CAMBRIDGE, MASS. —BioMed Realty Trust has agreed to acquire Cambridge Place, a three-building complex totaling 287,000 square feet in Cambridge, for $119 million. The property is 80 percent leased. Tenants include CDM Smith, a full-service engineering and construction firm, and Idenix Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company. When completed, the transaction will expand BioMed's real estate portfolio in the greater Boston-Cambridge market to approximately 3.2 million square feet.
HOBOKEN, N.J. — Pearson Education, an education textbook company, has signed a 200,000-square-foot lease for its new headquarters in downtown Hoboken. The company will occupy five floors of the Waterfront Corporate III building, which SJP Properties is building. Pearson had planned to move its operations in Upper Saddle River and Old Tappan, N.J. to New York. The company is reported to receive an Urban Transit Hub tax credit of about $66 million for keeping 900 jobs in northern New Jersey. Waterfront Corporate is slated for completion in 2014. Person will begin its relocation the same year.
HOUSTON — HFF has arranged the sale of the 344,295-square-foot The Plaza at Enclave, a Class A office building located at 1254 Enclave Pkwy. in Houston's Energy Corridor. The property is fully leased to Dow Chemical Co., Ridgewood Energy, Petrofac and HRT America. Dow is leasing 86 percent of the property. The building is LEED Gold certified and features a 1,434-space parking garage. Dan Miller, Rusty Tamlyn and Trent Agnew of HFF's Houston office represented the sellers, Core Real Estate and BayNorth Capital, in the transaction. Matt Kafka and Wally Reid, also of HFF's Houston office, arranged acquisition financing for the buyer, an affiliate of Tel Aviv, Israel-based Azrieli Group.
DALLAS — Stream Realty Partners has been selected by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, to manage and lease the 1.2 million-square-foot Trammell Crow Center, a Class AA office tower in Dallas' Art District. J.P. Morgan acted on behalf of its institutional investor clients in selecting Stream. The office tower is leased to tenants including Vinson & Elkins, Baker Botts and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Additionally BB&T has leased a full floor of the property and will move in later this year. Sarah Erickson and Ramsey March of Stream Realty's Dallas office will handle leasing services for the property.
COLUMBIA, MD. — Prologis has sold its 20-building office/flex portfolio totaling 588,009 square feet in three business parks. The portfolio, which is 93 percent leased, includes properties in Columbia Gateway Business Park, Columbia Business Center and Oakland Ridge. Jonathan Carpenter and James Wellschlager of Cassidy Turley's Baltimore office represented the seller in the transaction. The buyer was a New England-based institutional investor.
ALPHARETTA, GA. — Atlanta-based OA Development has purchased two office buildings totaling 135,000 square feet, located at 2555 and 2573 Westside Pkwy. in Alpharetta, for $11.24 million. The buildings are currently 89 percent leased to tenants including ADP. American National Insurance Co. provided debt capital for the acquisition, and Tom Shafer of Atlanta-based Resource Real Estate Partners represented Sentinel Lakeview Realty, the seller, in the transaction.
ARLINGTON — Grubb & Ellis has arranged the lease renewal of 120,847 square feet of office space, located at 4300 Centreway in Arlington. Heather Densmore Shover and Chris Wright of Grubb & Ellis' Dallas office represented the landlord, Wells REIT II, in the lease transaction. Frank Ricca and Todd Burnette of Jones Lang LaSalle's Fort Worth office and Matthew Ruffing of the firm's Stamford, Conn., office represented the tenant, Aetna Life Insurance Co.
DALLAS — Newport Beach, Calif.-based KBS Realty Advisors signed Staffelbach Designs and Associate, an architectural firm, to a lease renewal of 19,855 square feet of office space at KBS' 2525 McKinnon office tower in Dallas. The 109,810-square-foot office tower is 90 percent leased. Staffelbach Designs was self-represented in the lease transaction. Kim Brooks of Transwestern's Dallas office represented the landlord.
SAN ANTONIO — Corporate Office Properties (COPT) has sold a 95,000-square-foot office building, located at Sentry Gateway 100 in the Sentry Gateway office campus in San Antonio, for $15.5 million. COPT built the property in 2010, and the building was vacant at the time of the sale. The sale represented an opportunistic asset for the end user.
ALLEN — Connecticut-based Frontier Communications Corp. has opened a 84,000-square-foot communications center, located at 805 S. Central Expy. in Allen. The center houses 500 employees and features a National Operations Center with specialized telecommunications equipment.
