Top Stories

MCLEAN, VA. — Hilton Hotels Corp. has signed a lease with B.F. Saul Real Estate Investment Trust for space in its 323,000-square-foot Park Place II office tower for an undisclosed amount. The property is located at 7930 Jones Branch Dr. in McLean. The 10-year lease secures roughly 107,600 square feet of the LEED Gold-certified building for Hilton’s new global headquarters. Dan Evans and Jeff Groh from Jones Lang LaSalle’s McLean office represented Hilton in the transaction. Hilton will relocate its operations from Beverly Hills, Calif., during the third quarter, a move that represents a more effective and efficient way to operate the company. According to a Hilton spokeswoman, from its new perch in Virginia, Hilton will be closer to the high concentration of hotel and real estate companies located in Washington, D.C. An additional incentive arose from a quality of life issue. The cost of living in McLean is much lower than in Beverly Hills, and employees will also benefit from shorter commute times. “Through a rigorous review process, we determined that the Fairfax County location offers us cost savings in the tens of millions of dollars per year,” she says, adding that Hilton has corporate and divisional properties in …

CHICAGO — Willis Group Holdings, a leading risk management and insurance brokerage firm, has acquired naming rights to Chicago’s iconic Sears Tower, along with taking a significant amount of space with the office building. The 110-story tower, which is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, will now be known as Willis Tower. The company is occupying 140,000 square feet, which it has leased for $14.50 per square foot, within the 3.8 million-square-foot building. The naming rights come at no additional cost. The lease agreement with Willis comes at a critical time for building owner 233 S. Wacker Drive LLC, as its largest tenant, Ernst & Young, has plans to vacate its approximately 387,000-square-foot space (including sublease space) for 204,000 square feet within The John Buck Company’s new office tower at 155 N. Wacker Drive. Willis Group is consolidating its Chicago-area operations from five area offices — located at 10 South LaSalle Street, One East Wacker Drive and 222 North Riverside Drive, as well as in Oak Brook and Lombard — and plans to house approximately 500 employees in the new space when it takes occupancy. The move is expected to be complete by late summer. The location will serve …

CANTON, GA. — Jeff Fuqua, president of St. Petersburg, Fla.-based The Sembler Co., has had his eye on Cherokee County, Ga., for a long time. As of the 2000 census, he says, the city was home to 57,634 people with an average income of more than $70,000. With numbers like those, Fuqua knew his 800,000-square-foot Canton Marketplace retail development would thrive. “Cherokee County has become one of the fastest-growing areas in Georgia,” he says. Fourteen tenants will soon open their doors at the $120 million Canton Marketplace, which is located off Exit 19 on Highway 20 in Canton. Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, Books-A-Million, Dick’s Clothing and Sporting Goods, Kirkland’s, Kohl’s, Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse, PetsMart and T.J. Maxx will open throughout March and April. Chick-fil-A, SunTrust Bank and The Olive Garden have also taken up residence on outparcels. The idea for Canton Marketplace was hatched 6 years ago, an offshoot of the proposed 415-acre Canton Place. When completed, Canton Place will include residential properties, office space and a hospital. Breaking ground on Canton Marketplace was tough work, literally. “Every project we approach has a number of challenges,” he says. “Being at the edge of the mountains, we had …

WEST BLOOMFIELD, MICH. — The $360 million Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital is nearing completion, and is scheduled to open to the public on March 15. The 730,000-square-foot, all-private room facility, which is attached to the existing Henry Ford Medical Center in West Bloomfield, is the first new hospital Henry Ford Health System has built since 1915. Of the 300 beds at the facility, 191 will open in March, with remaining beds scheduled to open in 2011. In order to ensure a quieter stay for patients, individual rooms do not share common walls or ceilings, which eliminates noise. Other amenities of the rooms include smart technology and space for patients’ families. Adding to the uniqueness of the hospital, a 16-bed inpatient unit has been designated for female patients only. Additionally, according to the president and CEO of the hospital, the facility will be the first to introduce patients to food menus that will contribute to the healing process, as well as integrated wellness programs designed to promote restoring, maintaining and improving health status. Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital will offer full-service medical and surgical services in orthopedics, obstetrics and gynecology, urology, neurosurgery and back surgery, pediatric urology, cardiovascular, women's health, …

