NEW YORK CITY — Empire State Realty Trust (NYSE: ESRT) has acquired 298 Mulberry Street, a 96-unit multifamily community located in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood, for $115 million. Located at the corner of East Houston and Mulberry streets, the community features ground-floor retail space occupied by CVS/pharmacy. Shared amenities include a 24-hour doorman, fitness center, rooftop terrace and laundry room. All of the building’s units are market-rate rentals and feature walk-in closets and stainless steel kitchen appliances. The seller was a joint venture between Broad Street Development and an affiliate of Crow Holdings Capital. Andrew Scandalios, Rob Hinckley, Jeffrey Julien, Steven Rutman and Jonathan Faxon of JLL represented the seller in the all-cash, 1031 exchange transaction. Empire State Realty is a self-managed REIT that operates a portfolio of office, retail and multifamily properties within Manhattan and the greater New York City area. The company’s stock price closed at $6.90 per share on Wednesday, Dec. 21, down slightly from $8.65 one year ago. New York City-based Broad Street Development is a privately held real estate developer, investor and operator with a focus on office and residential properties. Dallas-based Crow Holdings is a privately owned real estate investment and development firm with $30 billion …
Top Stories
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. — Real estate development firm Optima has received city approval for Optima McDowell Mountain Village, a $1 billion apartment and condominium project in North Scottsdale. Plans call for six buildings comprising 1,330 luxury units as well as 36,000 square feet of commercial and retail space. Construction is scheduled to begin in spring or summer 2023. Each of the six buildings within the development will contain its own amenity offering, including a rooftop deck with Olympic-length pool, sauna, spa, running track, outdoor kitchen and lounge seating. Each rooftop will offer views of the McDowell Mountains. The ground floor of each building will be outfitted with a lobby, fitness center, yoga studio, steam room, game room, theater, indoor basketball and pickleball court, golf simulator, massage room, business center and dog park. The project will be the largest private rainwater harvesting site in the U.S., according to the developer. The residences are expected to use half as much water as the average Scottsdale multifamily residence and a quarter as much water as the average Scottsdale single-family home. Optima is also providing the city with 2,750 acre-feet of water that will be deposited into the Scottsdale water system. The community will also …
JLL Arranges $290M Construction Loan for Life Sciences Project in Philadelphia’s University City Neighborhood
by Jeff Shaw
PHILADELPHIA — JLL Capital Markets has arranged a $290 million construction loan for project partners Gattuso Development Partners and Vigilant Holdings of New York to build a new research facility and life sciences development in the heart of Philadelphia’s University City submarket. The development will be the largest life sciences research and lab facility in the city, according to JLL. Located at 3201 Cuthbert St., the 11-story development features 519,647 square feet of wet lab and dry space, 11,908 square feet of street-level retail space and 137 underground parking stalls. SmartLabs and Drexel University have preleased 45 percent of the lab space. This will be SmartLab’s first location in a market outside of San Francisco or Boston. Infrastructure will include lab-friendly column spacing, expanded floor-to-floor heights, an HVAC system designed specifically for lab research, best-practice chemical storage space and ph neutralization capability, and six enclosed loading docks. Robert A.M. Stern Architects designed the property to meet LEED Gold certification. University City spans 2.4 square miles and is home to one of the largest concentrations of health systems, teaching institutions, life sciences, biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the world. “We believe the project validates Philadelphia’s emergence as a global hub for …
PHILADELPHIA — Parkway Corp. has announced plans for a 438,000-square-foot office building at 2000 Arch St. in Philadelphia’s Center City district. The locally based developer has also received a commitment from insurance giant Chubb to serve as the anchor tenant of the 18-story building. With an anchor tenant in place, construction is now scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2023, with completion slated for the second quarter of 2026. Chubb expects to place approximately 3,000 employees at the new building within three to five years of opening, with about 1,200 of those positions representing newly created jobs. The new office will be the largest in the country for the New Jersey-based insurance giant, which currently employs about 2,000 people throughout Pennsylvania. In addition, Chubb insures approximately $500 billion in property in Pennsylvania, including $70 billion in Philadelphia, that large users in the healthcare, manufacturing, financial services and media industries occupy. Chubb also has historical ties to Philadelphia, having established its oldest subsidiary, The Insurance Co. of North America, at Independence Hall in 1792. Chubb’s current offices in Philadelphia are located at 436 and 510 Walnut St., just steps away from Independence Hall. “Our new building will have a …
Lendlease, Australian Pension Fund Receive $360M Construction Loan for Mixed-Use High-Rise in Brooklyn
by Jeff Shaw
NEW YORK CITY — A joint venture between global real estate and investment management group Lendlease and Australian pension fund Aware Super has secured a $360 million construction loan for the development of 1 Java Street, a 36-story mixed-use development adjacent to the East River in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn. Plans call for 834 apartments, 13,000 square feet of retail space and an 18,000-square-foot public waterfront park connecting the property to the India Street Pier, which offers service for the East River Ferry. Thirty percent of apartments at 1 Java Street will be affordable units under the Affordable New York 421(A) Program and Voluntary Inclusionary Housing. Lendlease’s investment management, development and construction business units will serve in 1 Java Street’s development. The property is slated for completion in 2026. Christopher Peck, Alex Staikos, Phil Cadorette and Joy Dracos led a JLL Capital Markets team that represented the joint venture to secure the floating-rate construction loan through a Bank of America-led syndicate. New York City architecture firm Marvel will serve as interior designer for both market-rate and affordable units at 1 Java Street. INC Architecture & Design will design the public areas and Créme Architecture & Design will be the interior designer for …
