WATERTOWN, MASS. — Boston-based Berkeley Investments has purchased the historic Chase Mills building in the western Boston suburb of Watertown with plans to modernize the property’s utility systems and add life sciences space. Over the years, the 97,000-square-foot building, which is located at 64 Pleasant St. and currently houses the headquarters of architecture firm Sasaki, has also served as a paper factory and garment manufacturing plant. Sasaki sold the building, which it has owned and occupied since the 1950s, to Berkeley Investments for an undisclosed price.
BOSTON —Gazit Horizons, a subsidiary of global real estate firm Gazit-Globe, has purchased a 50,000-square-foot office and retail building located at 1430 Massachusetts Ave. in Boston. University Common Real Estate sold the property for $45 million in an off-market transaction. The historic building is located within the Harvard Square area and was originally constructed in the 1830s as a dormitory for the Ivy League university. Gazit Horizons will implement a value-add program that will renovate the lobby, common areas and building systems and will operate the building in a joint venture with private investment firm Hennick & Co.
NEW YORK CITY — Walker & Dunlop Inc. has arranged a $205 million loan for the refinancing of Hudson Research Center in Manhattan’s Midtown West neighborhood. Located along the Hudson River at 619 W. 54th St., the Class A life sciences and medical office property spans 320,000 rentable square feet. Originally built in 1930 as a film-editing house for Warner Brothers Pictures, the Art Deco property came to be known as The Movie Lab Building. Taconic Partners purchased the asset in October 2012 and undertook a capital improvement plan, including creating several floors of research space; updating the building’s façade, interior and crown; and adding tenant amenities such as bike storage and private showers. In 2017, Taconic recapitalized the asset with Silverstein Properties Inc. Since the end of 2013, the number of life sciences jobs nationally has increased by 70,000 per year, according to Walker & Dunlop. Demand for well-located, modernized life sciences and medical office space has soared nationally amid industry growth and lack of available product, adds the finance company. A Walker & Dunlop team led by Aaron Appel and Keith Kurland arranged the loan, with Square Mile providing the funds. The interest-only financing features a floating rate, …
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Commercial and multifamily mortgage loan originations were 18 percent lower in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to a year ago, and increased 76 percent from the third quarter of 2020, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Quarterly Survey of Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Bankers Originations. A decrease in originations for hotel, retail, office and healthcare properties led the overall decline in lending volumes when compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. There was a 79 percent year-over-year decrease in the dollar volume of loans for hotel properties, 72 percent dip for retail properties, 6 percent decline for office properties and a 12 percent decrease for healthcare properties. Industrial property loan originations increased 15 percent, while multifamily property lending rose 14 percent. Jamie Woodwell, MBA’s vice president of commercial research, says that unsurprisingly the data shows that the property types most affected by the pandemic struggled to transact. “Borrowing and lending remain weakest for the property types most impacted by the pandemic — particularly hotel and retail buildings,” says Woodwell. “Multifamily, led by government-backed financing from FHA, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, continued to see the strongest commercial mortgage activity.” Among investor types, the dollar volume of loans …
MORRISTOWN, N.J. — Amherst Capital Management has provided a $14.1 million acquisition loan for 500 College Road East, a 159,227-square-foot office building in the Northern New Jersey city of Morristown. The property was built in 1984 and was 53 percent occupied at the time of sale. Amenities include a fitness center, conference room and a café. Michael Klein, Greg Nalbaldian and Michael Lachs of JLL arranged the floating-rate loan on behalf of the buyer, a partnership between Bergman Real Estate Group, Eight Fold Capital and Hornig Capital Partners.
CHICAGO — Skender has completed the interior construction of the 200,000-square-foot Walgreens Technology Center of Excellence within Chicago’s Old Post Office. The office will eventually welcome hundreds of employees, including e-commerce, mobile, pharmacy technology and digital team members as well as Walgreens Boots Alliance information technology personnel. The office space spans multiple levels and features a staircase, open and private offices, collaboration and conferencing spaces, data rooms, lounge spaces and a kitchen. Walgreens was the first major tenant to commit to space at the Old Post Office redevelopment project in 2018. Stantec Inc. served as the architect and engineering firm on the project, and Mace served as the owner’s representative.
CONGERS, N.Y. — JLL has negotiated the $6.5 million sale of an 81,780-square-foot office property that is situated on 7.5 acres in Congers, about 40 miles north of New York City. JLL represented the seller, The Arc Rockland, an organization that provides services to people of all ages with intellectual and other developmental disabilities, in the transaction. The buyer was Portables Unlimited Inc., a Nanuet-based wholesaler of T-Mobile products.
By Dan Palmeri, Senior Director, Tenant Advisory Group, Cushman & Wakefield As with most of the country, Las Vegas’ office market has been significantly impacted since COVID-19 restrictions started back in March. While many businesses have been allowed to operate at limited capacities, we’ve also seen many larger office users elect to work from home over the past nine months. This increase in work from home scenarios has naturally created a large increase in sublease availabilities in the market. Prior to March 17, 2020, we were tracking 24 subleases consisting of 555,000 square feet, with two of those spaces being 257,000 square feet and 61,000 square feet, or roughly 57 percent of the overall inventory. Since March, we’ve seen the number of availabilities increase to 70 with a total of more than 1.2 million square feet of space. This represents an increase of 118 percent. We’re tracking an additional 313,000 square feet of pending subleases that have yet to hit the market. This will bring the total to 78 options, with six of the availabilities being 50,000 square feet or larger. Large tenant activity was minimal over the past nine months. The most significant transaction was NYU Grossman School of …
THE WOODLANDS, TEXAS — NAI Partners has negotiated a 16,000-square-foot office headquarters sublease for exploration firm Ring Energy at 1725 Hughes Landing Blvd. in The Woodlands, about 30 miles north of Houston. Charlie Neuhaus and Harry Holmes of NAI Partners represented the tenant, which is relocating from Midland, in the lease negotiations. Jerrod McQuain of JLL represented the sublandlord.
BOSTON — A joint venture between affiliates of Magellan Development Group, RAS Development, Cypress Equity Investments and USAA Real Estate will develop a 194,000-square-foot life sciences facility and a 450-unit apartment building in the Somerville area of Boston. The development represents the first phase of the master plan for the revitalization of Union Square, a project that will ultimately span 2.4 million square feet of commercial and residential space. The project also includes the addition of an MBTA Green Line station. Daniel Kaufman, Frederic Wittmann and Brett Paulsrud of JLL arranged construction financing through Bank OZK for both the life sciences and the multifamily components of the project.