NEW YORK CITY — Cornell Realty Management has topped out 200 Kent Avenue, a 72,000-square-foot retail and office building located in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn. The property spans 50,000 square feet of retail space that will be anchored by a Trader Joe’s, 22,000 square feet of office and restaurant space and 45,000 square feet of parking. Manhattan-based Madison Realty Capital originally provided a $64 million construction loan for the project in November 2017, and Bluestone Group recently provided $8 million in mezzanine debt to finance additional capital expenditures.
Office
Capstone Partners Receives $154.7M Construction Financing for Office Building in Metro Seattle
by Amy Works
REDMOND, WASH. — Capstone Partners has received $154.7 million in construction financing for One Esterra Park, a transit-oriented office development in Redmond, approximately 15 miles east of Seattle. The investment banking firm plans to break ground sometime this month. The Class A project is the next phase of the 3 million-square-foot Esterra Park live-work-play master-planned community. One Esterra Park will rise six stories and total 245,000 square feet. Being built to LEED Silver standards, the property will feature average floor plates of 40,000 square feet, robust amounts of power and mechanical infrastructure and collaborative common areas. The 2.2-acre site is immediately adjacent to Microsoft’s world headquarters and near many of the area’s large and expanding economic drivers such as Facebook, Amazon and Google. Additionally, the project is adjacent to the future Overlake Village Transit Station and the future State Route 520 off-ramp, providing connectivity to major area thoroughfares, including Interstates 405 and 90. Capstone expects One Esterra Park to be ready for occupancy in late 2020. Ben Bullock, Charles Halladay, Bruce Ganong, Zach Goodwin, Michael Leggett and Tom Wilson of HFF arranged the debt and equity for the project. US Bank provided the construction loan while a private equity investor …
Honeywell Leases Nine Floors at Charlotte’s Legacy Union Project for Corporate Relocation
by Alex Tostado
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Honeywell has signed a long-term lease with Lincoln Harris to occupy on a 23-story office tower in downtown Charlotte. Honeywell will occupy 280,000 square feet of space spanning nine floors. The company plans to house 700 employees there by the end of 2024. The building is located at 700 S. Mint St., directly across the street from Bank of America Stadium and will offer ground-floor retail, approximately 800 parking spaces and a rooftop terrace. In December 2018, Honeywell announced it would move its headquarters from New Jersey to Charlotte, relocating up to 200 jobs and creating up to 500 jobs. Lincoln Harris is expected to break ground on the new building in September. Legacy Union will span two city blocks and feature offices, retail shops, restaurants, hotels, residences, a parking garage, public green space and a pedestrian promenade. In May, Charlotte-based Parker Poe law firm signed an 86,000-square-foot office lease at 620 S. Tryon within Legacy Union. Completion is slated for 2021.
ATLANTA — LeaseQuery, an Atlanta-based tech company, has signed a 52,888-square-foot, full-floor lease at Three Ravinia in Atlanta’s Central Perimeter district. In addition to the lease, LeaseQuery plans to add up to 200 Atlanta-area jobs in the next year. The jobs will include all departments and functions, such as sales, marketing, customer solutions, software engineering, product management and analytics. Three Ravinia is an 816,748-square-foot building situated 15 miles north of downtown Atlanta. Andy Sumlin and Kyle Kenyon of Cushman & Wakefield represented the landlord, Preferred Office Properties, in the lease negotiations. Michael Tucker, Scott O’Halloran and Robert Patton of Scotland Wright Associates represented the tenant.
Entrepreneur John Paul DeJoria Acquires Former McDonald’s Headquarters Campus in Oak Brook, Illinois
OAK BROOK, ILL. — Entrepreneur John Paul DeJoria has purchased the former McDonald’s global headquarters campus in Oak Brook for an undisclosed price. The co-founder of the Paul Mitchell line of hair products will assume ownership of the 80-acre site, which includes the McDonald’s former office building, Hamburger University training facility and the Hyatt-branded and managed hotel, The Hyatt Lodge. McDonald’s relocated its global headquarters to downtown Chicago last summer. McDonald’s had been the sole occupant of the campus since its completion in 1988. Designed by architect Dirk Lohan, the campus is situated in a wooded setting with two lakes. The property includes a 331,630-square-foot office building and a 130,484-square-foot training facility, which is connected by a covered passageway to The Hyatt Lodge. The 218-room hotel will remain open. Scott Miller and Lindsey Fahey of JLL represented McDonald’s in the sale. Perry Higa of NAI Hiffman represented the buyer. Future plans for the site have not been disclosed.
