NEW YORK CITY — Law firm Scott + Scott LLP has signed a 21,365-square-foot office lease at 230 Park Avenue in Manhattan. The firm will relocate from a subleased space on the 17th floor to the entire 24th floor next summer. Erik Schmall and Scott Weiss of Savills represented the tenant in the lease negotiations. Scott Klau, Brian Waterman, Erik Harris, Zach Weil and Cole Gendels of Newmark, along with internal agents William Elder, Andrew Ackerman and Walt Rooney, represented the landlord, RXR.
OCEANPORT, N.J. — Baseline Social, a bar, restaurant and entertainment concept, has opened a 17,100-square-foot venue in Oceanport, located in Monmouth County. Situated within The Commissary at Baseline, the space features a 640-foot LED viewing wall, 38-seat platform lounge and 3,700-square-foot entertainment section with five virtual golf bays. Other tenants at the property include Birdsmouth Beer and MGT Foods. Denholtz Properties is the developer and landlord at The Commissary.
NEW YORK CITY — Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) has announced formal plans to expand its office footprint within Hudson Yards, a mixed-use district on Manhattan’s west side. The San Francisco-based banking giant, which already occupies space within the $25 billion Hudson Yards campus, has purchased additional space from Related Cos., the master developer behind Hudson Yards along with Oxford Properties Group. Multiple media outlets have reported that Wells Fargo purchased the space at 20 Hudson Yards, which formally housed a Neiman Marcus store, for $550 million. The bank plans to convert the 400,000 square feet of space to offices in synergy with its current 500,000-square-foot footprint at 30 Hudson Yards, according to Bloomberg News. Forbes reported that the Neiman Marcus location closed in summer 2020. Wells Fargo plans to begin moving employees from its existing office space at 150 E. 42nd St. to the new Hudson Yards office beginning in late 2026. The property is expected to house 2,300 Wells Fargo employees at full operation. The 11-story building will also include a dedicated entrance on 10th Avenue and naming rights to Wells Fargo for signage on the exterior of the property. “This investment further solidifies our longstanding commitment …
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How to Clear Affordable Housing’s Construction Financing Hurdle
Developers are finding it tougher than ever to finance affordable housing. And often, the biggest hurdle for the sector’s borrowers involves construction — either obtaining that initial loan at a manageable cost or qualifying for take-out financing after a protracted construction period — which has strained resources and delivery schedules for a number of developments. Limitations on rent increases make the industry especially vulnerable to rising costs, and expenses today have risen precipitously across the board. Rents have also grown, but not on pace with construction and operating costs driven up by inflation, wage pressures, soaring insurance premiums and a series of interest rate hikes, observes Tracy Peters, a senior managing director on Lument’s affordable housing production team. “Borrowers are squeezed by a number of things in this marketplace,” Peters says. “The fed funds rate climbing 5 percent over the last two years means the interest rates on construction loans have basically come up 5 percent or more over that time. Now folks who had budgeted for a much lower interest rate — if they are still in construction mode — are trying to figure out how to deal with these higher interest rates.” At the same time, the …
ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. — PTM Partners will expand EDGE Collective, a mixed-use development in St. Petersburg, with a 500,000-square-foot second phase. Phase II will feature 350 multifamily residential units in studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom layouts across two buildings, as well as 45,000 square feet of commercial and retail space and 260 parking spaces. The first phase of the development comprises a 163-room Moxy Hotel and a redevelopment of 1246 Central Avenue building, which features 16,000 square feet of office space that will be available for tenancy in early 2024 and 8,000 square feet of ground-floor food-and-beverage retail space.
MOBILE, ALA. — Topgolf has opened a new venue in Mobile, marking the third in Alabama for the Dallas-based brand. Situated within McGowan Park Shopping Center, the venue features 60 outdoor climate-controlled hitting bays across two levels, as well as a full-service restaurant, 22-foot video wall and more than 100 TVs. According to the company, Topgolf Mobile will employ roughly 200 associates and is the 95th outdoor Topgolf venue in the country.
DELRAY BEACH, FLA. — Sarasota, Fla.-based Benderson Development has acquired Linton Commons, an 85,000-square-foot shopping center located in Delray Beach, a city in South Florida’s Palm Beach County. Tenants at the property include RH Outlet, Guitar Center, PetSmart, Chipotle Mexican Grill and AT&T. Matt Berres, Samer Khalil and Karick Brown of Newmark represented the undisclosed, privately held seller in the transaction. The Newmark team also procured Benderson as the buyer in cooperation with Newmark’s Bert Sanders. The sales price was not disclosed. Benderson’s portfolio in the state also includes a freestanding Publix in Pompano Beach, which was acquired in August, and a Publix-anchored shopping center in Englewood.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Marcus & Millichap has brokered the sale of a 26-unit apartment building located at 2724 11th St. NW in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The transaction follows a decade of legal disputes and a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the seller. Nick Murray, Marty Zupancic and John Slowinski of Marcus & Millichap arranged the sale. The undisclosed buyer plans to implement a redevelopment at the property. The sales price was not disclosed.
ANNAPOLIS, MD. — MedStar Medical Group has signed a 19,739-square-foot lease at a medical office building (MOB) located at 810 Bestgate Road in Annapolis, roughly 30 miles outside of Baltimore. The new lease marks an expansion of the healthcare network’s presence at the property, which totals 100,000 square feet across four stories. MedStar now occupies 31,000 square feet at the building, which is fully leased. Stephanie Caronna represented the landlord, St. John Properties, in the lease negotiations on an internal basis. Paige Wingate and Matt Sullivan of Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant. MedStar plans to open a surgery center at the property in March 2024.
SAN ANTONIO — Denver-based owner-operator H5 Data Centers will undertake an expansion project at its San Antonio campus, which is located at 100 Taylor St. in the downtown area. The expansion will add turnkey colocation space that can support an additional 340 cabinets and up to 1.5 megawatts of additional power capacity. A construction timeline was not disclosed. The campus currently consists of two buildings totaling 85,000 square feet.