BATON ROUGE, LA. — GBT Realty Corp., a Nashville-based commercial developer, has broken ground on a 6,600-square-foot retail center on Millerville Road in Baton Rouge. GBT acquired the nearly one-acre site from Target in February for $810,000. Shadow-anchored by Target, Best Buy, Lowe’s Home Improvement, PetSmart and Office Depot, the center is 100 percent pre-leased to tenants such as PacificDental, GNC and Zoes Kitchen.
SHREVEPORT, LA. — Transwestern has arranged the $9 million sale of East Side Plaza, a 78,761-square-foot shopping center located at 7460 Youree Drive in Shreveport. Dalton Street Properties purchased the shopping center from Eastside Dunhill. Built in 2004, the property’s tenant roster includes Michael’s, Guitar Center, Dollar Tree and Cato. Fred Victor of Transwestern represented Eastside Dunhill in the transaction.
MANDEVILLE, LA. — SRSA Commercial Real Estate has brokered the $17 million sale of Northlake Shopping Center, a 166,371-square-foot retail center in Mandeville, situated on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain across from New Orleans. Northlake’s tenant roster includes The Fresh Market, Office Depot, Stage, Gordon’s of Mandeville and PetSmart. Steven Reisig and Kirsten Early of SRSA Commercial represented the buyer, Epic Real Estate Partners, in the transaction. Epic has retained SRSA Gulf South Management, a division of SRSA, to manage and lease the center.
LIVONIA, MICH. — Schostak Brothers & Co. Inc., a metro Detroit-based real estate investment firm, has purchased a portfolio of six retail properties adjacent to Walmart Supercenters in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. The company purchased the assets, which total nearly 160,000 square feet, through SFP Pool Seven LLC for an undisclosed price. The properties include Eagle Plaza-Ruston at 1401 Eagle Drive in Ruston, La.; Eagle Plaza-Farmerville at 775 Sterlington Highway in Farmerville, La.; Eagle Plaza-Forest at 1303 Highway 35 South in Forest, Miss.; Eagle Plaza-Cleveland at 710 N. Davis Ave. in Cleveland, Miss.; Sulphur Marketplace at 301-341 N. Cities Services Highway in Sulphur, La.; and Stone Street Plaza at 1101 Stone St. in Kilgore, Texas. Occupancy for the six locations averages 92 percent, with tenants including Cato Fashions, Dollar Tree, Hibbett Sports, PetSense, Rue 21 and Shoe Show. With these transactions, Schostak Brothers has 73 shadow Walmart retail assets in its portfolio.
LAKE CHARLES, LA. — Venture Commercial Real Estate and SRSA Commercial Real Estate, two real estate brokerage firms and members of X Team International, have arranged a 19,019-square-foot retail lease in Lake Charles. The tenant, Northern Tool + Equipment, will be situated within Park Plaza Shopping Center at 3031 Gertsner Memorial Drive. Clay Mote of Venture Commercial worked with Kirsten Early of SRSA Commercial to negotiate the 10-year lease deal on behalf of the retailer, and Seth Citron of Stirling Properties represented the landlord.
New Orleans may be The Big Easy, but when it comes to understanding this unique Southern city’s commercial real estate marketplace, very little is easy or simple. The numbers, at least, are fairly straightforward. New Orleans currently has around 8.8 million square feet of Class A office space and 1.6 million square feet of Class B. Average rental rates are approximately $19.00 per square foot and $15.50 per square foot for Class A and Class B, respectively, with current occupancy rates at 89.5 percent for Class A and 71 percent for Class B. By way of comparison, the popular suburban Metairie market has around 2 million square feet of Class A and 1.5 million square feet of Class B office space, with occupancy rates at 93 percent and 88.2 percent, respectively (both down slightly from 2014 highs of 95 percent and 92 percent). Average rental rates are approximately $24.00 per square foot in Class A properties and $19.50 for Class B. The numbers in the suburban North Shore market are similarly healthy, with rates and occupancy numbers in the same general range as Metairie. Look beyond the surface numbers, however, and things get interesting, and a little more complicated. In …
HAMMOND, LA. — The Home Depot has closed on its purchase of 9.7 acres of land for a new 106,000-square-foot store and 28,000-square-foot garden center as part of the redevelopment of Hammond Square, a 850,000-square-foot shopping center in Hammond developed and managed by Stirling Properties. Hammond Square is situated on nearly 100 acres at the corner of I-12 and US Highway 51 Business. Existing tenants include Target, AMC Theatres, Dillard’s, JC Penney, Academy Sports + Outdoors and Sears. The Home Depot is set to begin construction on the new store before the end of the year and open in 2017.
NEW ORLEANS — CBRE has arranged a $32.5 million loan to refinance 925 Common, a 15-story apartment building in downtown New Orleans. Built in 1952 as offices for Shell Oil, the building was converted to a 108-unit multifamily development in 2006. The sponsor, Belmont Commons LLC, recently completed extensive renovations at 925 Common, including adding 91 units, a new rooftop infinity-edge pool, new fitness center and an expanded parking garage. The property’s 10,400 square feet of ground-level retail space was also activated to include a Rooster Club Barber Shop and Goldberg’s Bagel Co. & Deli. Jonathan Rice of CBRE’s Atlanta office arranged the 10-year loan through Benefit Street Partners. 925 Common is situated in the central business district of New Orleans and is adjacent to The Roosevelt and across from Canal Street and the French Quarter.
BATON ROUGE, LA. — Blueprint Healthcare Real Estate Advisors has brokered the $11.5 million sale of Oakwood Village, a 77-unit independent living, assisted living and memory care community in Baton Rouge. Blueprint represented the seller, a regional owner-operator divesting its only seniors housing asset. The buyer was a subsidiary of Florida-based specialty insurer Fortegra Financial Corp., an affiliate of Tiptree Financial Inc. New York City-based Care Investment Trust LLC will serve as asset manager of Oakwood Village, and Traditions Senior Management of Clearwater, Fla., will provide management services. Jacob Gehl was the lead Blueprint advisor on the transaction, supported by Michael Segal. Clint Parker and Jeremy Joiner from Brown Gibbons Lang & Co. Real Estate Partners assisted in the transaction.
NEW ORLEANS — The 14th annual National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) Student Housing Conference & Exposition was held Sept. 28-30 at the New Orleans Marriott in Louisiana, with over 700 leaders from all facets of the sector convening to network, discuss and dine over a range of industry topics. The outlook throughout the conference was overwhelmingly bright. Each panel and session showed the sector to be robust, with reports of rising rental rates, a record year in asset sales in the sector, and increasing investor interest and capital entering the student housing market. The conference began on Wednesday, Sept. 28, with opening remarks by NMHC president Doug Bibby, followed by a panel titled “Keeping Count: The Public Company Perspective.” Led by CEO of Peak Campus Bob Clark, the panel went in-depth with the CEOs of the two public REITs in the industry — Bill Bayless, president and CEO of American Campus Communities (ACC), and Randy Churchey, chairman and CEO of Education Realty Trust (EdR). Clark began the panel with a variety of statistics on the sector today, as reported by Axiometrics. New supply deliveries for the last five years have been 61,000-beds in 2013; 62,000-beds in 2014; 47,000-beds in 2015; 48,000-beds in 2016; and 36,000 …