FISHERS, IND. — Browning has broken ground on a new corporate headquarters for First Internet Bank in downtown Fishers. The bank’s existing office is located about two miles east of the new site. Plans call for a six-story, 168,000-square-foot building with ground-floor retail space. It is the first building to be constructed within a mixed-use development along 116th Street in the Nickel Plate District. Completion is slated for fall 2021. Envoy Cos. is serving as the owner’s representative.
BOSTON — The Fallon Co., a locally based developer, has broken ground on a 310,000-square-foot office building for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual) in Boston’s Seaport District. The build-to-suit property will be located within the $4 billion Fan Pier mixed-use development and is expected to be complete by late 2021. Approximately 1,000 employees will work at the 17-story building, which will serve as a hub for the company’s digital and technology divisions. MassMutual also plans to add about 1,500 jobs at its headquarters in Springfield, Mass., by the end of 2021.
CHULA VISTA AND SAN DIMAS, CALIF. — San Diego-based Stos Partners has completed the sales of two properties, totaling 221,448 square feet, for $33.5 million. In the first deal, Stos Partners sold two industrial buildings, located at 1670 and 1690 Brandywine in Chula Vista, to a large institution for $24.4 million. The 170,805-square-foot asset is divided into six industrial units ranging in size from 25,000 square feet to 55,000 square feet and is leased to a mix of national credit, regional credit and local companies. Bryce Aberg, Jeff Cole, Jeff Chiate and Brant Aberg of Cushman & Wakefield, along with Michael Mossmer of Voit Real Estate Services, represented the seller in the disposition. In the second transaction, Stos Partners sold a two-story, 50,634-square-foot office building, located at 650 W. Cienega in San Dimas. A trade union acquired the property for approximately $9.1 million. The buyer plans to use the facility as an owner-user. Taylor Ing at Newmark Knight Frank represented the seller, while Brandon Burns of Cushman & Wakefield represented the buyer in the deal.
KING OF PRUSSIA, PA. — The Discovery Labs has unveiled plans for a $500 million healthcare, life sciences and technology coworking campus at the 1 million-square-foot GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Upper West Merion campus and the 640,000-square-foot Innovation at Renaissance Campus. The two campuses, which are located across the street from each other in the Philadelphia suburb of King of Prussia, will be known as The Discovery Labs. The collaborative lab, office and lifestyle space, will span 1.6 million square feet. The Discovery Labs called the campus the “world’s largest coworking community” in a press release. “The Discovery Labs is 20 times larger than the average coworking space, and provides the mission critical infrastructure needed to operate healthcare, life sciences and technology-enabled companies,” says Audrey Greenberg, chief financial officer of The Discovery Labs. “The size of each Discovery Labs enables enterprise level companies to work side by side with startup and emerging companies and enjoy the benefits of the coworking phenomenon.” IQ Connect, Discovery Labs’ 100,000-square-foot incubator project developed in partnership with The Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center, will sit at the center of the campus. The purpose of IQ Connect is to “bring together researchers, entrepreneurs and product development startups, along with human …
More than 50 years ago, I was witness to the birth of a new building type in Chicago’s suburbs — the great sprawling corporate campus. From Motorola and McDonald’s to Ameritech and Sears, some of the most influential brands in the world started taking root in Chicago’s bucolic suburbs as they looked to consolidate business divisions under one large roof and to provide a stimulating work environment away from the hustle and bustle of the inner city. Today, many of these corporate meccas sit vacant due to the rise in telecommuting and a shift in workforce demographics. The simple version of the narrative is that instead of people chasing the jobs, firms are now chasing the talent. And for the moment, many employees prefer to live and work in the city. While some suburbs are strongly associated with the companies who previously occupied those campuses, there is another story to tell in terms of the opportunities change can bring to these properties and their surrounding communities. As the architect who designed two of these campuses, the AT&T (né Ameritech) corporate campus in Hoffman Estates in 1989 and McDonald’s global headquarters in Oak Brook starting in 1978, I have repeatedly been …