It seems as though we have recently seen significant weekly announcements about investment and job creation by major U.S. companies into the Research Triangle Park region, the area situated between the cities of Raleigh and Durham. For instance, tech titans Apple and Google declared plans to establish major engineering hubs in the region, adding heat to an already dynamic market. It is common knowledge that the Triangle area is respected for its large, highly educated workforce thanks to top-ranking colleges and universities, including Duke University, North Carolina State University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wake Tech, North Carolina’s largest community college, also serves as a vital engine, providing the region’s workforce with STEM candidates. These institutions supply existing and expanding businesses with an impressive talent pool. Theses factors, along with a business-friendly economic climate, have grown the Research Triangle into one of the nation’s largest research centers. Although local headlines continue to buzz with real estate business news, the Raleigh-Durham industrial market has witnessed steady real estate investments from life sciences and R&D businesses for decades. Over the past 24 months, however, demand for life sciences space has had a dramatic impact on traditional flex/light industrial users …
By Tim Harrison, Research Manager, JLL After one the strictest and longest shelter-in-place orders in the nation, Oregon is officially back open for business and all signs point to a strong recovery in Portland. People are travelling again, with airline passengers through Portland International Airport totaling more than 1 million in May. This represents about 63 percent of the normal 2019 monthly average, according to the Port of Portland’s aviation stats. Perhaps most importantly, people are returning to the downtown core for both business and pleasure with weekly visits through Pioneer Mall — the center of downtown — up to about 70 percent of 2019’s average weekly visits, per Placer.ai. This optimism is transferring to the office market, where Portland leasing activity is up more than 33 percent year over year. The recovery is being led by industries old and new. Out in the suburbs, Portland’s largest apparel companies are expanding on campus, while new leases were signed by Lululemon and On-Running in newer creative spaces on the urban fringe. Portland’s life sciences sector is approaching a critical mass as Bay Area company Twist Biosciences entered the market by absorbing 215,000 square feet. Meanwhile, Vancouver, Wash.-based AbSci raised more than …
NEW YORK CITY AND TORONTO — KKR, a global private equity firm based in New York City, has agreed to sell a national portfolio of warehouses and distribution centers to Oxford Properties Group, a real estate owner and manager based in Toronto. The $2.2 billion deal is expected to close in the coming months. The portfolio comprises 149 properties located across 12 major industrial U.S. markets, including the Inland Empire in California, Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Chicago, Houston, Tampa, Orlando, San Diego and the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. corridor. Since 2018, KKR and its management platform Alpha Industrial Properties assembled and maintained the portfolio across 50 individual transactions. The firm’s decision to focus on high-barrier-to-entry sites near major population centers attracted the strong offer from Oxford Properties, which is looking to allocate one-third of its global equity in industrial real estate. “Growing our U.S. industrial business is one of Oxford’s highest-conviction global investment strategies as we continue to build, buy and invest in the physical infrastructure that serves the digital economy,” says Ankit Bhatt, vice president of investments at Oxford Properties and leader of the firm’s U.S. industrial investment strategy. ”High-quality, infill, consumption-driven industrial portfolios of scale trade infrequently, so this transaction is …
By Justin Wybenga, vice president of asset services, GMH Communities Every day, we see the world constantly changing. Whether it’s advancements in technology, culture, arts or sciences, there are many things to look forward to as life and business return to normal. One sector of commercial real estate that continues to experience breakthroughs is life sciences. Case in point: Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYC Economic Development Corp. announced that the organization would double its investment to $1 billion to establish New York City as the global leader in life sciences. With the increasing demand for research and lab space comes an emerging need for innovative housing that supports the rapidly growing population of researchers, professors, graduate students and third-shift workers. Historically, amenities and services for this group have been an afterthought. We saw a void in this space and recently launched a completely new vertical called “Innovative Living.” Innovative Living takes best practices from conventional multifamily and student housing, including cutting-edge technology and best-in-class amenities and services, and tailors those features to accommodate the specific needs of professionals and graduate and postgraduate students working or learning in major innovation hubs. Understand Residents’ Needs Fostering a collaborative living environment …
NEW YORK CITY — TMRW Life Sciences, which provides management systems and solutions for in vitro fertilization, has signed a 38,000-square-foot lease at 250 Hudson Street in Manhattan. The tenant currently occupies a portion (5,500 square feet) of the seventh floor of the 15-story building and will relocate from that space to occupy the entire sixth floor and part of the ground floor. Mitti Liebersohn of Avison Young represented TMRW Life Sciences in the lease negotiations. Brett Greenberg and Adam Rappaport represented the landlord, Jack Resnick & Sons, on an internal basis.
