NEW YORK CITY — LinkedIn has signed a lease for an additional 30,165 square feet at the Empire State building in Manhattan, bringing the company’s total footprint at the building to 312,947 square feet. The social media and networking website now occupies space on floors 3, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28. Sacha Zarba and Lauren Crowley of CBRE represented LinkedIn in the lease negotiations with the landlord, Empire State Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: ESRT). Amenities at the Empire State Building include a 15,000-square-foot fitness center, a tenant-only conference center and nine in-building dining options as well as two Starbucks locations. More than 1,000 LinkedIn employees work in the Empire State Building location.
SEATTLE — A joint venture between Brickman and GreenOak has acquired Central Building, an eight-story historic office property located at 810 Third Ave. in Seattle’s central business district. KBS Strategic Opportunity REIT sold the property for $67.5 million. Originally built in 1907, the 192,176-square-foot building was 81 percent leased at the time of sale. Dave Otis, Michael Leggett, Logan Greer and Kevin Freels of HFF represented the seller and procured the buyer in the deal. Additionally, Casey Davidson and Peter Smyslowski of HFF arranged $55.4 million in acquisition financing through Invesco Real Estate for the buyer.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Marcus & Millichap has brokered the $45 million sale of a two-property office portfolio in Rochester. The office properties are Corporate Crossing, a five-building, 212,839-square-foot office complex completed in 2002; and Canal View, a three-building, 118,375-square-foot office complex completed in 2003. The two properties are less than eight miles apart. Marcus & Millichap represented the seller, a private Rochester partnership, in the transaction. The buyer was a New York family office. Tenants at the office parks include the University of Rochester, The Bonadio Group, KeyBank, Oracle Corp., Gatehouse Media Inc., Level 3 Communications, and NetApp Inc.
PLANTATION, FLA. — Avison Young has arranged the $18.5 million sale of Southpointe, a 79,719-square-foot office building located at 7901 S.W. 6th Court in Plantation. The sales price equates to $232 per square foot. TA Realty sold the asset, according to local media reports. David Duckworth, John Crotty, Michael Fay, Greg Martin and Brian de la Fé of Avison Young arranged the transaction on behalf of the seller. The Green Cos. acquired the asset, which was 98 percent leased at the time of sale. Balfour Beatty Construction is the lead tenant at the building.
LOS ANGELES — Colliers International has negotiated the sale of a creative office property located at 6507-6509 De Longpre Ave. in Hollywood. Weinandroses LLC sold the property for $4.1 million, or $949 per square foot. The 4,320-square-foot asset includes an office building and a private writer’s bungalow. Formerly occupied by Go Film, a commercial and television production company, the property features private gated parking and a fully wired security/sound system. Nathan Pellow and Patrick Moody of Colliers’ Los Angeles office represented the seller. The name of the buyer was not released.
CHICAGO — Millennium Properties R/E has brokered the sale of a 14,383-square-foot office condo in Chicago’s Central Loop for $2.6 million. The buyer was Rent24, an international co-working company. This location will serve as the company’s third location since it entered the Chicago market in May. The coworking space features a mix of desk stations, private suites and three conference rooms. Recently updated, the unit has a dedicated office entrance, allowing secure access for tenants. Greg Block brokered the sale. The seller was not disclosed.
HOUSTON — T-Mobile has signed a 29,142-square-foot office lease at the 17-story River Oaks Tower in the Greenway area of Houston. As the anchor tenant, the telecommunications giant will occupy three and a half floors and install signage atop the building. The owner of the property, Medistar Corp., will rename it “T-Mobile Tower” and will welcome the company into its new space in early 2019. Tami Pearson of Waterman Steele represented T-Mobile in the lease negotiations. Doug Pack and Sam Hansen of Avison Young represented Medistar.
OMAHA, NEB. — NorthMarq Capital has arranged a $14 million loan for the acquisition of North Park Office in northwest Omaha. The office property spans 177,323 square feet. Steve Ruff of NorthMarq arranged the 25-year loan, which is fully amortized. A life insurance company provided the loan. The borrower was not disclosed.
CHICAGO — Tech and financial services firms are the most aggressively expanding office users through the first half of the year, according to a report from Cushman & Wakefield. Of the 144.6 million square feet of absorption closed in the first six months of 2018, the tech industry was responsible for approximately 23 percent. Tech and software firms are investing heavily in their own operations, including expanding in markets they deem necessary to house their staffers. Back in May, Facebook signed a full-building office lease for a 43-story tower under construction in San Francisco. The 764,700-square-foot space will be a much more convenient location for the company’s San Francisco-based employees, who now are shuttling to Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park. Like the Facebook lease, a good portion of the office transactions closed in the first half of the year by tech firms have been larger in scope. Amazon leased 430,000 square feet of office space within W.S. Development’s Seaport project in Boston, and Nokia signed a 350,000-square-foot lease in Dallas within Billingsley Co.’s Cypress Waters mixed-use project. The No. 2 most active office-using industry was the financial services sector, which accounted for roughly 17 percent of all office leasing in …
Denver’s office market has been riding a wave of expansion, entering its ninth straight year of growth, with net absorption totaling 186,826 square feet in the first quarter of 2018. While vacancy ticked up — ending at 15.9 percent, up from 15.1 percent in the prior quarter and from 14.6 percent one year ago — it is expected to fall over the next several quarters as tenants continue to absorb space in both new and existing buildings. The Denver office market’s impressive expansion has lasted 33 consecutive quarters, resulting in a total of 9.7 million square feet of absorption, 7.4 million square feet of new deliveries and a 409-basis-point plunge in vacancy. The majority of the 9.7 million square feet absorbed between the first quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2018 occurred in three key submarkets. This included the Southeast Suburban (SES), Downtown and Northwest (NW) markets, which recorded 3.3 million, 2.9 million and 1.3 million square feet of absorption, respectively. The Downtown market ended the quarter with absorption of 214,317 square feet, and Class A median asking rates were up 39.5 percent from year-end 2009 to $39.76 per square foot. Asking rates in some of the newest …