DEERFIELD, ILL. — Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA), the company behind pharmacy retailers Walgreens and Duane Reade, predicts a 10 percent increase in adjusted earnings per share this fiscal year. The Deerfield-based firm’s new CEO, Roz Brewer, says she plans to make investments in the coming months, including digital automation and technology efforts. Additionally, Walgreens and VillageMD have agreed to open hundreds of doctor offices in drugstores, which will span around 3,300 square feet each. VillageMD says it will find staff members and operate these clinics, and over the next five years, the company plans to open doctor offices in 500 to 700 stores. Walgreens reported an uptick in total sales for its fiscal third quarter, which ended May 31. The pharmacy brand attributed the rise in sales to the COVID-19 vaccine shots, in which at least 55 percent of the U.S. population has gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, as of Sunday, July 4. The company says it has given more than 25 million COVID-19 shots, and that the COVID vaccines peaked in the third quarter. Based on data from financial technology company Refinitiv, Walgreens saw a $1.51 adjusted in earnings per share versus the $1.17 …
By Kevin Fryman, Executive Vice President, Hanley Investment Group British entrepreneur and adventurer Sir Richard Branson, head of Virgin Group Ltd., said, “Every success story is a tale of constant adaption, revision and change.” Certainly, as retailers grappled with the impact of COVID-19 restrictions, those that could quickly pivot and adapt were the winners. Even Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Looking back on the past few years in retail, American consumers were already shifting their purchasing habits. These shifts include experience-spending versus material goods and homes; casual fashion in response to more relaxed dress codes; convenient online ordering, delivery services and drive-thru pick-up for time-starved consumers; as well as the rise of e-commerce, mostly in the form of competition from Amazon.com and Walmart. However, once the lockdowns occurred in response to the pandemic, emerging trends such as online ordering, mobile delivery and omnichannel became permanent. Other 2020 trends that made nearly daily headlines were the number of retailers and restaurant companies that had filed for bankruptcy or were closing stores. Coresight Research reported 8,953 closures last year as the COVID-19 pandemic …
NEW YORK CITY — Locally based real estate giant SL Green Realty Corp. (NYSE: SLG) has received a $3 billion loan for the refinancing of One Vanderbilt, a 1.7 million-square-foot office tower in the East Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan. Designed by Kohn Pederson Fox Associates and located across the street from Grand Central Station, One Vanderbilt rises 77 stories and 1,401 feet, making it the tallest building in Midtown Manhattan. SL Green developed the property, which carried a price tag of $3.3 billion, in partnership with Houston-based Hines and the National Pension Service of Korea. One Vanderbilt includes 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurant space. In terms of tenant amenities, the building features a 30,000-square-foot space with meeting areas, a club-style lounge, curated food offerings and an outdoor terrace that faces Grand Central. A consortium of financial institutions led by Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs provided the debt, which was structured with a 10-year term and all-in fixed interest rate of approximately 2.94 percent. Other lenders that contributed to the financing included Bank of America, Bank of China, Bank of Montreal, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays Capital Real Estate Inc. and Citi. Chatham Financial acted as an advisor …
By Joel Marcus, partner, Marcus & Pollack LLP What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? The longstanding physics conundrum encapsulates the situation in which New York City property owners currently find themselves, and for better or worse, they’re about to discover the answer to the age-old question. City government has squeezed increasing sums of property taxes from its real estate stock in each of the past 25 years, but the pandemic is changing everything. The basic fact is that 53 percent of New York City revenues come from real estate taxes. Fueled by rising rents that are tied to high costs of new construction, the city property tax base has grown and enjoyed record tax revenues in recent years. Total real property tax revenue was almost $30 billion in 2020, according to the city’s annual property tax report. Historically speaking, no major event in recent memory has been responsible for a pause in the year-over-year tax increases — not the Financial Crisis of 2018, nor Hurricane Sandy, nor even the events of September 11. It seems as though only a global pandemic has this particular power. COVID-19 has affected every element of New York City’s economy, but …
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK CITY — Ventas Inc. (NYSE: VTR) has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire New Senior Investment Group (NYSE: SNR), a New York City-based owner of independent living communities across the country. The deal between these two seniors housing real estate investment trusts (REITs) is valued at $2.3 billion, including $1.5 billion of debt. The transaction will bolster the number of independent living communities for Ventas, which as of March 31 owned (fully or partially) 1,200 properties. As of first-quarter 2021, 48 percent of Ventas’ portfolio was classified as independent living. Post acquisition, Ventas expects independent living will comprise 58 percent of its portfolio. New Senior currently owns 103 properties across 36 states, with a large concentration clustered in California, North Carolina, Florida and Oregon. The portfolio was a little more than 80 percent occupied as of May 31, and the average age of residents was 81. The only New Senior property that isn’t independent living is Watermark at Logan Square, a continuing care retirement community located in Philadelphia. The acquisition will deepen Ventas’ relationship with seniors housing operators such as Atria Senior Living and Holiday Retirement, which announced last week their plans to merge …
