ISELIN, N.J. — Opal Holdings LLC will renovate Metropark194, a 452,133-square-foot office building in the Northern New Jersey community of Iselin. Capital improvements to the nine-story, transit-served building will include an upgraded lobby, renovations to the café and the addition of a new fitness center. Avison Young will provide construction management services for the project. Construction is scheduled to begin before the end of November and to last about five months.
STAMFORD, CONN. — Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) has signed a 71,484-square-foot office lease for its new headquarters at 677 Washington Blvd. in Stamford, located in the southern coastal part of Connecticut. The lease term is 12 years. The tobacco giant will relocate from 120 Park Avenue in Manhattan beginning in late 2022. Richard Bernstein and Steven Baker of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. Peter Duncan and Dana Pike represented the landlord, George Comfort & Sons, on an internal basis.
FOOTHILL RANCH, CALIF. — Newmark has arranged the sale of The Campus at South County, a two-building office complex in Foothill Ranch. The asset traded for $50 million, or $238 per square foot, in an off-market transaction. Paul Jones, Brunson Howard, Ken White, Kevin Shannon and Brandon White of Newmark represented the seller, a private commercial real estate investment firm, in the deal. The buyer was an undisclosed high-net-worth individual. Located at 27051 and 27121 Towne Centre Drive, The Campus at South County features 210,083 square feet of office space. The property offers an outdoor courtyard, tenant lounge and conference center. Current tenants include Cox Communications, Ossur and Fujitsu.
NEW YORK CITY — Verizon has signed a 140,000-square-foot office lease to be an office anchor tenant at Essex Crossing, a 2 million-square-foot mixed-use development under construction on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Josh Kuriloff, Andrew Braver and Peyton Horn of Cushman & Wakefield represented Verizon in the lease negotiations. Taconic Partners is developing Essex Crossing in partnership with L+M Development Partners, BFC Partners, The Prusik Group and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The development will ultimately comprise 350,000 square feet of office space, along with 1,000 residences, 300,000 square feet of retail space and 100,000 square feet of green space.
A common question Chicago office brokers are hearing from clients these days is, “When is the best time to start negotiating with my landlord?” In fact, it is also a question brokers are asking themselves, contemplating when they should advise their clients to get into the market. The truth is: 1) it’s very hard to say, and 2) it depends on the situation. Let’s explore what we do know. This is a historically tenant-favorable office market. Vacancy rates have increased from 13.8 percent to start 2021 up to 17.7 percent currently. Concessions are far over-weighted with construction allowances and free rent packages 20 to 30 percent higher than they were pre-pandemic, and landlords are being more flexible on term lengths allowing tenants three- or five-year leases despite offering full buildouts. On the other side of the coin, gross rental rates (base rent plus real estate taxes and building operating expenses) have not declined. In fact, in the last quarter they increased from $42.34 to $42.57 per square foot. The trends and market conditions surrounding concession packages and rental rates haven’t really changed in the last 12 months or so. The above touches on what the market is doing, but what …
BIRMINGHAM, ALA. — Shipshape, an Austin-based smart home software tech company, has signed a lease at the 2222 Arlington Ave. office building in Birmingham, which is slated to break ground this month. New York-based D&A Cos. is the developer for the restoration project. The building has 55,000 square feet of office space. Shipshape is joining Atlas Senior Living as anchor tenants in the office project. Shipshape will house its Network Operations Center on the top floor, including signage rights for the building. The company is taking 6,000 square feet of space with an option to expand to 12,000 square feet after one year. The property is currently vacant, but is 50 percent preleased. Previously, the property was the headquarters for Bayer Properties. 2222 Arlington Ave. will offer covered parking, secure building access, a double-height lobby atrium with coffee bar and potential for food service. D&A Cos. plans to install floor-to-ceiling windows, as well as a new east lobby with a grand atrium and exterior reflecting pool. Construction for 2222 Arlington Ave. is slated to complete and be open for occupancy in late 2022. D&A Cos. partnered with The FiveStone Group, a Birmingham-based commercial real estate firm, on the redevelopment project. …
PRINCETON, N.J. — Virginia-based AvalonBay Communities (NYSE: AVB) has purchased two office buildings totaling approximately 110,000 square feet in Princeton with plans to redevelop the site into a 221-unit apartment community and an 80-unit affordable seniors housing property. The future development will feature a four-story apartment building with an elevator, as well as three-story walk-up buildings and high-end luxury rental townhomes. A construction timeline was not disclosed. Jeffrey Dunne, Jeremy Neuer, Steven Bardsley, David Gavin, Travis Langer and Zach McHale of CBRE represented the previous owner and seller buildings, KABR Group, which bought the property in 2018 and shortly thereafter executed a sales contract with AvalonBay.
EL SEGUNDO, CALIF. — The Los Angeles Chargers have reached an agreement with Continental Development Corp. and Mar Ventures Inc. to build its new corporate headquarters and training facility on a 14-acre site in El Segundo, about 20 miles southwest of Los Angeles. Designed by Gensler Sports, the project will be situated less than three miles from the Los Angeles International Airport and seven miles from SoFi Stadium, where the football team plays. The Chargers had been searching for a location for more than four years, according to Dean Spanos, owner and chairman of the board. Special features within the headquarters will include a rooftop hospitality club, full e-sports gaming and content studios and a 3,100-square-foot media center. The main building will span nearly 145,000 square feet. There will also be three natural grass fields with an artificial turf perimeter that can be taken in from 7,600 square feet of elevated outdoor terrace space. Outdoor amenities will include an additional 3,400-square-foot elevated turf area and a two-lane lap pool for player rehabilitation. The field area is designed to accommodate bleacher seating for more than 5,000 people. With 348 onsite parking spaces and accommodations available for offsite parking, the Chargers will …
ENGLEWOOD, COLO. — CBRE has brokered the sale of Dry Creek Medical Office Building, located at 125 Inverness Drive East in Englewood. Terms of the transaction were not released. Chris Bodnar, Lee Asher, Ryan Lindsley and Jordan Selbiger of CBRE Healthcare and Life Sciences Capital Markets partnered with Dann Burke, Stephani Gaskins and Anna Heiserman of CBRE’s Denver office to represent the undisclosed seller in the deal. Built in 2000, Dry Creek Medical Office Building features 57,250 square feet of space. At the time of sale, the property was 87 percent leased to a variety of tenants, including two surgery centers, imaging, OB/GYN, dentistry, ophthalmology, neurology, pain management and plastic surgery specialists.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — JLL Capital Markets has negotiated the $31.4 million sale of a three-property medical office portfolio totaling 72,499 square feet in metro Charlotte. Mindy Berman, Pete Pittroff, Brannan Knott and Daniel Flynn of JLL represented the seller, The Keith Corp., a Charlotte-based commercial real estate firm, in the transaction. Chicago-based Remedy Medical Properties was the buyer. The portfolio includes the following: Mission Hospital McDowell Medical Office Building located at 430 Rankin Drive in Marion; Steele Creek Medical Office Building located at 13425 Hoover Creek Blvd. in Charlotte; and Tryon Medical Partners – Matthews at 630 Matthews Township Parkway in Matthews. The facilities were 97 percent leased at the time of sale to regional and national healthcare providers including health systems such as Novant Health and Mission Health (HCA), as well as physician practice groups such as Tryon Medical Partners and Charlotte Radiology. The Keith Corp. recently constructed or renovated the Steele Creek Medical Office Building and Mission Hospital McDowell Medical Office Building. The Keith Corp. and Sportsmed Properties developed the Steele Creek property.