Office

Despite Active Construction in Raleigh-Durham, Office Absorption Outpaces Supply

by John Nelson March 6, 2017

At the close of 2016, over 1.9 million square feet of office space was absorbed in the Raleigh-Durham market and overall vacancy increased by one percentage point from 10 percent to 11 percent. Activity was strong and can partially be attributed to a very active suburban Raleigh submarket that absorbed over 1.1 million square feet. Vacancy in this submarket ended the year at 10 percent, down from a high of 17 percent in 2010. It was also an active construction year for Raleigh-Durham, with developers completing over 1.3 million square feet of new office space. There is currently another 2.7 million square feet of new projects underway, and an additional 2 million square feet of proposed projects. Downtown Durham, an approximately 4.5 million-square-foot market, has multiple office projects underway, including: The Chesterfield: Renovation on the 286,000-square-foot building should be completed soon with the first tenants moving in in July 2017. The project, being developed by Wexford Science + Technology, is approximately 75 percent leased. One City Center: The mixed-use, 432,000-square-foot project has 130,000 rentable square feet of office space and should open in late 2017. The office component is 50 percent preleased. Activity in downtown Durham has been driven by …

March 6, 2017

Market Reports Northeast Northeast Market Reports Office Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Office Inventory to Grow by 1.8 MSF This Year as Rents Increase

by Taylor Williams February 22, 2017

Philadelphia’s diverse local economy, healthy hiring trends and area-employers’ ability to draw fresh talent from the metro’s deep college-graduate pool, continue to attract businesses to the area and support improvements in the office property segment. In 2016, Philadelphia firms increased payrolls by 1.9 percent with the creation of 54,000 new positions. Hiring was driven by office-using employment sectors which, over the four-quarter period ending with the second quarter of 2016, accounted for the addition of 21,700 jobs, or nearly 37 percent of all new hires. This year, it is expected that the local workforce will add 49,000 to its ranks, representing a 1.7 percent expansion. Hiring will continue to be strong among office-using companies, as well as in the healthcare and education segments. In the first half of 2016, developers sluggishly completed 178,000 square feet of new office space. In the second half of last year, the construction pipeline exploded, and by year-end 1.2 million square feet of office space had been delivered to the marketplace, with a significant amount of completions pre-leased, which helped mitigate any effects to vacancy levels. Office projects completed in 2016 were spread throughout the metro within the submarkets of Delaware County, Lehigh-Northampton, Harrisburg Area …

February 22, 2017

California Market Reports Office Western Western Market Reports

Los Angeles Office Market Points to Steady Demand, Further Growth in 2017

by Camren Skelton February 14, 2017

The Los Angeles office market continues to experience steady demand and accelerated rent growth as we enter 2017. The market is heading into its sixth consecutive year of expansion, after seeing a sharp contraction between 2008 and 2011. The Los Angeles office market has witnessed vacancy rates steadily decline from 16.3 percent to 13.7 percent since 2011, all the while absorbing more than 10.5 million square feet of occupied space. The market only added 4.5 million square feet of new construction during that same period, allowing vacancy to steadily decline back into the low teens, while average full-service gross asking rents have increased from $29.28 per square foot to $35.76 per square foot, up 22.1 percent. More importantly is the accelerated rent growth during this period. Rents increased 1.6 percent in 2012; 2.8 percent in 2013; 3.9 percent in 2014; 5.3 percent in 2015; and 6.8-percent to date in 2016. On the demand side, net absorption growth rates have been trending higher since 2012, averaging 0.8 percent during the past five years. They will finish above 1 percent for the second consecutive year. This remains below the growth rates experienced from 2003 to 2007, which averaged an annual growth of …

