ST. LOUIS — Hilliker Corp. has brokered the sale of a 132,000-square-foot warehouse building in St. Louis. The sales price was not disclosed. Serioplast purchased the building with plans to convert it into a plastic bottle manufacturing plant. This will be the company’s first location in North America. Production is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2018. The building is located at 4400 Planned Industrial Drive near I-70. Chris Taff of Hilliker Corp. represented both Serioplast and the seller, Lineage Warehousing.
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CHICAGO — Convene, an operator of full-service meeting and event venues, has signed a 55,000-square-foot office lease for the entire third floor of the 108-story Willis Tower in Chicago. This will be the largest location for the operator of full-service meeting and event venues. Convene provides companies with an outsourced real estate solution for housing large-scale conferences, town halls, corporate events, training sessions and board meetings. The company’s in-house architecture and design team will design the location in Willis Tower. Planned features include 11 flexible meeting and event spaces, as well as breakout space, reception space and two large private outdoor patios, all available for rent by building tenants and outside enterprise companies. The largest rooms will accommodate up to 600 participants. Todd Siegel, Phil Golding and Kim Wiskup of CBRE represented the landlord, Equity Office, in the lease transaction. Craig Coupe and Corey Siegrist of JLL represented Convene. The company plans to occupy the space by the third quarter of 2019.
ORLAND PARK, ILL. — Baum Realty Group LLC has arranged the sale of a two-tenant retail building in Orland Park for $2.3 million. The property is located at 24 Orland Square Drive. Blaze Pizza and Pearle Vision occupy the property. Patrick Forkin, Brad Teitelbaum and Graham Gold of Baum represented the seller, a local development group. A private West Coast investor was the buyer.
EAST PEORIA, ILL. — Cullinan Properties is developing a 7,680-square-foot retail building at The Levee District in East Peoria. The multi-tenant building, currently under construction in central Illinois, will be located at 4015 Spinder Drive between Panda Express and McDonald’s. T-Mobile will open at the building this fall, with additional tenants to be announced. Anchored by Target, The Levee District is over 90 percent occupied by tenants including Ross, Ulta, Tequila’s Mexican Restaurant, Jenny Craig and Heartland Dental. The property encompasses more than 86 acres.
BENTONVILLE, ARK., AND NEW YORK CITY — Walmart (NYSE: WMT) has agreed to acquire online apparel retailer Bonobos Inc. for approximately $310 million in cash. Walmart, the giant discount department store chain, expects to complete the transaction by September. The announcement comes on the heels of Walmart’s acquisition of online women’s apparel retailer ModCloth in March. Founded in 2007 by Andy Dunn and Brian Spaly, New York-based Bonobos designs and sells its own brands of clothing for men. These brands will be featured and sold on various Walmart-owned digital platforms, including Jet.com, which Bentonville-based Walmart acquired in August 2016 for approximately $3 billion. Bonobos also operates 35 physical retail locations, known as Guideshops, across the United States. Walmart currently has no plans to feature lines of Bonobos clothing in its brick-and-mortar locations, according to The New York Times. Under the terms of the agreement, Dunn, the current CEO of Bonobos, will oversee the company’s collection of clothing brands that are designed in-house and distributed online. Marc Lore, CEO of Walmart U.S. e-commerce and founder of Jet.com, says the acquisition reflects the company’s long-term e-commerce strategy. “We’re seeing momentum in the [e-commerce] business as we expand our value proposition with customers,” he …
When comparing Birmingham’s industrial market to other major cities in the Southeast, “The Tortoise and the Hare” comes to mind. Birmingham has had slow and steady progress — not to say that our sister cities have periods of laziness and napping. Birmingham’s current pace of activity is more the norm and thankfully the trends remain positive with 2016’s transaction numbers actually tilting in the direction of a “hare-like” pace. Occupancy rates for the 15 million-square-foot, multi-tenant industrial market eclipsed 90 percent for the first time since 2005. We had positive absorption of over 400,000 square feet with just under 1.5 million square feet of inventory remaining. During 2016, 12 new lease transactions of 50,000 square feet and larger were completed, eight of which were automotive related. These 12 transactions compare to seven and eight in 2014 and 2015, respectively, which is a strong increase. Leases of note include 270,600 square feet to a third-party logistics provider for Mercedes-Benz; 240,240 square feet to Grupo Antolin, a Spanish-based supplier of interior parts for Mercedes-Benz; and a 225,496-square-foot lease directly with Mercedes-Benz. Much of the remaining 1.5 million square feet of inventory is Class B or lower quality, so finding suitable space has …
CARTERET, LODI, SADDLE BROOK, SOUTH HACKENSACK AND WEST CALDWELL, N.J. — The Hampshire Cos. has completed the sale of a six-building industrial portfolio totaling 1.2 million square feet in Northern New Jersey. An undisclosed buyer acquired the portfolio for $146.8 million. The portfolio comprises 200 Middlesex Avenue in Carteret (408,437 square feet); 39 Robinson Road in Lodi (73,373 square feet); 301 Mayhill Street in Saddle Brook (200,000 square feet); 30 Wesley & Worth in South Hackensack (245,824 square feet); and 5 Henderson Drive (210,530 square feet) and 2 Dedrick Place (80,000 square feet) in West Caldwell. At the time of sale, the stabilized portfolio was 96 percent leased to a variety of tenants, including Continental Terminals, R.R. Donnelley, FreshPro Food Distributors and Sealed Air. Joe Thornton Jr., Jon Mikula, Jose Cruz, David Giancola and Robert Borny of HFF represented the seller in the transaction.
NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J. — Mountain Development Corp. has acquired an office building located at 41 Spring St. in New Providence for an undisclosed price. The building features 170,000 square feet of Class A office space. Geoffrey Schubert and Nick Savage of CBRE represented the buyer and undisclosed seller in the transaction. Jordan Roeschlaub of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank assisted the buyer in securing financing for the acquisition.
JERSEY CITY, N.J. — HAP Investments has raised $6.8 million through a private placement in Israel for 544 participation units, each valued at $12,500. The units are not tradable and are not listed for trading on any stock exchange. HAP Tower Journal Square Limited Partnership will use the capital to partially fund the development of an 800-unit multifamily tower located in the Journal Square section of Jersey City. In order to fully fund the $437 million project, another funding round will take place. The private placement was approved by the Israeli Securities Authority, an entity similar to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Monticello Provides $69.3M Acquisition Loan for 616-Bed Skilled Nursing Portfolio in Massachusetts
by Amy Works
NEW YORK CITY — New York-based Monticello Asset Management, through one of its investment vehicles, has provided $69.3 million in acquisition financing for a four-property skilled nursing portfolio in Massachusetts. The borrower was 50 Christy Place LLC. The specific facilities acquired were not disclosed. The portfolio totals 616 beds, including 100 for assisted living, with an average year built is 1994. The properties have an average total land area of 3.8 acres and an average size of 70,000 square feet. The new owners plan to improve operating efficiencies and leverage a large network of corporate services and operating experience. The financing was structured as a bridge-to-HUD transaction.