FRISCO, TEXAS — American Newland Communities and joint venture partner North America Sekisui House (NASH) have acquired 729 acres for a master-planned community in Frisco. The property is located north of the Sam Rayburn Tollway, about 30 miles north of downtown Dallas and five miles east of the Dallas North Tollway. Newland and NASH have completed a due-diligence period with the previous landowners and closed on the purchase June 15. When fully complete, the community will include 1,800 single-family homes and up to 1,400 apartment units, along with retail and office space. Construction will begin later this year, with plans to make the first 253 home sites available for purchase by builders in 2017 with a grand opening in 2018.
Office
WASHINGTON, D.C. — MakeOffices, a shared workplace platform, has signed a long-term, 45,000-square-foot office lease at The Wharf, a $2 billion waterfront development underway in southwest Washington, D.C. MakeOffices will lease the entire second and third floors of 800 Maine, a 220,000-square-foot, Class A office building. Situated at the corner of 9th Street and Maine Avenue S.W., the 11-story property is set to deliver in the third quarter of 2017. MakeOffices joins the American Psychiatric Association and bipartisan lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates as tenants of 800 Maine. MakeOffices typically offer flexible month-to-month leases and space options for member companies, as well as shared amenities including Wi-Fi, 24/7 access and onsite refreshments such as coffee, tea, fruit, beer and filtered water. The Wharf’s master developer, Hoffman-Madison Waterfront, signed MakeOffices to the lease at 800 Maine. Hoffman-Madison Waterfront’s members include PN Hoffman, Madison Marquette, ER Bacon Development, City Partners, Paramount Development and Triden Development.
Across the country, and specifically in the Chicago corridor that leads to the northwestern suburbs, a wide range of businesses are debunking the commonly held notion that urban migration is diminishing the suburban marketplace. The evidence is indisputable. While Fortune 500 firms are leasing hundreds of thousands of square feet in Chicago’s suburbs, small to midsize firms are facilitating the expansion of their businesses by acquiring single-tenant facilities in the burbs as well. Since 2014, 20 businesses in Chicago’s northwest suburbs have acquired buildings totaling more than 1.3 million square feet of space, according to Colliers International. The cumulative purchase price of these assets exceeds $97.1 million. This level of activity compares favorably to statistics for the entire suburban marketplace that show 63 buildings totaling approximately 4.7 million square feet and valued in excess of $307.7 million were sold during that time (see table). Four driving factors This healthy level of activity can be attributed to a variety of factors, four of which we highlight in this piece. • Access to capital — Banks are lending again and exhibiting greater levels of caution after years of retreating to the sidelines. Additionally, the cost of capital is very reasonable, in spite …
NEW YORK CITY — Kamber Management Co. has launched a $20 million capital investment plan for Tower 45, a 40-story Class A office building located at 120 W. 45th St. in Manhattan. Kohn Pederson Fox will redesign the entrance, façade, lobby and elevator cabs of the 458,446-square-foot property. Additionally, Milo Kleinberg Design Associates is creating new interior design concepts for common areas, including hallways, bathrooms and a new pre-built suite program. Current office tenants at the 26-year-old property include Procter & Gamble, TIBCO Software, Shrodinger, Lipsky Goodkind and Co., and Bobby Van’s Steakhouse.
CONSHOHOCKEN, PA. — A group of like-minded real estate practitioners have formed Capital Markets Real Estate Network to serve investor clients nationwide in all the commercial real estate industry property sectors, including office, industrial, retail, multifamily and self-storage facilities. The new network will target investment sales, financing and 1031 exchanges nationwide, allowing members to win business in institutional and non-institutional commercial real estate sectors. In addition to new business generation, the network will serve members as an information exchange on market conditions, trends, property pricing, sharing best practices and more. The founding firms and members are Edward Ginn, Ken McEvoy and Bart Delfiner of Equity Retail Brokers; Chad Stine and Brad Rohrbaugh of Bennett Williams Commercial; Colin Flynn of The Flynn Company; Gerard O’Malley and Tim McGinley of Duquesne Commercial Funding; and Matthew May of May Realty Advisors. The network plans to identify and recruit broker members in dozens of primary, secondary and tertiary markets nationwide in the next few years.
NEW YORK CITY — NAI Long Island has announced its expansion with the formation of a new division, NAI Queens. The division will specialize in the sale of investment properties in the Queens market, as well as provide other real estate services to Queens clients. Brian Sarath has joined the new division as a senior director. Most recently, Sarath serviced as director of the capital markets group of Massey Knakal, subsequently Cushman & Wakefield, since 2000. To date, Sarath has sold more than 220 buildings and loans with an aggregate value of $620 million.
BOSTON — FirstService Corp. has expanded its residential property management operations to Boston with the acquisition of The Niles Company, a property management firm that was founded in 1907. The transaction will add more than 80 properties to FirstService Residential’s existing property management portfolio, which totals approximately 7,500 properties comprising more than 1.6 million residential units throughout North America. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
OAK BROOK, ILL. — Cohen Financial has closed a $15.5 million acquisition loan for two office buildings in Oak Brook, approximately 20 miles west of Chicago. Oak Brook Place I & II are each three stories and 90,000 square feet. The buildings were constructed in 1980 and 1981 and were 94 percent occupied at the time of sale. Cohen Financial placed the floating-rate, three-year loan with Prime Financial Partners. The borrower was an affiliate of American Landmark Properties Management LLC.
BURLINGAME, CALIF. — A joint venture between New York Life Real Estate Investors and Harvest Properties has acquired One Bay Plaza, a 196,139-square-foot office property in Burlingame, for a reported $53.4 million. The Class A plaza is located at 1350 Bayshore Highway. The nine-story building has frontage along the San Francisco Bay with unobstructed water views. It also has an on-site café, fitness center and access to waterfront jogging trails. The property is among the newest vintage buildings in the submarket. The seller was Hudson Pacific.
In New York City, sizable tenants are renewing their office leases and expanding work space. Citywide, office space searches are being driven by new businesses that need to establish presence. These dynamics have the office market operating as powerfully and effectively as possible. New York City organizations are slated to create 80,000 new jobs this year, expanding total employment by 1.9 percent. Major companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon have recently committed to large blocks of space, which are becoming notably rare as office vacancy levels in the Big Apple continue to tighten. Vacancy will slip 10 basis points to 9.6 percent this year as firms absorb more than 3.8 million square feet. As a result of office vacancies continuing to tighten, builders have started to add to the pipeline, which New York City will see come to fruition this year with the opening of 10 Hudson Yards, Related Cos.’ long-awaited office building project in Manhattan’s West Side. Overall, developers will complete 3.6 million square feet of office space this year, with nearly half at 10 Hudson Yards. Located near Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea and the Penn Station area, the building is part of the Hudson Yards urban renewal project. Manhattan …