SAN FRANCISCO — DivcoWest has purchased 550 Terry Francois Boulevard, a vacant, six-story office building in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood. Terms of the transaction were not released. Built in 2002, the 320,000-square-foot building recently served the headquarters of fashion retailer Old Navy. DivcoWest plans to invest in the building to further broaden its life sciences appeal. The asset is adjacent to University of California San Francisco’s medical research campus, as well as numerous biotech and healthcare organizations. The building offers 51,000-square-foot floor plates, access to 308 parking spaces and extensive outdoor amenity space. Additionally, the property features waterfront views and proximity to Bay Trail, a 350-mile pedestrian and bike trail linking more than 40 communities around San Francisco Bay.
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LOS ANGELES — Happy Place Stages LLC, a full-service creative studio, has purchased a warehouse campus located at 5446-5450 Satsuma Ave. in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles for $14.3 million. The sales price equates to $380 per square foot. Built in 1952 and renovated in 2017, the property features four buildings: a 13,000-square-foot cargo containers that has been convert to creative office space, a 1,400-square-foot office, an 8,000-square-foot warehouse and a 20,000-square-foot warehouse. Adam Comora with NAI Capital’s Investment Services Group represented the buyer in the deal.
CHICAGO — EQ Office, the U.S. office portfolio company wholly owned by Blackstone, has completed its more than $500 million renovation of Chicago’s Willis Tower. The 110-story tower is now certified LEED Platinum and is the largest building in the U.S. to achieve that designation, according to EQ Office. Part of the transformation is Catalog, a 300,000-square-foot retail, dining and entertainment destination at the base of the tower. The name Catalog is a nod to the Sears Roebuck Co. and its printed catalog. Designed by Gensler, Catalog features restaurants such as Tortazo by Rick Bayless, Shake Shack, Joe & the Juice, Foxtrot, Starbucks, Brown Bag Seafood Co., Do-Rite Donuts & Chicken, Sushi-San and Sweetgreen. Kindling, a two-story restaurant concept from Chicago’s 50/50 Group, as well as Urbanspace, a food hall, are both slated to open in late summer or early fall. A 30,000-square-foot outdoor terrace sits atop Catalog. The Skydeck observatory at Willis Tower also underwent a renovation through partnerships with exhibit design firms Thinc and SOM. An interactive “best of Chicago” museum-like exhibit celebrates the personality, history and neighborhoods of Chicago. Gensler designed the building’s new exterior façade at the base. SKB Architecture and Design handled the design of …
HOUSTON — Fort Worth-based investment firm Silver Creek Realty Advisors has acquired a 110,452-square-foot office building located at 1717 St. James Place in Houston’s Galleria district. The six-story building is situated on a 2.3-acre site within St. James Place, a deed-restricted business park, and was 70.5 percent leased at the time of sale. Marty Hogan and Kevin McConn of JLL represented the seller, Florida-based Accesso Partners, in the transaction. The sales price was not disclosed.
NEW YORK CITY — Financial services firm Wellington Management has signed a 71,000-square-foot office lease at 799 Broadway, a 182,000-square-foot building located at the convergence of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and Union Square areas. The lease term is 16.5 years. Steven Rotter, Randy Abend, Gabrielle Harvey, Brendan Callahan and Lauren Calandriello of JLL represented Wellington in the lease negotiations. Mitchell Konsker, Ben Bass and Sam Seiler, also with JLL, represented the landlord, Columbia Property Trust. The building is now 70 percent leased.
SEATTLE — CBRE, on behalf of Swift Real Estate Partners, has placed $32.5 million in financing for 425 Pontius, an office building located in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. The borrower acquired the property in March 2022. Swift Real Estate Partners will use the financing for the acquisition and renovation of the four-story, 75,000-square-foot office building. The property features four stories of office space, surface parking and two levels of underground parking. The building was originally constructed in 1982 and underwent a lobby renovation in 2018. Swift plans to reposition the asset into creative office space and renovate the exterior and make cosmetic upgrades to the lobby, elevators and common areas. Mike Walker and Brad Zampa of CBRE’s San Francisco office, alongside Jeff Henderson in the Seattle office, arranged the four-year, floating-rate loan through an undisclosed West Coast-based bank. Tom Pehl and Charles Safley of CBRE’s Pacific Northwest-based capital markets team advised the seller, a local private partnership, in the sale of the property in March.
MIAMI — Cushman & Wakefield has arranged a 42,000-square-foot office lease at 800 Brickell, an office tower in Miami’s Brickell district. The tenant, IT management software provider Kaseya, is slated to officially move into the top three floors of the 15-story building next year. The 800 Brickell location will be Kaseya’s third office in Brickell. Tony Jones of Cushman & Wakefield represented Kaseya in the lease negotiations. The landlord is Naba Realty LLC.
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Rising Interest Rates and Inflation to Fuel Change in Property Markets
Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2020, commercial real estate buyers and sellers moved off the sidelines and began fueling an impressive investment sales rebound as many pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions eased or ended. The rush to purchase hard assets hit its apex a year later when commercial property sales surged to a record $362 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021 alone, according to Real Capital Analytics, a part of MSCI Real Assets that tracks property transactions of $2.5 million or more. The strong market is continuing this year: Deals of $170.8 billion closed in the first quarter, a year-over-year increase of 56 percent, Real Capital reports. Buyers in the first quarter also pushed up prices 17.4 percent over the prior year, according to Real Capital’s Commercial Property Price Indices (CPPI). But given rising interest rates and other recent headwinds, will investors continue to drive robust investment activity and bid up prices? The 10-Year Treasury yield has spiked some 150 basis points to around 3 percent since the beginning of 2022, and fixed 10-year mortgage rates of between 3 percent and 4 percent are up about 100 basis points. For short-term variable loans, the benchmark secured overnight financing rate …
BROOKHAVEN, N.Y. — CBRE has brokered the $28.5 million sale of 5000 Corporate Court, a 264,482-square-foot office building in Brookhaven, located on Long Island. Tenants include the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service. Jeffrey Dunne, Steven Bardsley, Jeremy Neuer, Stuart MacKenzie, Travis Langer and Philip Heilpern of CBRE represented the seller, Office Properties Income Trust, in the transaction. CBRE also procured the buyer, Northpath Investments.
MINNEAPOLIS — Fox Rothschild LLP, a national law firm, is relocating its Minneapolis headquarters from Two22 Tower to City Center in November. The firm will occupy 39,081 square feet of Target’s former space. Francis Cauffman Architects will serve as architect and interior designer for Fox Rothschild’s new space, which will span half of floor 36 and the entirety of floor 37. City Center is a 51-story, 1.6 million-square-foot office and retail tower owned by Ryan Cos. US Inc.