DALLAS — Lee & Associates has brokered the sale of a 101,492-square-foot industrial building located at 10355 Sanden Drive in Dallas. According to LoopNet Inc., the single-tenant property was built in 1994 and features 24-foot clear heights and 16 dock-high loading doors. Taylor Stell and Brett Lewis of Lee & Associates represented the buyer, Rotary Corp., in the transaction. The seller was not disclosed.
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Furniture Mall of Texas will open a 95,000-square-foot store at Shops at Tech Ridge, a 519,354-square-foot retail power center in Austin. The opening is scheduled for this summer. Lance Morris and P.J. Kaminer of The Retail Connection represented the landlord, RD Management, in the lease negotiations. The store will be the company’s third. Other tenants at Shops at Tech Ridge include Floor & Décor, Fitness Connection, Conn’s HomePlus, Ross Dress for Less, Burke’s Outlet and PetSmart. The company will occupy a space formerly leased to Target.
Mark Fogel, president and CEO of ACRES Capital, believes alternative lenders can maintain their flexibility and creativity where perhaps more traditional lenders cannot. He believes this will be important as the country continues its unprecedented upcycle, with a potential downturn threatening in the next 18 months or so. Finance Insight (FI): As an alternative lender focused on the middle market, can you tell me a little bit more about alternative lenders and your specific areas of expertise in comparison with traditional funding sources? Fogel: Traditional lenders offer an important role in most communities as a source of funding. However, they are restricted by regulations that impede their ability to take on riskier transactions and go higher on the capital stack. In this regard, alternative lenders can step in and provide capital and opportunity for those projects that are going through a redevelopment or are repurposed from their original business plan. FI: Do you lend against all property types and pursue projects in all geographical regions of the U.S.? Fogel: ACRES seeks out opportunities on an asset-by-asset basis. We do not necessarily follow market trends, but rather identify alternative situations where, from a debt perspective, our basis is low and the …
Despite enduring a federal government shutdown for 35 days that temporarily put a crimp in loan processing, the HUD/FHA Section 232 mortgage insurance program used to finance seniors housing properties rallied to post a solid performance in fiscal year 2019. The volume of loans closed during the 12-month period that started Oct. 1, 2018 and ended Sept. 30, 2019 totaled $3.7 billion. That’s up from $3.6 billion the prior fiscal year. The HUD/FHA Section 232 program — more commonly referred to as the HUD Lean program — helps finance nursing homes and assisted living facilities, as well as board and care facilities. The Lean process developed by HUD in 2008 is a methodology based on the Toyota model to increase efficiency by reducing waste. In short, the goal is to eliminate historical inefficiencies in the processing and approval of HUD loan applications. Dissecting the data Although the government shutdown that occurred in late December 2018 and January 2019 resulted in the program’s loan count dropping from 317 to 288 on a year-over-year basis, the average loan amount increased 14 percent during the same period to reach a record high of nearly $13 million. “This was driven not only by some …
HARKER HEIGHTS, TEXAS — JLL has negotiated the sale of Market Heights Shopping Center, a 417,167-square-foot regional lifestyle center in the Central Texas city of Harker Heights. Built in 2008, the property sits on 62.2 acres and was 89.4 percent leased at the time of sale. Tenants include Cinemark, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Barnes & Noble, Ross Dress for Less, Old Navy, Petco, Ulta Beauty and Bed Bath & Beyond. Adam Howells of JLL represented the undisclosed institutional seller in the off-market transaction, and procured the buyer, Direct Retail Partners. Mark Brandenburg and Tim Jordan of JLL arranged a four-year, floating-rate acquisition loan for the buyer through Bayview Asset Management.
RICHMOND, TEXAS — Locally based builder CJ Development has purchased 42.6 acres at Grand Parkway and West Bellfort Street in the northern Houston suburb of Richmond for a commercial project that will be named Grand Center at Long Meadow Farms. The company previously purchased an adjacent 15-acre tract, creating a total of 58 acres for the new development. The project will feature a 46,000-square-foot retail center, and other tracts will be sold to individual buyers for various uses. Retail tenants that have committed to the center include Members Choice Credit Union, Spring Creek BBQ, Pet Suites, Service First and 7-Eleven. Chris Bergmann Jr. of JLL represented the undisclosed seller in the disposition of the land. Alan Chodrow of Chodrow Realty Advisors represented CJ Development. NewQuest Properties is handling leasing of the project.
PASADENA, TEXAS — United Equities will develop Phase II of Beltway-225 Business Park, an industrial project that fronts Beltway 8 in the eastern Houston suburb of Pasadena. Phase I of the project delivered 85,500 square feet, and the first two completed buildings of that phase have been leased to Cooper Valves (21,000 square feet) and PTR Holland Maritime (18,500 square feet). Travis Land and Michael Keegan of NAI Partners represented United Equities in both lease negotiations. Phase II of the project, a construction timeline for which was not released, will include two tilt-wall buildings totaling 46,000 square feet.
HOUSTON — Occidental Petroleum Corp. has signed a 91,986-square-foot office lease expansion at Three Greenway Plaza in Houston. The energy giant now occupies more than 972,000 square feet at the 52-acre Greenway Plaza campus, which serves as its U.S. headquarters. Brandon Clarke, Charles Gordon, Steve Hesse and Ryan Roth of CBRE represented Occidental in the lease negotiations. Rima Soroka represented the landlord, Parkway, on an internal basis.
HOUSTON — LMI Capital, a Real Estate Capital Alliance (RECA) member, has arranged an $8 million bridge loan for the acquisition of a 150-unit apartment community in the Houston area. The loan was structured with an 80 percent loan-to-value ratio and 2.5 years of interest-only payments. The financing includes proceeds to fund a capital improvement program. Brandon Brown of LMI Capital placed the loan on behalf of the undisclosed borrower. The lender and property name were also not disclosed.
Retail landlords want to fill space, especially given that large gluts of it have been returned to market as store closures have accelerated, a move that has coincided with entertainment users that want to expand their footprints. But the logistics of bringing entertainment concepts into retail spaces — particularly vacated junior or big box spaces — are very complicated. This holds particularly true for entertainment concepts that involve movies and bowling. Ceiling heights and column spacing, for example, prevent many spaces from being repurposed cost-effectively for entertainment uses like bowling alleys and theaters. In addition, lease terms for these deals are often based on traditional retail metrics like sales per square foot. According to Howard Samuels, president of California-based advisory and brokerage firm Samuels & Co., there is a strong disconnect between entertainment uses and conventional retail real estate that has yet to fully integrate experiential uses or “location-based entertainment (LBE).” “Entertainment retail as a backfiller of boxes is a misnomer,” says Samuels, whose firm specializes in entertainment transactions. “Those users typically don’t want fixed walls and need higher ceiling heights. Most location-based entertainment concepts are very challenging to design, develop, open and operate. These concepts have very specific criteria …