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OKLAHOMA CITY AND LINCOLN, NEB. — Phoenix-based Cole Real Estate Investments has purchased two Midwestern office properties for a total of $51 million. The seller in the deal was KDC Real Estate & Investments. The first property is the CSAA Operations Center in Oklahoma City. The property was developed in 2009 as a build-to-suit for the California State Automobile Association (CSAA) Inter-Insurance Bureau, an affiliate of AAA of Northern California. The CSAA net leases the entire Class A building, which totals 147,107 square foot and is LEED-Silver certified. The second property is Dell Marketing's Lincoln facility. Constructed in 2009, the entire 150,000-square-foot, Class A building is net leased by Dell Marketing, which uses it for business operations including a call center. The building is also LEED-Silver certified. The purchase is part of Cole's strategy of acquisition mission critical properties with a focus on Class A assets that are under long-term net leases to high-credit tenants. Boyd Messmann, Cole's vice president of acquisitions, provided in-house representation on behalf of his company. — Coleman Wood

MIAMI — London Square, a 299,103-square-foot mixed-use property located in Miami, has traded in a $95.25 million deal. The buyer was RREEF, acting on behalf of a foreign client. The seller was an affiliate of Boca Raton, Fla.-based Woolbright Development. The deal was brokered by the National Retail Investment Group Florida Team at CB Richard Ellis. London Square is situated at the intersection of 137th Avenue and 120th Street. It consists of a 238,438-square-foot retail center and a 60,665-square-foot office building. The property is currently 99 percent leased by a tenant roster that includes Dollar Tree, Miami Children's Hospital, Party City, Ross Dress for Less, Sergio's, Starbucks and Tj Maxx/Homegoods. London Square also contains a 150,535-square-foot Costco that was not included in the sale. “The London Square sale is the largest transaction involving an open-air shopping center in Florida since 2008,” said Casey Rose, senior vice president for CB Richard Ellis, in a statement. “The buyer was interested in a stable, core-quality investment involving excellent real estate and London Square met that criteria. More broadly, the transaction solidly confirms that institutional capital has regained enough confidence in the market to make a major investment in Florida retail property.” — Coleman …

BOSTON — Boston Properties has purchased Boston's iconic John Hancock Tower for $930 million. The locally based REIT purchased the building from a joint venture between Normandy Real Estate Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners. Constructed in 1976, John Hancock Tower is a 60-story, approximately 2 million-square-foot office building located in the city's Back Bay neighborhood at 200 Clarendon Street. The Class A property was originally constructed for John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. and is the city's tallest building. Occupancy was 97 percent at the time of closing. The current tenant roster includes State Street Corp., Manulife Financial Corp., Bain Capital, Ernst & Young, CRA International and Berkshire Partners. The deal also included the tower's adjacent 2,013-space parking garage. Boston Properties already has a significant presence in the city's Back Bay submarket. It controls Prudential Center, a 3.2 million-square-foot mixed-use project that comprises 2.6 million square feet of office space and 620,000 square feet of retail space. The REIT is currently developing a mixed use project in the city's Waterfront submarket. Atlantic Wharf will include a 31-story, 750,000-square-foot office tower along with 30,000 square feet of retail space, 70 to 80 residential units, a 650-car parking garage, a waterfront …

QUINCY, MASS. — The Quincy City Council has approved the master agreement for the redevelopment of the city's Quincy Center area. The City has partnered with White Plains, N.Y.-based Street-Works Development LLC, a company with a history of urban redevelopment projects, to complete the $1.28 billion facelift to the downtown area, which has languished in recent years as retail and commercial users moved out to the suburbs. At full build-out, the New Quincy Center will contain 1 million square feet of new office space, 580,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, a cinema and entertainment complex, two hotels and more than 700 units of housing. Initial plans include a community college, a wellness center, and programming one of the hotels to business travelers and the other to visitors. In an effort to make the area more pedestrian friendly and encourage outdoor retail uses, sidewalks will be widened to approximately 20 feet. Several small parking garages will be constructed throughout the project. A 4-acre public green space connecting to a new historic and cultural center will also be constructed. Infrastructure improvements, which will total $277 million alone, are set to begin in mid-2012 and will be complete by 2013. After …

NEW YORK CITY — Google has closed on its acquisition of 111 Eighth Avenue, an approximately 3 million-square-foot office building located in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. While the acquisition price was not disclosed, reports earlier this month claimed the deal was worth more than $1.8 billion. Google has occupied the 15-story building since 2006 and is its largest tenant. The seller, a joint venture between Taconic Investment Partners, Jamestown Properties and the New York State Common Retirement Fund, has spent the past several years seeking to attract more high-profile tenants. The joint venture purchased the building in January 1998 and completed a $68 million renovation that repositioned the space from its previous reputation for back-office and warehouse users. The current tenant roster also includes WebMD, Nike, Deutsche Advertising, Lifetime TV and Armani AX. The building was originally constructed 1932 by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. According to local reports, the sellers originally put the building up for auction in September, and Google quickly entered into exclusive negotiations to purchase it, with a purchase agreement being signed earlier this month. Taconic Investment's subsidiary, Taconic Management Co., will remain on board to manage the property for Google. “Google New …

