HOUSTON — G&A Partners, a professional employer organization and HR services provider, has relocated its corporate headquarters to Houston’s energy corridor. The new office, located in the Westgate complex at 17220 Katy Freeway, will allow the company to increase its operational capacity by providing additional square footage and modern amenities. With many of its more than 150 Houston-based employees living on the north and west sides of the city, G&A decided that moving to the energy corridor would decrease commute times for its employees. G&A partnered with CBRE’s Kevin Kushner for tenant representation services, including site selection and lease negotiations. The building’s layout, designed by Ziegler Cooper Architects, features breakout and conference rooms and an open floor plan. The company moved into the new space this month.
NEW YORK CITY — American Realty Capital New York City REIT has closed on the previously announced $180 million acquisition of 1140 Avenue of the Americas, an institutional-quality office property in Midtown Manhattan. The seller was an affiliate of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VI LP. The 22-story building features 250,000 rentable square feet of office space. The acquisition was funded by a combination of cash and mortgage financing.
DES PLAINES, ILL. — Marcus & Millichap has brokered the sale of an office property in Des Plaines, approximately 20 miles northwest of Chicago, for $5.3 million. Touhy Office Plaza, located at 1400 E. Touhy Ave., was built in 1972 and renovated in 2013. J. Emil Anderson & Son Inc. sold the four-story, 126,088-square-foot building. The company will continue to occupy space within the building. The buyer was a Chicago-based private investment group. Stephen Lieberman of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller in the transaction.
SL Green Taps AECOM’s Tishman Construction to Manage Construction of $1B Office Project in Manhattan
NEW YORK CITY — SL Green Realty Corp. has chosen AECOM’s Tishman Construction unit to manage the construction of One Vanderbilt, a 58-story office development located adjacent to Grand Central Terminal in New York City’s East Midtown business district. The total value of construction for the project is approximately $1 billion. The skyscraper will contain 1.6 million square feet of Class A commercial space, a public transit hall and a 14,000-square-foot public plaza. The development will also include $220 million worth of public transit improvements to the Grand Central transit hub. When One Vanderbilt is complete, the building is expected to be the second tallest office tower in New York City, reaching heights of 1,401 square feet, according to Tishman. The tower will be second only to One World Trade Center, which Tishman also built. Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) designed the building to pay homage to the Grand Central Terminal and fit into the skyline alongside the Chrysler Building, located one block away from the development site. The developers plan to achieve LEED v4 Gold certification for the project. Primary construction is scheduled to begin in 2016, with completion expected in 2020. — Katie Sloan
ROWLETT, TEXAS — Metropolitan Capital Advisors has arranged a $5.1 million construction loan for First Choice Emergency Room, located in Rowlett. The 0.8-acre tract is located off the northwest corner of Rowlett Road and Highway 66. The three-year loan, funded by Happy State Bank, includes one year of interest-only payments, a 4.75 percent fixed interest rate and a 25-year amortization schedule. The nearest hospital is the Lake Pointe Medical Center 3.5 miles east of downtown Rowlett across Lake Ray Hubbard.
DEER PARK, TEXAS — The Dow Chemical Co. has leased 75,920 square feet in Deerwood Office III, an office building under construction at 4460 State Highway 225 in Deer Park. Completion of the 98,230-square-foot, two-story building is scheduled for August 2016. Clay Development and Construction, is the developer of Deerwood Office III, the third building in the office park section of Deerwood Glen Business Park, a 150-acre site acquired by Clay in 2008. Deerwood Glen III is now 77 percent leased. A fourth office building is planned in the park. Craig Beyer, Jeff Cutler and Kristian Nielsen of CBRE represented Dow in the transaction, and Charlie Christ of Clay Development & Construction represented the landlord in lease negotiations. Deerwood Office III is located on 8.6 acres and features 50,293-square-foot floorplates. The property has a parking ratio of four spots per 1,000 square feet.
CORAL GABLES, FLA. — A joint venture between Greenstreet Partners and CREC has sold 2121 Ponce, a 164,848-square-foot office building in Coral Gables. A member company of Zurich North America purchased 2121 Ponce for $57.5 million. The property was more than 95 percent occupied at the time of sale to tenants such as Goldstein Schechter, Fox Latin America, Valley National Bank, the Consulate of Barbados and CREC. In addition to office space, 2121 Ponce features a five-story, 586-space parking garage and ground-level retail space including restaurant POC. Warren Weiser, Harry Blyden and Andrew Remick of CREC co-brokered the sale with the CBRE team of Christian Lee, Jose Lobon and Andrew Chilgren. Roy Rosenbaum and Sean Bannon of Zurich Alternative Asset Management LLC advised the buyer.
ATLANTA — HD Supply has broken ground on its Leadership Development Center, an eight-story, 222,500-square-foot office building located at 3400 Cumberland Blvd. in the Atlanta portion of Cobb County. Set to open in early 2018, the property will house 900 HD Supply employees and feature a leadership training and customer support center. The project team includes Atlanta-based developer Greenstone Properties, broker Colliers International and architects HLG Studio and Wakefield Beasley & Associates. HD Supply is an industrial distribution company with 13,000 associates operating in 500 locations across 48 states and six Canadian provinces.
NEW YORK CITY — Marcus & Millichap has arranged the sale of a mixed-use property located at 524 Lorimer St. in Brooklyn. A limited liability company acquired the 3,384-square-foot building for $4 million. The purchaser was a 1031 exchange buyer from the Upper East Side. Shaun Riney, James Saros, Michael Salvatico and Matthew Steinberg of Marcus & Millichap’s Brooklyn office represented the seller and buyer in the transaction.
DENVER — A partnership between Investcorp and Griffin Partners has purchased a 10-building office/flex portfolio in Denver for $78.5 million. The portfolio includes 345 Inverness Drive S. and Arapahoe Business Park, comprising a total of 484,737 square feet. The Inverness property is a three-building, 175,287-square-foot complex that was built in 2001. Arapahoe Business Park is a seven-building complex that was completed in two phases from 1998 to 2001. The park contains a total of 309,450 rentable square feet and is situated at the entrance to Centennial Airport Center. Both projects sit east of Interstate 25. The assets are 95 percent leased to 15 tenants. The tenant roster is composed of companies within the technological, research and development, laboratory testing, light manufacturing, distribution and automotive fields. NGKF’s Dave Tilton, David Lee and Jason Addlesperger represented the seller, Hines REIT, in this transaction. The NGKF team was retained to lease and manage the portfolio.