MIAMI — The Chetrit Group, a privately held New York City-based developer, plans to develop The River District, a 4 million-square-foot mixed-use destination in Miami. The project will span more than six acres along the Miami River waterfront. Total development costs will exceed $1 billion, according to Bloomberg. The Chetrit Group previously secured a $310 million loan from Madison Realty Group to fund the project’s first two phases of construction. Occupying the delta between I-95, Southwest Second Avenue and Jose Marti Park, The River District will feature four ground-up skyscrapers — a condominium tower, office tower and two high-rise apartment buildings — as well as a pair of two-story waterfront retail buildings, a marina and new streetscapes. Overall the project will comprise 1,600 residences, an undisclosed amount of Class A office space, 30,000 square feet of retail space, a boat marina that can accommodate 60-foot vessels, 2,000 covered parking spots and restaurants and nightlife venues. “The River District is going to create a riverwalk experience for the first time in the city, and we expect to completely transform how people in the area live, work and play,” says Michael Chetrit, principal of Chetrit Group. The first building to come to …
BRIGHTON, MICH. — Trinity Health Michigan has unveiled plans for a replacement hospital in metro Detroit’s Livingston County that will enhance patient access and create an integrated campus of medical and surgical care at its existing medical center in Brighton. The three-year project has a price tag of $238.2 million. The four-story, 174,000-square-foot hospital will consist of 56 acuity adaptable beds, 18 short-stay beds and eight licensed operating rooms. The existing medical center facility will also undergo renovations. Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2023. Acuity adaptable rooms enable patients to stay in one centralized room throughout their entire stay rather than being transferred to other units, while short-stay units are targeted for patients requiring brief hospitalization. The project represents a multi-year effort to relocate inpatient and outpatient services from the aging Trinity Health Livingston hospital in Howell to the campus of Trinity Health Medical Center-Brighton. When complete in 2025, the new hospital will bring together healthcare providers and services to offer a continuum of care in one location for Livingston County and surrounding communities. The new hospital will offer the following medical services: primary care, general medicine, gynecological surgery, urology, cardiology and intensive cardiac rehab, orthopedics, minimally invasive …
VIOLET, LA. — Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has announced a public-private partnership between the State of Louisiana, the Port of New Orleans (Port NOLA) and two global maritime industry leaders to build a $1.8 billion container facility on the Lower Mississippi River. The new Louisiana International Terminal (LIT) will be located in Violet, a tiny municipality of fewer than 6,000 residents approximately 10 miles downriver from New Orleans proper. The new facility will be able to serve vessels of all sizes, dramatically increasing Louisiana’s import and export capacity and stimulating the creation of more than 17,000 new jobs statewide by 2050, Port NOLA estimates. New Jersey-based Ports America, one of North America’s largest marine terminal operators, and Switzerland-based Mediterranean Shipping Co., through its terminal development and investment arm Terminal Investment Limited (TiL), have committed $800 million toward the project. In addition to the partners’ investment, the construction of the terminal will be supported by a substantial commitment from Port NOLA, as well as state and federal funding sources. The joint venture will operate the terminal once construction is complete. “This public-private partnership with the Port of New Orleans, TiL and Ports America has the potential to become one of …
COLLETON COUNTY, S.C. — Kontrolmatik Technologies, a construction and engineering firm based in Istanbul, has unveiled plans for a $279 million plant in coastal South Carolina’s Colleton County that will manufacture lithium ion batteries. Pomega Energy Storage Technologies, a subsidiary of Kontrolmatik, will operate the facility, which is scheduled for completion in 2024. At that time, Kontrolmatik, whose U.S. headquarters are based in Northern Virginia, expects to employ about 575 people at the facility. The exact site was not disclosed, but the southern portion of the county touches the Atlantic Ocean and offers proximity to the Port of Charleston. This aspect of the location, along with access to a qualified workforce, should help address domestic reliance on foreign supply chains for these critical devices, according to the site selection team. Keith Stauber and Meredith O’Connor of JLL led the site selection efforts for Kontrolmatik, a process that involved touring more than 200 locations. The factory will have a three-gigawatt hour capacity, meaning its annual energy consumption is enough to power about 2.3 million American homes. “South Carolina and Colleton County were aggressive in their pursuit of this exciting project and put forth compelling economic, supply chain and workforce reasons why …
Inspire Development Begins Construction of $2B Mixed-Use Pearson Ranch Property in Austin, Texas
by Jeff Shaw
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Austin-based Inspire Development has begun construction of Pearson Ranch, a $2 billion, 156-acre mixed use project located just off State Highway 45 in northwest Austin. The master plan for the project includes 48 acres of land for a corporate campus, including 2.6 million square feet of office space. Upon completion, the mixed-use property will also include approximately 200,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and community/cultural spaces; two hotels; thousands of residential units; and 30 acres of parks and green space. Phase I of Pearson Ranch will center on The Eden, an apartment community that will feature 306 one-, two- and three-bedroom units that will range in size from 672 to 1,511 square feet. Residences will be furnished with technology such as smart locks and thermostats, gas appliances, built-in kitchen islands with quartz countertops and in-unit washers and dryers. Residents will have access to amenities such as a fitness center, rooftop deck, coworking lounge, golf simulator, dog spa, community gardens, a three-acre park and a pool area with barbeque grills, day beds, cabanas and a bocce ball court. The general contractor for The Eden is NRP Group. The project’s architect is Austin-based Davies Collaborative. Vertical construction on The …