ST. PAUL, MINN. — The University of St. Thomas Board of Trustees has approved construction of a $52 million athletic and recreation complex on the university’s main campus in St. Paul. Upon completion of the athletic facility, the university has plans to construct a $66 million student center on the same campus. “The construction jobs associated with a project of this scope come as good news to the local economy,” explains Jim Winterer, the new service director for the University of St. Thomas. “Beyond that, this is a project that is important to the long-term success of the university.” Construction of the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex will start in late May, with completion slated for fall 2010. The existing Shoenecker Arena, Coughlan Field House and Foley Theater will be demolished to make room for the 180,000-square-foot facility, which will be located east of St. Thomas’ football stadium. The three-level structure will include a 2,000-seat basketball and volleyball arena; an aquatic center containing an eight-lane, 25-meter swimming pool and diving area; and a new field house with a 200-meter track, locker rooms, meeting rooms, training rooms and other support facilities. Additionally, the west wing of the building will house a …

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. — When DLH Sports opens its 230,000-square-foot DLH Sports Complex in September in Virginia Beach, it will mark the completion of a 5-year process. Long before the recession started affecting the lending markets and real estate projects across the country slowed to a crawl, officials were still straining to push the $18 million development forward. The reason? Location. Developers chose a perfect site situated near the 400-acre Airport Industrial Park, but the land had been previously used as a borrow pit. “That’s where they dig a big hole and borrow the soil to build roads,” says Robert Ruhl of the Virginia Beach Department of Economic Development. A decade ago, the gaping hole was filled with construction debris. “You had some stuff down there that probably wasn’t the most environmentally clean.” Plans for the complex were eventually pushed through, and DLH broke ground on the facility 8 months ago. Inside the property, two $1 million turf fields, two swimming pools and weight rooms for professional and amateur athletes will bring a diverse mix of sports players to the property. “There’ll be multi-level professional training going on along with non-professional athletes,” Ruhl says. He hints that the new complex …

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — New York City-based real estate investment trusts SL Green Realty Corp. and Gramercy Capital Corp. have sold their interests in a three-building office campus located at 55 Corporate Dr. in Bridgewater. The interests were acquired by another REIT, Inland American Real Estate Trust, for $230 million. The office property is situated on 149 acres at the intersection of interstates 78 and 287. The property was originally developed in 1987 for AT&T, which occupied it until 2005. Currently, the property is fully occupied by pharmaceutical company sanofi-aventis USA Inc. as its headquarters. “The existence of assumable debt for the property was one of the key ingredients in being able to transact in this environment,” said Gary Gabriel, executive vice president with Cushman & Wakefield’s Capital Markets Group and one of the brokers involved in the transaction. He adds that Inland’s strong position in this climate made it one of the few companies today that could come up with the capital to complete a transaction of this size. In addition to its headquarters campus, sanofi-aventis’ largest U.S. research center is located in Bridgewater, bringing its total amount of space within the city to several hundred thousand square feet. Gabriel, …

COLUMBUS, OHIO — This summer, the city of Columbus and Capitol South Community Urban Redevelopment Corp. are knocking down the City Center shopping mall in downtown Columbus to make way for Columbus Commons. Plans for the 8.9-acre project call for a mix of office and retail uses anchored by a city park. In December 2007, New York-based The Georgetown Company was selected by Capitol South to serve as the project’s development manager. MSI was retained as the land use planner for the multi-phased project. With the help of consultants from CB Richard Ellis and input from local community members, Capitol South decided that demolition was the best option for the site. “Our goals were to avoid excess costs and examine all possibilities for reuse of the building before considering demolition,” explains Amy Taylor, chief operating officer of Capitol South. “After looking at the site from many different perspectives, we found that attempting to reconfigure the current structure was vastly more expensive than simply starting over.” Demolition of the 1.2 million-square-foot mall is slated for completion in less than a year. By 2010, the site — which is located south of the Ohio Theater, the Fifth Third Center and the Hyatt …