5 billion. At full buildout, the project is set to include a 1.1 million-square-foot inpatient hospital offering 600 beds, which will be built in three phases costing $1.2 billion; 1.3 million square feet of medical office and medical technology space; 250,000 square feet of retail with an emphasis on health and wellness; 900,000 square feet of research-and-development space with incubator spaces; 290 hotel rooms across two buildings; and seven restaurants, four of which will be full-service. The hospital portion of the development will offer an emergency department, surgical services and critical care. Additional outpatient offerings will include occupational therapy; behavioral and mental health therapy; educational facilities; testing labs; a sports rehabilitation center; skin care treatment; speech therapy; trauma therapy; radiology; imaging; urology; gastrointestinal care; pre- and post-natal care; and dental services. The research and development portion of Helios will focus on healthcare, aerospace technologies and sustainability. Local food and beverage offerings, athletic facilities, a grocery store, financial institutions, daycare centers and shops will occupy the retail segment …
By Ryan Foran, Cresa As we approach the three-year anniversary of the start of the pandemic, it continues to affect the commercial real estate industry in many ways, with no asset class impacted as significantly as the office sector. While retail initially stumbled but rebounded, and industrial soared to unexpected heights amid distribution emergencies, millions of U.S. office employees continue a tenuous balance of working from home versus going into the office. The pandemic wasn’t all bad news for office tenants. Many businesses with simple infrastructure and experienced staff have been so effective with remote set-ups that they have shed office space permanently and eliminated rent from the books. Others have embraced emerging technologies like virtual meetings and chat solutions to reduce the need for face-to-face interaction. In one way or another, most businesses were able to leverage this unique situation to improve their business processes, technology and personnel, and have embraced remote work at some level. But many businesses with younger, less experienced staff have reported ongoing struggles with recruiting, mentorship, culture development and staff retention. Some of these may have been amplified by complex external factors such as an ongoing labor shortage, an unprecedented resignation of our older …
PLEASANT GROVE, UTAH — St. John Properties has broken ground for Valley Grove III, a five-story Class A office building in Pleasant Grove. Once complete, the facility will bring the company’s commercial real estate portfolio in Utah to more than 1 million square feet. The 140,768-square-foot property will be the 22nd building at St. John Properties’ Valley Grove, which includes office, flex/R&D, restaurant and retail space. St. John Properties first started development at Valley Grove in 2017.