Atlanta is a hot spot for investing in multifamily assets as the market emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic. The apartment market’s fundamentals, including occupancy and rent growth, have held up considerably well, making the market extremely attractive to buyers. Because the Atlanta market has an abundance of capital looking to be deployed, prices are being driven up significantly and cap rates driven down. Multifamily has outperformed many other commercial real estate sectors during the pandemic, considered a “hot-ticket asset class” by investors, which leads to new capital swarming the Atlanta apartment market. Many multifamily properties are now routinely trading at a sub-4 percent cap rate, indicative of the vast amount of available capital and the confidence that investors have in the product type. However, rather than clearing the market and searching for as many prospective buyers as they can, sellers are looking at a smaller subset of dominant, well-known investors that they know will deliver and get the transaction done. They are seeking six to 12 well-recognized, established players that can execute a deal at top prices. It is an extremely competitive process, and all buyers know they have to swing high on pricing. Oftentimes, no one broker is selected …
CAMP HILL, PA. — Institutional Property Advisors (IPA), a division of Marcus & Millichap, has arranged the $90 million sale of Camp Hill Shopping Center. The property is located at 3301 Trindle Road in the borough of Camp Hill, roughly three miles outside Harrisburg. The 430,198-square-foot center was 96 percent leased at the time of sale to tenants including Giant Food Markets, Boscov’s Department Store, Staples, Five Below, Barnes & Noble and LA Fitness. Brad Nathanson of IPA represented the seller, Cedar Realty Trust (NYSE: CDR), and identified the buyer, GSD CampHill Pradsavi Group LLC, in the transaction. Marcus & Millichap also arranged financing on behalf of the buyer. Cedar Realty Trust will be retaining management of the property. “There is tremendous demand for dominant grocery-anchored shopping centers nationally, given the rebound in the markets post-COVID-19 and the attractive debt markets,” says Nathanson. “Demand is outpacing the supply of first-class, high-performing assets like Camp Hill Shopping Center.” Cedar Realty Trust is a real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on owning, operating and redeveloping grocery-anchored shopping centers across urban markets from Washington, D.C., to Boston. The Port Washington, N.Y.-based company’s stock price closed on Wednesday, June 23, at $16.61 per share, up …
PORT ST. LUCIE, FLA. — Watermark Residential, a wholly owned affiliate of Thompson Thrift, will develop Boardwalk at Tradition, a 214-unit build-to-rent multifamily community in Port St. Lucie. Watermark acquired 17.5 acres of land to develop the property, which will be a residential community featuring one- and two-story paired villa-style homes. The project is slated for completion in December 2022. Boardwalk at Tradition will be located at the southeast corner of SW Stockton Place and SW Community Boulevard. The property will offer a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom layouts that average 1,100 square feet. Community amenities will include gourmet bar-kitchens with quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances, full-size washers and dryers, private backyard patios, resort style pool, professionally design and appointed clubhouses, a pickleball court, fire pits, outdoor kitchens, several dog parks and a 24-hour fitness center. Boardwalk at Tradition is part of the 8,200-acre master planned Tradition community, which has $365 million in new development in the works. The apartment community is situated close to Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital and sits one mile west of Interstate 95.
LOUISVILLE, KY., WINTER PARK, FLA., AND TOLDEO, OHIO — In a massive blockbuster deal for seniors housing, the seventh-largest operator of seniors housing in the United States (Atria Senior Living) will acquire the third-largest (Holiday Retirement), with the largest owner in the country (Welltower) buying up a large portfolio of the affected assets. Atria, a privately held seniors housing operator based in Louisville, has agreed to buy the operations business of Winter Park-based Holiday Retirement. Meanwhile, Toledo-based REIT Welltower (NYSE: WELL) will buy the 86 properties that Holiday owns and self-manages for slightly less than $1.6 billion. Holiday currently manages 240 communities in 43 states, largely in the independent living sector. The combined company will employ more than 19,000 staffers to serve over 45,000 residents. The new firm will manage 447 communities across 45 states and seven Canadian provinces. The newly combined entity will be the second-largest seniors housing operator in the country, behind only Brookdale Senior Living. After the transaction, Atria will manage more than 250 “nearly identical” communities and higher end properties such as the recently opened Atria Newport Beach in Southern California, as well as luxury urban properties that Atria is co-developing in a joint venture with …
MERIDIAN AND BOISE, IDAHO — Kennedy Wilson Holdings Inc. (NYSE: KW) has purchased three apartment communities totaling 640 units and a multifamily development site that is fully entitled for 240 units in the Boise metro area for $143 million. The three multifamily communities include The Lofts at Ten Mile, Jasper Apartments and Towne Square. The new owner plans to implement value-add programs at the existing communities and to complete construction at the Dovetail development site, which is located in an Opportunity Zone, by 2023. Construction costs for that project are estimated at about $60 million. The Lofts at Ten Mile, located west of downtown Boise in Meridian, features one- and two-bedroom units and amenities such as a pool, fitness center, business center, media lounge and outdoor grilling stations. Jasper Apartments, also in Meridian, offers one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and amenities such as a resident lounge, pool, fitness center and private study rooms. Towne Square, located in Boise, includes one-, two- and three-bedroom floor plans and a similar suite of amenities. Kennedy Wilson has an average ownership stake of 95 percent in these four properties, which were acquired in off-market trades, and has invested $68 million of equity into them. …