February 14, 2017

New York Northeast Office Top Stories

GIC, Paramount Group Buy Wall Street Office Tower for $1B

by Nellie Day January 25, 2017

NEW YORK CITY — A joint venture between GIC and Paramount Group has acquired a 1.6 million-square-foot office tower in New York City for $1 billion. The 47-story tower is located at 60 Wall St. in the Financial District of downtown Manhattan. The property is fully leased. It serves as the U.S. headquarters of Deutsche Bank. GIC, a sovereign wealth fund based in Singapore, has a 95 percent stake in the joint venture, while Paramount Group holds the remaining 5 percent. Paramount managed and owned about 5 percent of the property through its ownership in certain private equity funds prior to the acquisition. The joint venture also received $575 million in financing for the property in relation to the acquisition. “This investment reflects our long-term confidence in downtown Manhattan, which is benefitting from over $30 billion of recent public and private investments in infrastructure and new construction,” says Adam Gallistel, GIC’s regional head of Americas. “We believe 60 Wall St. is one of the top buildings in downtown and is poised to benefit from the ongoing downtown renaissance.” Deutsche Bank announced plans to renovate the office space in late 2016. It purchased the asset from J.P. Morgan & Co. in …

January 25, 2017

Louisiana Market Reports Office Southeast Southeast Market Reports

Despite Challenges in Marketplace, New Orleans Office Activity Has Picked Up

by John Nelson January 23, 2017

New Orleans may be The Big Easy, but when it comes to understanding this unique Southern city’s commercial real estate marketplace, very little is easy or simple. The numbers, at least, are fairly straightforward. New Orleans currently has around 8.8 million square feet of Class A office space and 1.6 million square feet of Class B. Average rental rates are approximately $19.00 per square foot and $15.50 per square foot for Class A and Class B, respectively, with current occupancy rates at 89.5 percent for Class A and 71 percent for Class B. By way of comparison, the popular suburban Metairie market has around 2 million square feet of Class A and 1.5 million square feet of Class B office space, with occupancy rates at 93 percent and 88.2 percent, respectively (both down slightly from 2014 highs of 95 percent and 92 percent). Average rental rates are approximately $24.00 per square foot in Class A properties and $19.50 for Class B. The numbers in the suburban North Shore market are similarly healthy, with rates and occupancy numbers in the same general range as Metairie. Look beyond the surface numbers, however, and things get interesting, and a little more complicated. In …

January 23, 2017

Georgia Market Reports Office Southeast Southeast Market Reports

Atlanta’s Office Market Experiencing Positively Boring, Safe Growth

by John Nelson January 16, 2017

The Atlanta office market has continued down a path of steady recovery and absorption, although the pace remains somewhat muted from prior recovery cycles. As outside investors have warmed up to the city of Atlanta, they have been comforted by a safe and positively boring period of growth. For the last couple of years, investors have been committed strongly to value-add opportunities throughout metropolitan Atlanta, including areas that have historically been out of favor like Alpharetta and Peachtree Corners. The fundamental improvements in the market rents and occupancy continue to support bullish forecasts for office space in Atlanta with significantly low vacancy and steady rent growth. Atlanta’s office market sits at 12.1 percent vacancy, 6 percent rent growth and 3.6 million square feet of positive net absorption after several years of consistent absorption and falling vacancy. With value-add being a buzz word throughout the Southeast, many investment sales brokers have taken core assets and found ways to present them as opportunities for value-add in an effort to reach a larger pool of investors. Investor appetite continues to be measured and very focused on downside risk versus upside potential. This has inflated the return expectations for very solid real estate, making …

January 16, 2017

Market Reports Midwest Midwest Market Reports Missouri Multifamily Office

Office, Multifamily Sectors Lead Expansive Growth in Clayton Submarket of St. Louis

by Kristin Harlow January 12, 2017

An influx of new workers and residents is expected in the Clayton submarket of St. Louis thanks to more than $630 million in office, residential and mixed-use development that is in the planning stages or currently under way. Health insurer Centene Corp. has announced that it will build a new 16-acre, $450 million campus expansion on the east edge of downtown Clayton at Hanley Road, Forsyth Boulevard and Carondelet Plaza. The project, set to break ground early this year, stands to effectively shift the center of Clayton while adding a mixed-use, Class A office-anchored business and lifestyle development to the submarket. Delivery of the 500,000-square-foot Phase I tower is set for late 2019. At the opposite end of the submarket, Koman Group expects to break ground on its proposed 330,000-square-foot, 14-story office and retail project, situated at the corner of Forsyth and Brentwood boulevards. Just across the street is another $68 million, 233,000-square-foot office project likely to begin in 2018. Proposed by Jared Novelly and Apogee Associates, the project would bring the total proposed office development to a robust 1 million square feet of new Class A space in downtown Clayton. As the premier office submarket in St. Louis, Clayton …

