PLAINFIELD, ILL. — Marcus & Millichap has negotiated the $3 million sale of a 20,281-square-foot office building in Plainfield, about 40 miles southwest of Chicago. Located at 23909 W. Renwick Road, the property is fully occupied and features a new roof and parking lot. The seller, a Chicagoland limited liability company, purchased the building a little over a year ago and decided to sell it after marking repairs and adding tenants. Tammy Saia and Tami Andrew of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller. The buyer was undisclosed.
AUBURN HILLS, MICH. — Bernard Financial Group has arranged $2 million in permanent financing for a 21,256-square-foot office property in Auburn Hills. Dennis Bernard and Joshua Bernard arranged the loan on behalf of the borrower, Auburn Office Center LLC. StanCorp Life Insurance Co. provided the loan, terms of which were undisclosed.
FORT WORTH, TEXAS — Apparel retailer Dickies has signed an 84,000-square-foot office headquarters lease at 500 Taylor St. in downtown Fort Worth. Chris Doggett and Cullen Donohue of Stream Realty Partners represented the landlord, Illinois-based SADA Capital Parnters, in the lease negotiations. Randy Cooper and Wills Bauer, also with Stream, represented Dickies. SADA Capital Partners purchased the six-story building in June 2022 and is in the process of launching a capital improvement program.
NEW YORK CITY — Locally based firm LargaVista Cos. has opened Gaseteria Works, a 23,784-square-foot coworking space in the Long Island City area of Queens. Gaseteria Works offers coworking memberships, fully furnished private suites, meeting rooms and virtual addresses, as well as an onsite team offering concierge and administrative services. JLL manages and leases the space via Flex by JLL, the real estate giant’s flexible office and coworking platform.
NEW YORK CITY — Novartis Inc. has signed a 15,865-square-foot office lease at 452 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The pharmaceutical corporation will occupy the entire 12th floor at the 30-story building. Paul Glickman, Ben Bass, Kristen Morgan and Kate Roush of JLL represented the landlord, Property & Building Corp. Ltd., in the lease negotiations. David Stockel and Christopher Menard of CBRE represented Novartis.
OMAHA, NEB. — Mutual of Omaha has broken ground on a 44-story office tower that will act as the company’s headquarters in downtown Omaha. At 677 feet, the building will rise 43 feet above the city’s current tallest building, First National Bank Tower. The 800,000-square-foot development will include a street-level lobby with conference space and an “experience center” spotlighting the company’s history, brand and impact on customers and the community; a sky lobby, welcoming associates from the planned 2,200-stall parking structure; food and wellness services, a fitness center and flexible meeting spaces on the 16th through 20th floors; and conference facilities with a two-story atrium on the 44th floor. Despite the skyscraper’s record-breaking height, the building will be less than half the square footage of the company’s current 1.7 million-square-foot headquarters in Omaha’s Midtown neighborhood. This shift in design is to support flexible work arrangements, including in-person, remote and hybrid models. “As a customer-focused company, we worked closely with our design team to create a headquarters that is appropriately sized, adaptable to ways of working that may emerge in the future and able to serve our policyholders in an effective and efficient manner,” says CEO James Blackledge. Mutual of Omaha’s …
The ‘work from home’ revolution has devastated office building values. By Jason Penighetti Of all the property types, office buildings may wrestle with the pandemic’s damaging consequences the longest. The fallout from COVID-19 will clearly have a lasting economic impact. During the government-mandated shutdowns, businesses — including brick-and-mortar retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters and gyms — suffered tremendous losses. With everyone except first responders and essential workers stuck at home, office occupancy rates plummeted as business districts, commercial developments, roads and public gathering places emptied. Many companies could not survive the shutdowns and were forced to lay off employees or permanently close their doors. During the throes of the pandemic, companies that remained in business were compelled to adapt and learn how to effectively put their employees to work from home. Virtual meetings eventually became commonplace and routine. Then as the pandemic waned, companies began to demand that employees return to the office. While some workers ventured back to the workplace, many expressed a desire to continue to work from home. This widespread sentiment has persisted. In fact, nearly 40 percent of workers would rather quit their jobs than return to the office full-time, and more than half would take …
FORT WORTH, TEXAS — A partnership between two Chicago-based investment firms, 3L Real Estate and Syndicated Equities, has purchased The Oncor, a 314,514-square-foot office building in downtown Fort Worth. The new ownership plans to convert the building into a 330-unit multifamily community with Class A amenities, including a pool, fitness center, rooftop deck and a business center. The seller and sales price were not disclosed. A construction timeline was also not released.
ATLANTA — CBRE has negotiated a 10,000-square-foot office lease at 55 Allen Plaza, a 14-story office building located at 55 Ivan Allen Blvd. in downtown Atlanta. The tenant, global retail payment advisor CMSPI, is doubling its footprint with this lease and will continue to occupy the office building’s fifth floor. The firm has been a tenant at 55 Allen Plaza since 2018 and uses the space as its North American headquarters. Paul Holmes of CBRE represented CMSPI in the lease negotiations. The landlord is Lone Star Funds, a global private equity firm that purchased the 348,658-square-foot property in 2020. In addition to offices, 55 Allen Plaza features a 5,000-square-foot fitness center with private lockers and showers, a 100-person conference center, catering kitchen, sundry shop and covered parking. Tenants have walkability to downtown’s nearby hotels, museums, restaurants and the Civic Center MARTA station.
SHELTON, CONN. — Locally based brokerage firm Vidal/Wettenstein has arranged the sale of a 32,325-square-foot office complex in Shelton, located outside of New Haven in southern Connecticut. According to LoopNet Inc., the property was built on 3.1 acres in 1967 and renovated in 1987. Bruce Wettenstein of Vidal/Wettenstein represented the undisclosed seller in the transaction. Wettenstein also procured the buyer, an affiliate of New York-based investment firm Kirchhoff, which plans to redevelop the property into a self-storage facility.