Property Type

MILWAUKEE — An affiliate of fifteenfortyseven Critical Systems Realty LLC, in partnership with Harrison Street, has acquired Milwaukee’s historic Wells Building. The purchase price was $7.25 million, according to the Milwaukee Business Journal. The 15-story, 165,000-square-foot building is located at 324 E. Wisconsin Ave. and dates back to 1901. The property has a long history as a communications center and once served as the Milwaukee headquarters for Western Union Telegraph Co. Today, the building serves as a carrier hotel and data center. A carrier hotel is a building in a downtown location that houses networks and cloud services. The buyer plans to make significant investments in the building’s power and cooling infrastructure. Ascendant Holdings LLC, a Wisconsin-based commercial real estate development and investment company, was the seller.

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

CLEVELAND — The NRP Group has broken ground on 5115 at The Rising, a 78-unit apartment community in Cleveland’s Broadway-Slavic Village. The project is being developed in collaboration with University Settlement, a social services provider that has been serving area residents for more than 90 years. In addition to the 78 apartment units, the development will include 10 townhomes. Project financing comes from The Ohio Housing Finance Agency, KeyBank, Ohio Capital Corp. for Housing, Third Federal Foundation and the City of Cleveland. University Settlement plans to relocate its corporate offices to a 20,000-square-foot commercial space on the ground floor of the building. Completion is slated for early 2022.

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

FOX RIVER GROVE, ILL. — Baceline Investments has acquired Foxmoor Crossing in Fox River Grove, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago. The purchase price was undisclosed. The 22,408-square-foot shopping center is 84 percent leased to tenants such as Panera Bread, T-Mobile, Merle Norman Cosmetics and the UPS Store. Foxmoor Crossing marks the 72nd property in Baceline’s core income fund. The Denver-based company owns neighborhood shopping centers in 27 different metro areas across the country.

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

WESTMONT, ILL. — Whiskey Hill Brewery & Kitchen has leased 3,740 square feet at Quincy Station in Westmont, about 18 miles west of Chicago. The company will operate a restaurant and bar at the new space. Whiskey Hill currently operates a production facility and tap room in Westmont. Restaurant industry veterans Matt Weil and Rob Salerno founded the company in 2018. Michael O’Connor of Holladay Properties negotiated the new lease at Quincy Station, which is a residential and retail project slated for completion in December 2021.

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

ALBERT LEA, MINN. — Upland Real Estate Group Inc. has brokered the $1.1 million sale of a two-tenant retail property in Albert Lea in southern Minnesota. Located on Bridge Avenue, the 7,000-square-foot, newly remodeled building is home to Verizon and Qdoba. It serves as an outparcel to Northbridge Mall. Keith Sturm, Deborah Vannelli and Amanda Leathers of Upland represented the seller. Pete Guidera and Tina Swanson of Coldwell Banker Realty represented the buyer. Neither the buyer nor the seller was disclosed.

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

Just a few months after getting hammered by a pandemic-induced recession, the U.S. economy is rebounding faster than anticipated, according to Mark Vitner, managing director and senior economist with Well Fargo Securities. During his keynote address to kick off the 11th annual InterFace Carolinas conference on Oct. 1, Vitner said the consensus estimate suggests U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at annualized rate of 30 percent in the third quarter. The Bureau of Economic Analysis will officially unveil its first estimate for third-quarter GDP on Thursday, Oct. 29. If realized, the gain would nearly offset the 31.4 percent decline in GDP in the second quarter. “This recession is the worst we’ve ever seen in terms of job loss and declines in GDP, but it was the shortest we’ve ever seen,” said Vitner. “All the decline we saw was in the second half of March and the first half of April. Since April 15 we’ve been recovering.” Employers added 661,000 jobs to the U.S. economy in September, which was nearly 200,000 jobs below the expectations of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. Still, the economy has recovered 11.4 million of the 22 million jobs lost since the beginning of …

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail
UMUSIC-Hotel-Biloxi

BILOXI, MISS. — A joint venture between California-based Universal Music Group (UMG) and hospitality investment firm Dakia U-Ventures has unveiled plans for a $1.2 billion hotel and music-themed entertainment destination in the coastal Mississippi city of Biloxi. The new development will be the first of the joint venture’s UMUSIC Hotels, with additional locations coming to Atlanta and Orlando. Each hotel and entertainment district is designed to educate guests on the city’s musical heritage and will feature new venues for live performances. Pyramid Hotel Group, a Boston-based hospitality management firm, has also partnered with UMG and Dakia to operate the hotels. The new hotel and entertainment venue in Biloxi will be developed at the site of the former Broadwater resort. A construction timeline was not released. The number of hotel rooms was not disclosed, and the joint venture did not specify whether or not the development will include a casino, as many hospitality properties in Biloxi do. Should the project feature a casino, the hotel would then be legally required to have at least 300 rooms, according to regional news outlet nola.com. Local media outlets have also reported that the price tag of $1.2 billion would make the project the most …

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail

For the Orlando retail market, which relies heavily on Central Florida’s $75 billion tourism industry, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been twofold. Not only has the local consumer base begun relying more heavily on online shopping and home-cooked meals, but the number of out-of-state and international visitors who typically travel to Central Florida for its renowned theme parks and attractions has plummeted. Statewide, Florida’s tourism industry suffered an estimated 60.5 percent drop in visitors during the year’s second quarter, with international travel down more than 90 percent, according to Visit Florida. Submarkets built around Walt Disney World, the Orange County Convention Center and Universal Orlando, such as International Drive, the U.S. Highway 192 Corridor and Celebration, have taken an especially hard hit. Many restaurants designed around a sit-down experience will not recover. Although creative solutions are in action, sidewalk seating and ghost kitchens can only generate so much revenue to recover restaurants’ already razor-thin margins. But out of the slump have come opportunities for some retailers to shine, whether they’ve adapted their business model or already happened to have pandemic-resistant infrastructure in place. Further, as the winners and losers of COVID-19-era retail become clear, retailers and restaurants that …

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail
Union-Broadway-Eugene-OR

EUGENE, ORE. — Pacific Western Bank has provided $60 million in construction financing for Union on Broadway, a mixed-use student housing development located at 476 E. Broadway St. near the University of Oregon in Eugene. Charles Halladay, Jordan Angel, Chris Ross, Teddy Leatherman, Stewart Hayes and Taylor Gimian of JLL worked on behalf of the borrowers, Greystar and Star America, to secure the loan. The 338,130-square-foot community will offer 608 beds in fully furnished units with bed-to-bath parity. Shared amenities will include ground floor retail space, a fitness center, study lounges on every floor, courtyards, conference rooms, activity and game rooms and an outdoor rooftop with a pool, fire pits and grills. A timeline for the development was not announced.

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail
City-Heights-Denver-CO

DENVER — The University of Colorado Denver has celebrated the topping out of its City Heights Residence Hall and Learning Commons development. The 182,000-square-foot residence hall — which will be the university’s first on-campus student housing complex — will offer 555 beds upon completion. The seven-story project is designed for first-year students and will feature two wings of residential units, a central campus dining hall on the ground floor and a 30,000-square-foot student services center. Named “The Learning Commons,” the student services center will also offer academic support and tutoring, faculty development programs and an expanded space to support online education. The development is scheduled for completion in August 2021 and is pursuing a LEED Gold certification. The project is being delivered by a design-build team that includes general contractor JE Dunn and Stantec. Stantec is providing architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, lighting and sustainability services on the development.

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmail