BLOOMINGTON, MINN. — Avtex, a full-service customer experience consulting firm, has renewed its 26,000-square-foot office lease at Northland Center in Bloomington within metro Minneapolis. Northland Center is a two-building, 492,514-square-foot office property. Amenities include a fitness center, hair salon, farmer’s market, café, outdoor lounge area, laundry service, covered parking, bike storage and conference rooms. Bill Rothstein of Cushman & Wakefield provides leasing services for the property. KBS is the landlord. “There has been a lot of discussion as to whether or not companies will continue to lease space as a result of COVID-19 and the shift to remote working models,” says Rod Richerson, regional president with KBS. “This is not something we are seeing across our portfolio. In fact, we are continuing to see companies renew and sign new leases at several of our assets across our portfolio of more than 23 million square feet.”
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NEW YORK CITY — CBRE has committed to an additional 44,612 square feet of office space at 200 Park Avenue in Manhattan. The expansion gives the real estate firm a total footprint of more than 215,000 square feet at the 58-story, Class A property, which is known as the MetLife Building. In addition, CBRE will be leaving its 140 Broadway location to occupy space at the new Hana coworking space at 3 World Trade Center, which will open later this year. Craig Reicher of CBRE handled the lease negotiations with Gus Field and Megan Sheehan of Tishman Speyer, the owner of the building.
ADDISON, TEXAS — Triten Real Estate Partners has completed the renovation of a 90,000-square-foot office building located at the corner of the Dallas North Tollway and Belt Line Road in the northern Dallas suburb of Addison. The six-story building was previously known as Tollway Place and has been rebranded as The Commons. As part of the $4 million project, the development team upgraded the building’s common areas and office suites and signed restaurant Velvet Taco to lease a street-level retail space with outdoor seating. CBRE is handling leasing of the repositioned property.
NEW YORK CITY — Extell Development has unveiled its first commercial project in East Harlem, a 441,600-square-foot office building that is branded as Harlem Headquarters. The nine-story, Class A building is located at 180 E. 125th St., adjacent to several public transit stops. Gensler designed the property. Cushman & Wakefield is handling leasing, which will officially begin this fall.
WORCESTER, MASS. — Massachusetts-based Galaxy Life Sciences, in partnership with the Worcester Business Development Corp. (WBDC), has acquired land for the development of a $50 million biomanufacturing facility in the Central Massachusetts city of Worcester. The facility will be situated on six acres within The Reactory, a 46-acre life sciences campus that is a redevelopment of a site formerly occupied by Worcester State Hospital. Infrastructure work on the site is expected to begin this fall. Kelleher & Sadowsky represented the development team in its acquisition of the land.
OCEANSIDE, CALIF. — CBRE has arranged the sale of an office building located at 2160 S. El Camino Real in Oceanside. An Orange County, Calif.-based 1031 private buyer acquired the asset for $6.6 million, or $493 per square foot. The U.S. Federal Government occupies the 13,500-square-foot, single-tenant property on a 15-year lease that commenced in 2018. The building was a build-to-suit in 2004 for the Social Security Administration and was fully remodeled and upgraded in 2018 to current U.S. General Services Administration standards. The upgrades included a new roof and HVAC system. Matt Pourcho, Gary Stache, Anthony DeLorenzo, Bryan Johnson and Matt Harris of CBRE represented the seller, a private investor, in the transaction.
LAS VEGAS — Spectrum Realty has acquired an office building located at 7560 W. Sahara Ave. in Las Vegas. GHV Group sold the 11,322-square-foot property for $1.6 million. Alexia Crowley, Al Twainy and Jennifer Lehr of Colliers International | Las Vegas represented the seller in the deal.
By Charlie Tanner, Director of Real Estate & Development, Firmspace The COVID-19 pandemic has proven that many companies can operate successfully while working remotely. This out-of-office trend has spurred many discussions about whether coworking spaces, a relatively new concept in commercial real estate, may already be a thing of the past. However, these workspaces represent an important part of doing business and developing relationships with colleagues and clients, particularly in the commercial real estate industry. Moving forward, while many aspects of working in an office will change, real estate professionals will continue to rely on a new kind of coworking space to support their operations and employees. Here’s what the coworking landscape will look like in the months and year ahead: Health, Safety Emphases At the start of the first quarter of 2020, 70 percent of all office spaces in the United States had at least a partially open design plan. As major companies have scrambled to erect new walls and plexiglass desk dividers, offices that were originally constructed to facilitate private work have risen in demand. Much has already been written about the return of the cubicle, and those who prefer to work in private, soundproof rooms with doors …
Gaw Capital USA, DJM Unveil Plans for Ovation Hollywood Mixed-Use Project in Los Angeles
by Amy Works
LOS ANGELES — Gaw Capital USA, a Hong Kong- and Los Angeles-based real estate private equity firm, and DJM, a San Jose- and Los Angeles-based private equity real estate developer, have released plans for transforming the shopping center at Hollywood & Highland into Ovation Hollywood. Upon completion in late 2021, Ovation Hollywood will be a mixed-use project offering 135,000 square feet of retail space, two floors of nearly 100,000 square feet of creative office space, 85,000 square feet of restaurant space, 65,000 square feet of entertainment space and 40,000 square feet of event space. Gensler is providing design and architectural services to update the property’s physical appearance, including a simplified façade and color scheme, new concept for the tower, an easier to navigate layout, updated landscape design, new art pieces and enhanced outdoor space. In addition to physical upgrades, the project team is focusing on refreshing the property’s tenant mix. Renovations are slated to begin later this year, with completion scheduled for late 2021.
New York Life Provides $38.3M Refinancing Loan for Office Building in Fort Lauderdale
by Alex Tostado
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — New York Life Real Estate Investors has provided a $38.3 million refinancing loan for 261 North University Drive, a 172,959-square-foot office building in Fort Lauderdale. The borrower, Encore Capital Management, recently completed a $15 million renovation of the property, including redesigning the lobby, modernizing the elevators, adding new bathrooms and overseeing new tenant buildouts. The asset is situated eight miles west of downtown Fort Lauderdale. Furthermore, the property will be part of a mixed-use development that is set to feature 760 multifamily units, 150,000 square feet of retail space and 400 hotel rooms delivering in two phases by 2022. Kevin O’Grady of Concord Summit Capital and Eric McGlynn of Walker & Dunlop arranged the loan on behalf of Fort Lauderdale-based Encore, and Ryan Doyle and John Lippmann of New York Life originated the loan.