MIAMI — I&G Miami Inc. has acquired the iconic Miami Tower from an affiliate of Atlanta-based Wealth Capital Investments for $105.5 million in what is being touted as one of the largest real estate transactions in Miami this year. Designed by I.M. Pei and constructed in 1987, Miami Tower contains 600,000 square feet of Class A office space. Occupancy was 80 percent at the time of closing, and tenants at the building include UBS Financial Services, Vector Group and several law firms. The building contains a host of amenities that include a sky lobby and terrace on the 11th floor, three restaurants, a health club, a 150-seat auditorium, a florist and a hair salon. The building contains 20,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space that is tenanted by the café Au Bon Pain, U.S. Century Bank and a dry cleaners. Miami Tower also contains a dedicated Metro Rail station and is connected to the Miami Convention Center and the Hyatt Regency Miami. The seller, Blue Capital US East Coast Properties LP, recently completed a $2 million capital improvements program to the building. Part of the renovations focused on increasing the energy efficiency of the building. The Holliday Fenoglio Fowler team …

ARLINGTON, VA. — ING Clarion Partners has acquired an Arlington apartment community in a $118.5 million deal. Millennium at Metropolitan Park was completed this year. It is located at 1330 S. Fair St. near the Crystal City submarket and within three blocks of a Metro subway station. Millennium at Metropolitan Park is an 18-story tower that contains 300 apartments and 7,800 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The residences comprise 17 studio units, 155 one-bedrooms, 125 two-bedrooms and three three-bedrooms. The average unit size is 932 square feet. Community amenities include concierge service and the 11,000-square-foot, rooftop Metropolitan Club. “We have historically viewed the Northern Virginia-Washington, D.C., corridor very positively,” said Marc DeLuca, director of ING Clarion, in a statement. “The area continues to be resilient with above-average growth in population and median household income. The Millennium at Metropolitan Park is a top-quality building and is well positioned to benefit from these strong fundamentals.” The seller's name was not released. — Coleman Wood

NEW YORK CITY — The next step to making Manhattan's expansive Hudson Yards project a reality was reached last week when Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group entered into a contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to begin site preparation work. This stage of development will include the demolition of the site's vacant Metals Purchasing Building to make way for the construction of the project's first buildings. Tishman Construction Co. will manage the demolition of the 60,000-square-foot building, which will take four months to complete. Related and Oxford are waiting for tenant commitments to begin construction of Hudson Yards' office component, which could come as early as 2012. The first building could be complete as early as 2015. “We have seen a great deal of interest from large-scale corporate tenants and are excited to be taking the steps necessary to meet their aggressive timelines,” said Jay Cross, president of Related Oxford Hudson Yards, the joint venture affiliate developing the project, in a statement. “Hudson Yards will represent New York's premier mixed-use neighborhood, and we are progressing steadily.” Hudson Yards represents a massive undertaking. The project is being constructed, in part, atop the Caemmerer Rail Yard, and the construction of …

NEW YORK CITY — Bethesda, Md.-based multifamily lender Walker & Dunlop is getting a jump on what it sees as the imminent turnaround of the commercial real estate industry by completing its plan to go public. The company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange December 15 under the ticker symbol “WD”. Walker & Dunlop priced 10 million shares of common stock at a price of $10 per share. For the lender, going public provides it with the high brand recognition its publicly traded competitors already have. As of last year, Walker & Dunlop was the ninth largest commercial real estate lender in the country and the 5th largest originator of Fannie Mae loans. It also provides the company with greater access to capital than it had as a private company. There are other benefits as well. “[Going public] opens up a whole new realm of opportunities for partnerships and growth, and attracting talented individuals to our platform,” says William Walker, chairman, president and CEO of Walker & Dunlop. The company will need the clout to help it achieve its long-term goals. Walker sees the next few years will see a much increased demand for commercial real estate loans …

FORT HOOD, TEXAS — The ceremonial groundbreaking has been held for the new Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood. The $534 million project will replace the current medical center, which was originally built in 1965. The U.S. Army Medical Command and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will develop the new medical center on 70 acres near the original hospital. At 947,000 square feet, the new center is 60 percent larger than the current one. The new facility will feature a six-story hospital tower, three outpatient specialty clinic buildings and three parking garages. Of note, the new hospital will feature expanded behavioral health services, pediatrics, and maternity facilities. The number of patient beds will increase from 128 to 151, and the size of the operating rooms will increase. The new medical center will also be seeking LEED-Gold certification. The general contractor is a joint venture between Balfour Beatty Construction and McCarthy Building Companies. The projects architects are HKS Architects and Wingler & Sharp. According to Fort Hood officials, the new Darnall Medical Center is the largest project in the Department of Defense's medical construction program and the largest DOD project to be financed with funds from the …