January 12, 2017

California Office Retail Top Stories Western

Kilroy Realty Corp. Buys The Sunset Mixed-Use Project in West Hollywood for $210M

by Nellie Day January 11, 2017

LOS ANGELES — Kilroy Realty Corp. has purchased The Sunset, a 179,000-square-foot mixed-use development in the West Hollywood submarket of Los Angeles, for $210 million. The property is located at 8560-8590 Sunset Blvd. on the famous Sunset Strip. The seller, Broadreach Capital Partners, acquired the asset from Apollo Real Estate in 2006 for $105 million. The Sunset occupies 2.2 acres along Sunset Boulevard. It features a 72,000-square-foot office tower and a three-building retail plaza atop a 107,000-square-foot subterranean parking structure. The transaction also includes three billboards atop the retail buildings that were fully leased in December 2016. The complex is 88 percent leased with a large fashion and health/fitness presence, including Equinox, SoulCycle, H&M and Oliver Peoples. The site previously held the headquarters for Playboy Entertainment. The Sunset is adjacent to CIM’s $365 million Sunset La Cienega mixed-use project, which will include residential units, a hotel and ground-floor retail space. HFF’s Ryan Gallagher, Michael Leggett, Bryan Ley, Andrew Harper and Tim Geiman represented Broadreach in the transaction. — Nellie Day

January 11, 2017

Office Texas Top Stories

J.C. Penney Sells 1.8 MSF Home Office Campus in Plano for $353M

by Nellie Day January 4, 2017

PLANO, TEXAS — J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) has sold its home office campus and 45 surrounding acres of land in Plano to Dreien Opportunity Partners for $353 million. The 1.8 million-square-foot asset is known as Campus at Legacy West. J.C. Penney plans to lease back approximately 65 percent, or 1.1 million square feet, of the campus, with the remaining space available for new tenants. The building lease expense would be offset by a reduction in maintenance costs, property taxes and interest expense as a result of paying down debt with proceeds from the transaction, according to the apparel and home furnishings retailer. “Since we began exploring the sale of our home office, we have been quite pleased by the level of interest in the building,” says Marvin Ellison, J.C. Penney’s chairman and CEO. “This transaction also represents a significant financial milestone for the company, as proceeds from the sale give us the opportunity to reduce outstanding debt and make improvements to our workspace, creating a modern and efficient environment.” Eight office wings that span 56.8 acres flank the three-story office building. The Class A campus is situated near the intersection of Dallas North Tollway and State Highway 121 within the …

January 4, 2017

Market Reports Midwest Midwest Market Reports Missouri Office

Downtown Kansas City Office Market Rebounds, While Suburbs Continue to Shine

by Kristin Harlow December 22, 2016

Kansas City’s central business district (CBD) has received a great deal of media attention over the past two years for good reason. With over 3,000 new residential units delivered, the new KC Streetcar and the national trend of Millennials moving to urban areas, there has been plenty of momentum for the area and much discussion of the “live-work-play” environment. After a long period of decline, the urban core of Kansas City is experiencing a powerful revitalization. In all the excitement surrounding the CBD, however, another trend may be getting overlooked. Through the first three quarters of 2016, absorption in the CBD (the Downtown, Crossroads and Crown Center submarkets) was more or less flat after accounting for the conversion of office space to residential use and a unique listing in the Crown Center complex. Meanwhile, the suburban office market posted 580,000 square feet of positive absorption during the same period. Yes, Kansas City is in the process of rediscovering and reinventing the CBD, but the performance of the suburban market remains strong. Construction Boom The first indicator that tenants are still attracted to key suburban submarkets is the number of recent construction projects. Earlier this year, Burns & McDonnell completed a …

December 22, 2016

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