LEBANON, PA. — Logistics firm DHL Supply Chain has begun construction on a 970,000- square-foot warehouse in Lebanon, a suburb of Harrisburg. The project will house manufacturing, storage and distribution space that will serve the healthcare and life sciences industries. DHL Supply Chain is constructing another building at the site as part of an initiative to invest $88 million in the regional economy and create about 200 new jobs. The first building is scheduled to be complete in the first quarter of next year.
CHICAGO AND DENVER — NexCore Group, a national healthcare real estate developer and owner, has teamed up with global investment management firm Nuveen Real Estate to acquire a portfolio of 27 medical office and two life sciences buildings spanning nearly 1.2 million square feet. IRA Capital, a private equity firm based in Southern California, sold the portfolio in two transactions totaling $620.4 million. The portfolio spans 13 states: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. The medical office properties comprise ambulatory surgery centers, micro-hospitals, freestanding emergency departments and single- and multi-tenant clinics. The properties were 99 percent leased at the time of sale to 38 tenants, the vast majority of which are well-established healthcare systems. The medical office buildings sold for about $463 million, according to NexCore, which will manage the facilities moving forward. Allianz Real Estate provided $234 million in acquisition financing on behalf of NexCore and Nuveen for the medical office portfolio. The financing is structured on a seven-year term with both a fixed-rate tranche totaling $163.8 million and a floating-rate tranche totaling $70.2 million. Chicago-based Nuveen is using equity for the medical office assets via its newly launched U.S. Cities …
PHILADELPHIA — Keystone Property Group has landed a new life sciences tenant at The Curtis, the metro Philadelphia-based developer’s 912,245-square-foot facility in Philadelphia that is a redevelopment of a former printing press. Aro Biotherapeutics Co., a developer of genetic medicines, has committed to an undisclosed amount of space at the 12-story building. Bob Zwengler, Anthony Pell, Matt Knowles and Paul Touhey of CBRE represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. Tim Conrey, Lisa Berger Baskin and K.J. Kulik of Scheer Partners represented Keystone.
By Taylor Williams The business of trading retail properties is booming across the greater Boston area, and the combination of cheap capital, a desire to recoup lost business and potential changes in tax law are prompting buyers and sellers alike to transact at a frenetic pace. As is often the case in times of robust investment sales activity, low interest rates are the straw that stirs the drink. At its latest meeting in June, the Federal Reserve opted to hold the federal funds rate — the short-term rate by which lending between financial institutions is priced — at a target range of 0 to 0.25 percent. The Fed cut rates by 100 basis points to this target range in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 outbreak and has kept them there ever since. A fiscal policy defined by record-low rates is persisting even in the face of inflation, which hit its highest mark in 13 years when the U.S. Consumer Price Index rose by 5.4 percent in June 2021 relative to June 2020. Economists have cited sustained injections of federal stimulus and relief money and elevated government spending in response to the pandemic as the key drivers of this …
HOLLY SPRINGS, N.C. — Crescent Communities will develop a life sciences project called The Yield in Holly Springs. The Charlotte-based developer expects to break ground on the first phase this fall, with the first building’s delivery expected in the summer of 2022. In the initial phase, Crescent Communities will develop three buildings focused on life sciences and biomanufacturing uses. The 25-acre site is located at the intersection of Green Oaks Parkway and Holly Springs New Hill Road, adjacent to Seqirus’ North American campus, the Holly Springs Business Park and the FUJIFILM Diosynth’s $2 billion cell culture production facility. Phase I will feature over 260,000 square feet of biomanufacturing, lab and office space. Two of the buildings will be constructed to meet Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) regulations, with each building offering approximately 105,000 square feet and the ability to accommodate single- or multi-tenant needs. The third building will be two stories of office and laboratory space designed to support the biomanufacturing buildings or demand from other office and life science users. Timmons Group, O’Brien Atkins Associates, Gilbane and the Town of Holly Springs are part of the project design team. Crescent Communities has worked with the Town of Holly Springs …