The momentum of the Charlotte office market continued in the first quarter of 2019, as office rents rose for an eighth consecutive quarter and the city notched a major economic development win with the announcement that BB&T and SunTrust would merge, creating a new bank that will be headquartered in Charlotte. The news came on the heels of announcements late last year that Honeywell plans to relocate its corporate headquarters to the city and that LendingTree would expand its headquarters, creating 436 jobs over five years. The city’s economic strength has been fueled by a growing labor market that was led by the tech sector in 2018. Last fall, CompTIA’s 2018 Tech Town Index found that Charlotte is the No. 1 city for information technology workers when it comes to job opportunity and cost of living. At the time of the report, more than 44,000 IT jobs had been posted in Charlotte over the previous 12 months. That number is projected to grow by 11 percent over the next five years as Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Ally Financial look to fill IT jobs at all levels. Office rental rates in Charlotte increased by 6.5 percent …
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Bulfinch, a Boston-based investment firm, has acquired a 193,000-square-foot office building in Cambridge. The office is located within the 27-acre Cambridge Discovery Park (CDP) development, and is 100 percent leased to market research company Forrester Research. With the acquisition, Bulfinch now owns all of CDP’s lab, office research and development facilities. People’s United Bank provided long-term financing for the acquisition.
ATLANTA — Savlan Capital has acquired six office buildings totaling 289,433 square feet within Camp Creek Business Center, a 400-acre business park in south Atlanta. Hollywood, Fla.-based Savlan bought the property from Indianapolis-based Duke Realty for $111.25 per square foot. The office buildings are located at 1000, 1100, 1200, 1400, 1800 and 2000 Centre Parkway, five miles west of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Duke Realty is developing Camp Creek, which comprises 2.9 million square feet of existing industrial and office buildings with the capacity for an additional 2 million square feet of development. The six buildings were 79 percent leased at the time of sale to tenants including Sto Corp., DoverStaffing, Hopebridge, Jaguar Land Rover Automotive North America, Keller Williams and Primerica.
SOMERSET, N.J. — Cushman & Wakefield has negotiated two office leases totaling 4,920 square feet in Somerset, a city located about 40 miles east of New York City. The offices are situated within 200 Cottontail Lane, a 208,000-square-foot Class A office property. August eTech signed a 3,230-square-foot headquarters office lease, and Tekcon Construction signed a 1,800-square-foot regional office lease. Paul Giannone, Todd Elfand, Kevin Carton and Joe Vacca of Cushman & Wakefield represented the landlord, The Winter Organization, in both lease negotiations. Carolyn Sica of CBRE represented eTech.
RIVERSIDE, CALIF. — Northstar Commercial Partners has completed the sale of an office building located at 1595 Spruce St. in Riverside. An undisclosed buyer acquired the asset for $6 million. An affiliate of Northstar originally purchased the 67,076-square-foot property in 2015 as one of 24 total assets in a portfolio acquisition totaling $224.3 million. Gary Stache, Doug Mack, Vindar Batoosingh and Phil Woodford of CBRE represented the seller in the deal.
KENT, WASH. — Menashe Properties has completed the disposition of Creeksides at Centerpoint, an office campus located in Kent. An undisclosed buyer acquired the asset for $39 million. The three-building campus features 218,650 square feet of office space. At the time of sale, the asset was 97.6 percent leased to a diverse roster of local, regional, national and government tenants, including Blue Nile and the State of Washington. Logan Greer and Kevin Freels of JLL Capital Markets, along with Scott Sulman and Michael George of NAI Puget Sound Properties, represented the seller in the deal.
NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J. — NAI James Hanson has negotiated the sale of an 8,000-square-foot medical office building in New Providence, a western suburb of New York City. The buyer, New Jersey-based optometrist See Clear Associates LLC, plans to renovate and occupy the entire first floor of the building and lease the second floor to medical tenants. Andrew Kirshenbaum of NAI represented See Clear in the transaction. Edison-based Bussel Realty Corp. was the seller.
LEAWOOD, KAN. — VanTrust Real Estate LLC, in partnership with Hallbrook Office Center LLC, has unveiled plans to develop a new 120,527-square-foot office building at Hallbrook Office Center in Leawood. This is the third building planned for the office park. Miles McCune and Jeff Winters of Cushman & Wakefield will market the building for lease. The new structure will sit on eight acres at College Boulevard and State Line Road. While the first two buildings at Hallbrook were built on a speculative basis, the project team does not plan to begin construction on the third building until commitments for at least one floor of the property (30,000 square feet) are secured.
AURORA, ILL. — Transwestern Commercial Services has brokered the sale of 2357 Sequoia Drive in Aurora for $12.5 million. The 50,000-square-foot, single-story office building is fully leased to Dreyer Medical, an affiliate of Advocate Health Care. Gary Nussbaum and Paige Gunn of Transwestern represented the seller, Downers Grove-based REM Builders Inc. Maryland-based Global Medical REIT Inc. purchased the asset.
HOUSTON — ENGIE North America Inc., which provides operating solutions for the energy industry, has signed a 110,000-square-foot office lease at 1360 Post Oak Blvd. in Houston. The company will relocate its North American headquarters from nearby 1990 Post Oak Blvd. and occupy floors four through nine beginning in December 2019. Louis Rosenthal and Bruce Rutherford of JLL represented ENGIE North America in the lease negotiations. Eric Anderson, David Baker and Tyler Garrett of Transwestern represented the landlord, a joint venture between Nuveen Real Estate and Allianz. Morgan Relyea and Tim Relyea of Cushman & Wakefield represented an undisclosed lessee that surrendered some of it excess space to enable ENGIE to meet its space requirements.