AURORA, COLO. — Northstar Commercial Partners has completed the sale of 860 Potomac St., a commercial building in Aurora. An undisclosed buyer acquired the property for $34.7 million. Situated on 5.2 acres, the property features 113,568 square feet of commercial space. Children’s Hospital of Colorado currently leasing the property on a long-term basis, with lease commencement on June 1, 2019. Construction and build-out of the tenant’s space is occurring now. Due to its proximity to the Fitzsimons Medical Campus, the property is ideal for ancillary medical offices. Chris Bodnar, Lee Asher, Shane Seitz, Ryan Lindsley and Sabrina Solomiany of CBRE U.S. Healthcare Capital Markets partnered with James Brady and Campbell Davis of CBRE Denver Investment Properties to advise the seller in the deal. Northstar originally purchased the property vacant in March 2017.
SAN DIEGO — HFF has arranged $70.5 million in financing for a two-property life science portfolio in San Diego’s Sorrento Mesa neighborhood. Bioscience Properties and Singerman Real Estate, the borrowers, plan to use loan proceeds to convert the buildings into Class A laboratory assets. The portfolio comprises The Peak at Wateridge, a 180,000-square-foot, two-story office/R&D building situated on 11.1 acres at 10770 Wateridge Drive, and 6325 Lusk, a 50,005-square-foot life science building situated on 5.5 acres. Overall, the portfolio is 65 percent leased to two tenants: Abzena PLC and TriLink Biotechnologies. Tim Wright, Zack Holderman, Olga Walsh and Daniel Pinkus of HFF arranged the five-year, floating-rate bank loan.
The Boston office market continues to see established out-of-market tech users from a diverse group of industries take large blocks of space. In the Seaport District, Aptiv, a division of the car technology company Delphi Technologies, took 93,000 sq. ft. at 100 Northern Avenue. In the central business district, Spotify, a digital music service company, opened its first Boston location and leased 73,000 sq. ft. at Center Plaza. Verizon’s Oath, the digital publishing arm of the company, inked a 440,000 sq. ft. lease at North Station’s The Hub. And Bose, a consumer electronic products company, recently took the remaining available space at Boston Landing, bringing its leasing total to 145,000 sq. ft. at the project. The diversity of this new crop of tech entrants into the market solidifies the strength of Boston’s growing technology cluster. Innovators aplenty In a city once dominated by financial service and insurance firms, Boston is now home to a world-class entrepreneurial ecosystem. This is important as established companies across industries race to innovate in the digital age. The juxtaposition of Fortune 500 companies such as Optum and Amazon next door to newly funded and rapidly expanding home-grown startups such as Draft Kings and Toast makes …
ATLANTA — North American Properties has unveiled plans for Building 300, an 87,500-square-foot mixed-use building in Colony Square in Midtown Atlanta. Whole Foods Market’s South regional office is set to occupy 30,000 square feet of the six-story building that is expected to deliver in 2020. The office relocation will bring about 90 employees of Whole Foods to Midtown. Building 300 will feature 11-foot ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows and street-level retail space and restaurants. NAP recently closed a $278.4 million loan to finance the redevelopment of the 1 million-square-foot Colony Square project.
WARRENVILLE, ILL. — Fairbridge Properties has acquired Cornerstone I at Cantera, a 152,520-square-foot office building in Warrenville, about 30 miles west of Chicago, for $20.7 million. The Class A building is part of the 650-acre mixed-use development known as Cantera. The seller, Northwestern Mutual, invested $540,000 in fitness center and conference room renovations. The building is currently 79.6 percent leased. Jim Postweiler, Peter Harwood and Derek Fohl of JLL represented Northwestern Mutual in the sale.
CHICAGO — Colliers International | Chicago has moved its downtown operations to 71 S. Wacker Drive. The 17,000-square-foot space will house the company’s valuation and advisory services, Chicago office advisory group and corporate solutions teams. The firm will continue to have a strong presence in Rosemont, where its industrial advisory, supply chain logistics, investment services and office leasing groups reside. The downtown office has 83 workspaces, of which 55 are workstations and 28 are private offices. In addition, the new office includes client workspace, wellness rooms and a café-style break area. The Irvine Company owns the 48-story, 1.5 million-square-foot office tower.
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Local artist and designer Lauren Cunningham will open The Commune, a 3,600-square-foot creative office space in central Austin. Set to open in February 2019, the space will be housed in an abandoned building at 101 E. North Loop Blvd. Individual features will include seven private studios, 10 dedicated desks and shared workspace.
HAMILTON, N.J. — Cushman & Wakefield has brokered the sale of Ibis Plaza, a two-building office complex in Hamilton. The price was not disclosed. Located at 3525-2525 Quakerbridge Road, the 119,000-square-foot property is currently 88 percent occupied by approximately 75 tenants. The building also features a 6,700-square-foot event venue available for rent to both tenants and off-site organizations. Cushman & Wakefield’s New Jersey capital markets team represented the seller, a private ownership entity, in the transaction. The buyer was IBIS Realty LLC.
WOODLAWN, MD. — The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), working on behalf of the U.S. Social Security Administration, has signed a 10-year lease renewal for Social Security’s Baltimore County headquarters. The GSA signed the 717,011-square-foot lease with landlord Security Land and Development Co. LP (SLDC) at the Security West Complex in Woodlawn. The lease became effective Nov. 1, 2018 and will run through Oct. 31, 2028. According to its website, GSA provides workplaces by constructing, managing and preserving government buildings and by leasing and managing commercial real estate. The terms of the lease state that GSA can exit part of the lease after three years with a 12-month written notice to SLDC and can fully exit the lease with 24-month written notice after five years. The initial annual rent is approximately $11.8 million. Regency Affiliates, which has a 50 percent interest in SLDC, simultaneously announced it refinanced Security West Complex for $30 million. The net proceeds are being used primarily to pay off existing debt at Security West and to fund capital improvements and reserves totaling about $17 million.
LEESBURG, VA. — St. John Properties Inc. has broken ground on four buildings within Leesburg Tech Park in Leesburg. The tech park spans 17 acres, and the four speculative buildings will consist of 160,000 square feet of research & development/flex space with anticipated completion in the summer. St. John Properties purchased the land in 2016. The property is situated about 35 miles west of downtown Washington, D.C.