NEW YORK CITY — Locally based investment firm RFR Realty has signed office leases with three new tenants at 17 State Street, a 42-story tower in Manhattan’s Financial District. The new leases total approximately 53,000 square feet. Global investment firm Alphadyne Asset Management LP signed a 43,872-square-foot lease extension; finance firm Arles Management inked a 4,318-square-foot lease and real estate investment firm RC BME Holdco LLC signed a 5,042-square-foot new lease. Mitchell Konsker, John Wheeler and Clayton Kline of JLL, along with A.J. Camhi and Ryan Silverman of RFR Realty, represented the building ownership in each of the lease negotiations. JLL represented the tenants in the first two deals, and CBRE represented the tenant in the third transaction.
AUSTIN, TEXAS — AQUILA Commercial will redevelop Airport Center, an 86,099-square-foot office building located at 6505 Airport Blvd. in Austin. Located adjacent to the Austin Community College Highland Campus redevelopment project, the site will later house a mixed-use development that will include 326 apartments. Runa Workshop is the architect for the project, construction of which is scheduled to begin in July and wrap up by year’s end. The property will be rebranded Highland Tech Center.
VERNON HILLS, ILL. — Principle Construction Corp. has completed a 15,091-square-foot tenant improvement for Wonderlic at 544 Lakeview Parkway in Vernon Hills. The company, which produces cognitive ability tests, is moving across the street. The scope of the office project enables Wonderlic to have storage space for its printed materials as well as to properly recycle all used paper. Interform Architecture & Design served as the project architect.
WESTLAKE, TEXAS — Wells Fargo Bank has signed an 88,520-square-foot office lease renewal at Plaza @ Solana, located at 1301 Solana Blvd. in Westlake, a northern suburb of Fort Worth. Trey Smith, John Fancher and Christy Thelen of Cushman & Wakefield represented the landlord, Harbert Management Corp., in the lease negotiations. Ken Page and Alan Harrington of Transwestern represented Wells Fargo.
PLANO, TEXAS —A partnership between Paragon Development and Worldwide Commercial has acquired a 57,000-square-foot office building located at 5501 Independence Parkway in Plano, a northeastern suburb of Dallas. The property includes both traditional office and medical office space. Chris Castillo, Erin Leibfarth and Jerad Rector of Worldwide Commercial represented the buyer in the transaction.
VACAVILLE, CALIF. — Ascend @ Lagoon Valley LLC, a limited liability company affiliated with Seattle-based Triad Development, has unveiled plans for a 700,000-square-foot to 840,000-square-foot Class A office development project Lagoon Valley. The 50-acre development site is located along Interstate 80 on Lagoon Valley Road in Vacaville, approximately 51 miles from downtown San Francisco. The project will consist of six four-story buildings. A 30,000-square-foot amenities building will offer a fitness center, food services and recreation space. Additionally, the office project will include an amphitheater, sports courts and field space as outdoor amenity space, as well as a transit center with shuttle to Vacaville’s Capitol Corridor Amtrak station. The surrounding 1,200 acres of protected open space includes the 470-acre Lagoon Valley park and 100-acre lake, plus an adjacent eight-acre public park. The land adjacent to the development is entitled for residential development. James Lees, Sandy Rodriguez, Max Sander and Skip Whitney of Kidder Mathews are leasing agents for Ascend @ Lagoon Valley.
BOULDER, COLO. — Etkin Johnson Real Estate Partners has completed the disposition of Lookout Business Center, an office building located at 6150 Lookout Road in Boulder. Greenwich, Conn.-based Ivy Equities acquired the property for $10.5 million. The newly renovated building features 50,472 square feet of office space, open flexible floor plans, glass overhead doors, exposed 16-foot ceilings and updated landscaping. FIRST RF Corp., a women-oriented advanced technologies company, is the sole tenant of the property and will remain so under Ivy Equities’ ownership. Riki Hashimoto and Dan Grooters of Newmark Knight Frank represented the seller in the transaction.
CLIFTON, N.J. — Prism Capital Partners, a locally based owner-operator of commercial properties, will develop two office buildings in Clifton, New Jersey, a northern suburb of Newark. The project will add approximately 400,000 square feet of Class A space to ON3, the company’s 116-acre campus in Clifton that also extends into nearby Nutley Township. Prism has retained Chicago-based Goettsch Partners to design the buildings, construction timelines for which have not yet been released. Prism expects that corporate tenants and users will employ more than 5,500 people at ON3 by 2021.
Despite the rise of the gig economy, the explosion of coworking concepts and the move toward greater density among office-using companies, America’s office market is maintaining steady growth and balance, thanks to the exceptional job growth of this cycle. According to Costar Group, the national office vacancy rate currently stands at a 9.8 percent. Developers delivered approximately 59.3 million square feet of new product over the last 12 months. National net absorption of 56.6 million square feet during that period suggests that the market is quite close to equilibrium. According to the most current available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) at the time of this writing, between December 2018 and January 2019, American nonfarm payrolls added about 525,000 new jobs. The BLS reported substantially lower job growth in February, with just 20,000 new positions added. However, most economists expect that figure to be revised upward as the effects of Mother Nature and the government shutdown wear off. While office properties only capture a portion of that activity, job growth expectations are still the main criteria by which office market health is evaluated. By that logic, the office markets of Texas’ four largest cities should all post strong …
PORTLAND, ORE. — A joint venture between the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs and Lincoln Property Co. has purchased Field Office, a Class A mixed-use project along River Promenade in Portland’s Pearl District. A venture between National Real Estate Advisors and Project^, which developed the property, sold the asset for $118 million. Completed last year, Field Office features a total of 287,216 square feet of office and retail space. The property includes flexible floor plans, on-site daycare facility, courtyard area with seating and fire pits, fitness center, commuter lounge for cyclists, solar power arrays, below-grade parking, and executive rooftops with city and river views. The two-building asset is located on 2.3 acres at 1895 and 2035 NW Front Ave. The site is adjacent to Interstate 405 and directly across the street from 648 new multifamily units, in addition to more than 600 proposed within the submarket. Located just north of downtown Portland, the formerly industrial Pearl District is now a hotbed of development for retail, restaurants, art galleries, breweries, adaptive reuse projects, multifamily and office. Field Office is also located within an Enterprise Zone, according to the developers, making tax abatements available for tenants that meet certain requirements, such …