HOLMDEL, N.J. — Fitness Factory Health Club has opened a 20,000-square-foot facility at Bell Works, an office and retail development located in the Northern New Jersey community of Holmdel. A grand opening celebration took place on May 4. In addition to cardio and strength training equipment, the facility will offer a smoothie bar, a turfed functional training area, virtual training area and a recovery room. The location at Bell Works, a redevelopment of the former Bell Labs campus that is owned by Somerset Development, is the seventh for Fitness Factory.
SAN DIEGO — Trammell Crow Co. (TCC), in partnership with CBRE Investment Management on behalf of a separate account client, has unveiled plans to build Vista Sorrento Labs, a 116,000-square-foot speculative life sciences development in the Sorrento Mesa submarket of San Diego. The purpose-built life sciences building marks the first ground-up life sciences project in San Diego for both firms. The partnership plans to begin demolition of an existing building on the site and break ground on the new facility in the fourth quarter of this year. Completion is slated for early 2024. The four-story building will feature floor plates spanning 32,000 square feet. The project will feature Class A lab, clean room and office space as well as onsite chemical storage. Ware Malcomb designed the building, which will include amenities such as electric vehicle charging stations, locker rooms, indoor and outdoor conference rooms, bike storage, surface and structured parking, a fitness center and lounge. “This fall’s scheduled groundbreaking will mark the first of multiple planned ground-up life sciences developments in Sorrento Mesa, which will add approximately 700,000 square feet of much-needed life sciences space to the submarket,” says Chris Tipre of TCC Newport Beach. “Vista Sorrento Labs is located …
AUSTIN, TEXAS — As we move toward the start of a new academic year, the outlook in the student housing industry keeps getting brighter, according to experts within the industry. All signs point to further movement out of the COVID-19 pandemic — a testament to which was seen at the 14th annual InterFace Student Housing conference in Austin, where over 1,300 attendees gathered last week at the JW Marriott downtown. The sector’s resilience during the pandemic was once again a major topic at this year’s conference, particularly during the ‘Power Panel,’ which brought together a consortium of high-level executives to discuss industry trends and the outlook for the upcoming academic year. “Evidenced once again by a packed house in this room, the sector is demonstrating continued strength, resilience and sustainability as a niche real estate asset class,” began moderator Peter Katz, executive director with Institutional Property Advisors (IPA), a division of Marcus & Millichap. “While 2021 was a record year for many asset classes, one constant that we can expect in life is change,” he continued. “Over the past 90 days, we’ve seen a huge turn of events in the global economic platform. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has …
Interviews by Taylor Williams The office markets of the major Texas cities have always been birds of different feathers, built to accommodate drastically different types of users and disproportionately subject to broader swings in occupancy and rent growth. Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) remains the king of corporate relocations and regional consolidations, and the metroplex’s office market benefits from the highest degree of diversity among users, an attribute that has ushered it through the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the Houston office market, hobbled for years by its reliance on energy users, may finally be poised to see some growth in occupancy as prices of these commodities head for the moon. In Austin, the non-California tech capital of the country, the supply of office space is still playing catch-up to demand, as evidenced by the healthy rents these buildings have achieved during the state capital’s ascendance to major-market status. And San Antonio? Like most commercial asset classes in the Alamo City, the performance of the office sector is steady, offering neither the glamorous appeal of trophy buildings with marquee users that attract institutional investors nor the profound cyclical dips that scare them away. Yet after two years of prolonged disruption …
HOUSTON — CBRE has negotiated a 500,000-square-foot, full-building industrial lease at 5800 Mesa Drive in northeast Houston. Situated on 95 acres, the property features 330 terminal doors, a 46,000-square-foot maintenance facility and 25 acres of secured trailer parking. Tres Reid and Andrew Jewett of CBRE represented the tenant, an undisclosed logistics firm, in the lease negotiations. John Simons, Gray Gilbert and Chris Haro of NAI Partners, along with Dave Dandurand of Burr & Temkin, represented the landlord, Dayton Street Partners. The Chicago-based investment firm acquired the property in January 2021 and implemented a $25 million value-add program.
HOUSTON — Virginia-based investment firm Capital Square has acquired a 304-unit apartment community formerly known as Alta West Alabama in Houston. Developed by Wood Partners in 2019, the property offers studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units with stainless steel appliances, quartz countertops, tile backsplashes and individual washer and dryers. Amenities include a pool, fitness center, sky lounge, coworking spaces, pet spa and a courtyard, as well as a clubhouse with TVs, a billiards table, lounge seating and an entertainment kitchen. Capital Square acquired the community via a Delaware Statutory Trust.
DALLAS —iBorrow, a Los Angeles-based commercial bridge and direct lender, has provided a $20 million acquisition loan for a 232-unit apartment community located at 4542 W. Kiest Blvd. in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. According to Apartments.com, the property offers two-bedroom units with an average size of 969 square feet. The borrower was not disclosed.
MESQUITE, TEXAS — Greysteel has arranged the sale of Town East, a 190-unit multifamily property located in the eastern Dallas suburb of Mesquite. The property was built in 1959 and offers one- and two-bedroom units with an average size of 608 square feet. Doug Banerjee, Jack Stone and Andrew Mueller of Greysteel represented the undisclosed seller in the transaction. The buyer, Elevate Commercial Investment Group, plans to upgrade unit interiors.
AUSTIN, TEXAS — A partnership between locally based development and brokerage firm AQUILA Commercial and institutional funds backed by J.P. Morgan Asset Management is underway on construction of Alto, a 110,000-square-foot office project at 924 E. Seventh St. in East Austin. Construction began earlier this year and is slated for delivery in the fourth quarter of 2023. The five-story building will include four levels of underground parking and an onsite restaurant. The Beck Group is the architect and general contractor for the project. AQUILA will also handle leasing of Alto.
INDIANAPOLIS — In a letter sent May 10 to Indianapolis-based Duke Realty Corp. (NYSE: DRE), San Francisco-based Prologis Inc. (NYSE: PLD) offered to acquire the firm in an all-stock transaction valued at $61.68 per share, which equates to about $23.7 billion. Under the terms of the proposal, Duke Realty stockholders would receive 0.466 shares of Prologis common stock for each share of Duke Realty common stock they own. The $61.68 figure is based on Prologis’ closing price on May 9, and represents a premium of 29 percent to Duke Realty’s closing price on the same date. Hamid Moghadam, CEO and co-founder of Prologis, said he is confident that the proposed combination will be a win-win for both company’s shareholders. Prologis first sent a letter to Duke Realty on Nov. 29 regarding a potential transaction at an exchange ratio of 0.465, representing a 20 percent premium to Duke Realty’s stock price at the time. On May 3, Prologis increased the proposed exchange ratio, but Duke Realty rejected the proposal that same evening. As of March 31, logistics real estate firm Prologis owned or had investments in properties and development projects totaling roughly 1 billion square feet in 19 countries. The company’s …