Office

Employment growth in New Jersey continues to trend higher. Since the low point of the last recession in 2010, the state’s private sector has seen almost 409,000 new jobs added (through July). Of the office-using industries, professional and business services have shown healthy annual job growth — up 13,900 jobs — while financial services jobs have recorded declines over the past year. Meanwhile, the state’s unemployment rate continued to tick lower to 3.3 percent (as of July), the lowest in its recorded history. Within this context, the fundamentals of the New Jersey office market remain healthy as we enter the final quarter of 2019, with absorption totals remaining in the black, vacancies sinking lower and asking rents trending upward. Regional Discrepancies Northern New Jersey’s vacancy rate had dropped to 18.3 percent by the middle of 2019, the lowest point since the end of 2012, while central New Jersey checked in at 15.5 percent, marking four consecutive quarterly decreases. Space has tightened in some key submarkets, making landlords increasingly bullish. As a result, asking rents in Northern New Jersey have risen to $31.62 per square foot — an all-time high and a jump of 17.8 percent over the last four years. …

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ATLANTA — Chick-fil-A has signed an office lease to occupy the sixth floor of 725 Ponce, a new mixed-use development located on Atlanta BeltLine’s Eastside Trail adjacent to Ponce City Market. The 40,000-square-foot space will house 250 corporate employees and will be an extension of the company’s support center south of Atlanta. Chick-fil-A is expected to move into the new space in summer 2020 when the buildout is complete. A 60,000-square-foot Kroger recently opened at the base of 725 Ponce. Jon Mayeske and Janelle Beasley of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. Aileen Almassy, also of Cushman & Wakefield, represented the landlord, New City Properties.

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NEW YORK CITY — Avison Young has negotiated the leasing of over 45,700 square feet of office space at 1140 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan. Vatic Labs, a trading technology firm, signed a 12,750-square-foot new lease for its New York City headquarters. Real estate investment firm Almanac Realty Investors signed a 12,750-square-foot office lease extension and expansion, and PSL Group, a pharmaceutical research, medical education and publishing firm, signed a 12,750-square-foot office lease extension. Grace Beauty, a marketer, investor and distributor of beauty products, signed a 7,466-square-foot office lease renewal. Todd Korren, Brooks Hauf and Peter Johnson of Avison Young represented the landlord, New York City-based REIT, in each of the four lease negotiations.

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NEW YORK CITY — Cognitive computing services provider Digital Reasoning has signed a 5,819-square-foot office lease in Manhattan. The space is located on the 31st floor of 11 Times Square, a 1.1 million-square-foot commercial tower. The company is moving its New York City office from 853 Broadway and is expected to move into its new space by mid-November. Kyle Wainwright and Paul Ippolito of Newmark Knight Frank represented Digital Reasoning in the lease negotiations. JLL represented the landlord, SJP Properties, along with Zach Freeman on an internal basis. SJP’s project solutions team is constructing a build-to-suit boardroom for the tenant.

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CHANDLER, ARIZ. — Phoenix-based developer George Oliver has purchased a two-building office asset in downtown Chandler for $38.8 million. The buyer plans to invest nearly $14 million of additional capital to redevelop the property into a creative office portfolio. George Oliver purchased the 1987-built Plaza 25 from long-time owner and tenant First Credit Union for $16.3 million. First Credit Union signed a sale-leaseback agreement to continue to occupy the property for a 10-year lease. Including First Credit Union, the building is 79 percent occupied. The new owner will rebrand the property as The Alexander. Additionally, George Oliver acquired the adjacent, 107,510-square-foot Chandler City Center from Tryperion Partners and Griffin Partners for $22.5 million. Located at 55 N. Arizona Place, the property will be rebranded as The Johnathan after undergoing an almost $3 million initial capital investment plan. The rebranding are named for the city’s namesake, Alexander Johnathan (A.J.) Chandler. The Alexander will commence a $5 million shell building transformation in the first quarter of 2020, creating a 112,000-square-foot, five-story, modernized office building at 25. S. Arizona Place. The renovations will improve the building from Class B to a Class A office space, enclosing a current ground-floor plaza and adding shared …

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MCKINNEY, TEXAS — Locally based developer KDC has topped out the new 100,000-square-foot office headquarters building in McKinney for SRS Distribution Inc., a provider of building products and supplies. The four-story, Class A property is located on the corner of the Sam Rayburn Tollway and Alma Road on the northern outskirts of Dallas. The new headquarters features an array of indoor and outdoor amenities, as well as conference and meeting space. Completion is scheduled for spring 2020. Gensler is serving as the design architect, and Adolfson & Peterson is the general contractor. SRS plans to add about 150 new jobs to the local economy over the next decade.

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With more than 30 cranes in Nashville’s skies, it’s safe to say the Music City commercial real estate market is humming along. In fact, Davidson County approved $4.2 billion of commercial and residential construction permits in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, according to the Nashville Business Journal. Over the last three fiscal years, the county approved $11.4 billion in permits. While that’s an outstanding level of capital investment in a county with under 900,000 residents, it should be noted that Nashville’s MSA comprises 1.9 million residents encompassing 13 counties — all of which are experiencing record levels of construction permits. New companies coming to the city are driving the office market and construction demand, with several large announcements in the last year including Amazon, AllianceBernstein and Mitsubishi, and the city is continues to rapidly attract companies in the financial services, tech and healthcare industries. With a limited number of buildings available for adaptive reuse, most development taking place in the market is new construction. In fact, more than 460,000 square feet of Class A space was delivered in the third quarter of 2019. The majority of that figure was in Midtown and the Cool Springs/Franklin submarkets, with Aetna and Ramsey Solution’s …

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The General Services Administration (GSA) exercised its purchase option to buy 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE in Washington D.C.’s Yards/Southeast Federal Center neighborhood for $760 million. The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) fully occupies the 1.9 million-square-foot building. The sale is expected to close in March 2020, 19 months before USDOT’s lease expires, saving $99.8 million in rent costs. The USDOT employs 5,500 workers at the property. Amenities at the property include bike racks, access to the Walking Museum of Transportation, a loading dock and 13-foot ceilings. According to its website, GSA provides workplaces by constructing, managing and preserving government buildings and by leasing and managing commercial real estate.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Accesso Partners and Partners Group have acquired Innovation Park, a 1.8 million-square-foot office campus in Charlotte. The sales price was not disclosed, but Charlotte Business Journal reports the sales price was $270 million. Innovation Park spans 202 acres and comprises 12 buildings that were 99 percent leased at the time of sale to tenants including Allstate, AXA, Alight Solutions, Classic Graphics and Wells Fargo. The property is surrounded by Interstates 85, 485 and 77, and also has two stops along the Lynx Blue Line light rail. JLL represented both the seller and buyer in the transaction and arranged acquisition financing on behalf of the buyer. Brian Dawson represented the undisclosed seller, and Ryan Clutter, Scot Humphrey, Chris Lingerfelt and Zack Drozda represented the buyers. Susan Hill arranged acquisition financing through an undisclosed lender.

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RESTON, VA. — Rolls-Royce North America will relocate its corporate headquarters to the fourth floor of Reston Station in early 2020. Rolls-Royce North America designs, develops, manufactures and tests jet engines for the U.S. Department of Defense and commercial aerospace markets. The company will occupy 17,000 square feet of the 16-story glass building, located at 1900 Reston Metro Plaza in Reston, 20 miles west of downtown Washington, D.C. The office tower offers amenities including multiple rooftop event and social spaces with catering kitchens, a fitness facility, multi-room conference facility and a two-story lobby on the Metro Plaza.

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