WOONSOCKET, R.I. AND MINNEAPOLIS — CVS Health Corp. (NYSE: CVS) has agreed to acquire Target’s (NYSE: TGT) pharmacy and clinic businesses for about $1.9 billion. The acquisition includes more than 1,660 pharmacies throughout 47 states. They will operate as a “store-within-a-store” format, and will be rebranded as CVS/pharmacy. The purchase also includes Target’s 80 in-store health clinics, which will now fall under the CVS MinuteClinic flag. CVS also plans to open 20 new clinics inside Target stores within three years of this transaction closing. This acquisition helps CVS realize its goal of operating 1,500 clinics by 2017. CVS Health and Target also plan to develop five to 10 small, flexible format stores over a two-year period once the transaction closes. The stores will be branded as TargetExpress. Each will include a CVS/pharmacy. Target and CVS Health will jointly evaluate and select locations for the new outposts. “This strategic relationship with Target supports the highly complementary customer base, brand and culture we share,” says Larry Merlo, CVS Health’s president and CEO. “When we introduced the new name for our company, CVS Health, we began a new era of growth with a broader healthcare focus and an appreciation of the rise of …
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NEW YORK — NorthStar Healthcare Income Inc. has acquired a $639.3 million portfolio of continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs) from subsidiaries of Fountains Senior Living Holdings LLC. The portfolio will continue to be operated by Watermark Retirement Communities Inc., a national operator of seniors housing facilities and affiliate of The Freshwater Group, Inc. In connection with the acquisition, NorthStar Healthcare obtained fixed-rate financing through Freddie Mac’s multifamily-seniors housing loan program, with an aggregate principal amount of $410 million, a fixed interest rate of 3.9 percent and a term of seven years. The portfolio consists of 15 CCRCs and 23 contracted life estate units, including 3,637 units located in 11 states, with the largest concentrations in New York, California, Florida and Michigan. The six entrance-fee properties were acquired directly by NorthStar Healthcare and leased to affiliates of Freshwater pursuant to a master net lease. The nine rental properties were purchased by a joint venture between NorthStar Healthcare and an affiliate of Freshwater, which own 97 percent and 3 percent of the joint venture, respectively, and will be operated by an affiliate of Freshwater pursuant to long-term management agreements. Occupancy of the portfolio was 85 percent as of March 31. “Watermark is a …
CHANHASSEN, MINN. AND NEW YORK — Life Time Fitness Inc., a fitness center chain headquartered in the Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen, Minn., has entered into a sale-leaseback transaction with Gramercy Property Trust Inc. (NYSE: GPT), a real estate investment trust (REIT) based in New York City. As per the sale-leaseback agreement, Gramercy will acquire a portfolio of 10 high-end fitness centers from Life Time Fitness for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $300.5 million. The REIT will then lease the portfolio back to Life Time Fitness for a 20-year term. For the combined portfolio, net operating income is anticipated to be approximately $19.5 million in the first year of the agreement. The portfolio totals approximately 1.3 million square feet located in major markets across the United States. The $300.5 million sale-leaseback transaction comes on the heels of an investor group’s acquisition of Life Time Fitness Inc., which is valued at more than $4 billion. The investor group is led by affiliates of Leonard Green & Partners and TPG. Other key investors include LNK Partners and Bahram Akradi, Life Time Fitness’ chairman, president and CEO. Up until yesterday, Life Time Fitness traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock …
MIAMI BEACH, FLA. — CIM Group has sold the SLS South Beach, a 140-room luxury boutique hotel in Miami Beach for $125 million. The hotel was jointly owned with sbe Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based hospitality company. According to the South Florida Business Journal, the buyer is 1701 Miami Owner, a company affiliated with Daniel Tain and Marco Ferri, based in Guernsey, an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy. CIM and sbe redeveloped the former Ritz Plaza Hotel, a 13-story building, to create the SLS Hotel South Beach, which opened in June 2012. Designer Philippe Starck oversaw the redevelopment, which included 124 rooms located in the historic tower, a separate building with 10 villas, six bungalows, and the addition of a 14,500-square-foot pool deck. Other renovations included the addition of restaurants such as The Bazaar and Katsuya. The SLS South Beach, located at 1701 Collins Ave. with 100 feet of beach frontage, was originally built in 1939 by South Beach architect L. Murray Dixon. The SLS Hotel South Beach features a rooftop architectural design depicting a lantern reaching to the sky. It is the tallest art deco-style structure in South Beach. Since January, including the SLS South …
SANTA MONICA, CALIF. — Hertz Investment Group has acquired a portfolio of six Class A office buildings in the Southeast for $417 million from Chicago-based Equity Commonwealth, according to media reports. The portfolio is comprised of more than 3 million square feet. The purchase of the buildings will introduce Santa Monica-based Hertz to three southern markets: Birmingham, Ala.; Columbia, S.C.; and Greensboro, N.C. The transaction is the largest acquisition in the company’s history. One of the properties included in the sale was One Shell Square, a 1.26 million-square-foot, 51-story tower in the New Orleans central business district, where Hertz already has a presence. Also included in the transaction were Inverness Central, a four-building complex with 475,895 square feet, located in suburban Birmingham; the Wells Fargo Tower, a 30-story tower with 514,893 square feet in Birmingham’s central business district; Meridian, a 17-story tower with 334,075 square feet in Columbia; 300 N. Greene St., a 21-story tower with 324,075 square feet in Greensboro; and 20th Place South, a four-story office building with 125,722 square feet, located in suburban Birmingham. Hertz plans to perform $2.2 million in renovations on the Wells Fargo Tower, $500,000 on 300 N. Greene and will spend $1 million …
Higher income seniors are now more likely to occupy seniors housing in their elderly years than those with moderate and low incomes, according to a study conducted by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT). This is a reverse from two generations ago, when higher-income seniors were more likely to age in place and those with lower incomes were more likely to move into subsidized seniors housing or an institution sponsored by a religious organization. Similarly, the percentage of elderly people entering seniors housing has increased compared to past times when most older Americans remained in their home for as long as physically possible. “The growth of the overall senior housing sector, the shift towards facilities that offer higher levels of services and amenities and the changing relationship between wealth and residency in a senior facility suggest that members of the Baby Boom generation may choose to live in senior housing at a higher rate than did earlier generations,” according to the study. The study examined the demographic and financial determinants of housing choices of older Americans, and how they have changed over the past several decades. NAREIT used information from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), …
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Summit Hotel Properties (NYSE: INN) has agreed to sell 26 hotel properties throughout the U.S. to American Realty Capital Hospitality Trust for $351.4 million. The portfolio contains 2,793 rooms, or about 19.6 percent of the company’s pro-forma hotel EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). The hotels are located in Oregon, Louisiana, Texas, Indiana, Arizona, Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, Florida, Washington and Colorado. The sale of the properties is scheduled to close in three separate tranches. The estimated sales dates are September and October of this year and January 2016. “We are very excited at the opportunity to recycle capital on a larger scale,” says Dan Hansen, Summit’s president and CEO. “This proposed transaction will enable us to continue to improve our asset mix and upgrade our portfolio with additional accretive acquisitions with strong growth profiles and diverse demand generators.” Adds Hansen: “Recycling capital to create long-term value for our shareholders is a proven strategy for us and one we consider to be a core strength.” The total sales price represents a cap rate in the mid-7 percent range based on trailing 12-month net operating income as of March 31. The 12-month revenue per available room (RevPAR) …
NEW YORK – HFF has arranged a $556 million construction loan for a full-block office development on Manhattan’s Park Avenue. The 47-story tower will be located at 425 Park Ave. in Midtown’s Plaza District. L&L Holding Company and GreenOak Real Estate are developing the 670,000-square-foot project. This will be the first full-block office development on Park Avenue in nearly 50 years, according to HFF. The new project will feature flexible floor plate sizes and layouts. All floors will contain views of Midtown. Central Park will be visible to floors 24 and higher. The development is also situated near Rockefeller Center. Project amenities include a private garage for tenants with a special car lobby, a private building entrance and a chauffeurs’ lounge. It will also contain a space dedicated to amenities on the 26th floor that will feature outdoor areas with views of Central Park, a wellness center, and dining, meeting and conference rooms. The lobby will contain an atrium with floor-to-ceiling glass. The building’s 56th Street and Park Avenue corner will boast a high-end restaurant, while the 55th Street and Park Avenue corner will house retail and gallery space. HFF’s Mike Tepedino, Michael Gigliotti and Jennifer Keller arranged the construction …
JERICHO, N.Y. — Getty Realty Corp. (NYSE: GTY) has acquired 77 convenience stores and retail motor fuel stations for $214 million. Located in California, Colorado, Washington, Nevada and Oregon, the acquired properties operate under several brands, including 76, Conoco, Circle K, 7-Eleven and My Goods Market. “This acquisition… achieves several important objectives for our company including materially expanding our geographic reach primarily in high growth regions and adding a new institutional quality tenant,” says David B. Driscoll, Getty’s president and CEO. “We believe the addition of these properties, combined with other activity in our portfolio, has materially improved the overall credit quality of our revenue stream. In addition, we believe we are positioned to provide sustained cash flow growth for shareholders in the coming years.” The 77 properties were acquired from affiliates of Pacific Convenience and Fuels LLC and simultaneously leased to United Oil, a leading regional convenience store and gas station operator. United Oil is triple-net leasing the 77 properties acquired by Getty for an initial term of 20 years, with three five-year renewal options. The company expects to receive $16.7 million of annual revenue from the transaction. United Oil operates approximately 400 locations in the western United States …
Nearly two-thirds of potential office renters consider image and “cool factor” when looking at a new space, according to a report from Transwestern Tenant Advisory Services (Transwestern TAS). The report, “Quantifying the Cool Factor in Real Estate,” was compiled based upon quantitative and qualitative responses from the company’s tenant advisors. According to Transwestern TAS, the analysis underscores the importance of intangible variables in real estate decisions. Of the respondents, 63 percent said that in more than half of transactions they facilitate a company’s image is a significant factor in its location decision; 18 percent said image is a significant factor in all transactions. The report found that more and more often, perhaps due to the attention paid to firms like Google, Microsoft and others that have integrated unique features into their workspaces, “cool” is the image clients aspire to project via their space. “We hear regularly from our occupier clients that they want ‘cool’ space,” says Amber Strang, executive managing director of Transwestern TAS. “Our cursory look at this topic aimed to better define the term and measure how big of an influence this variable is in the final decision-making process. What we found is that physical space first and …