Hilton Enters Agreement in China for 400 Properties

Hilton Worldwide has signed an exclusive license agreement with Plateno Hotels Group to launch and develop the Hampton by Hilton brand in China. Hampton plans to have over 400 deals signed, with the first hotel expected to open by the end of 2015, according to a GlobeSt.com report. Hampton has designed a 3-star hotel prototype to fit top-tier cities in China, serving value-conscious, quality-driven business and leisure travelers. Hampton by Hilton's portfolio in China will be a mixture of new builds, conversions and adaptive reuse properties. Plateno Hotels Group will lead the development and management of the hotels.

"We expect that this partnership will allow us to accelerate our efforts to gain broad geographic and chain scale distribution in China, enabling us to access a large, growing customer base for both in country and outbound business," said Jim Holthouser, executive vice president, global brands, Hilton Worldwide. "Our five existing brands in China are growing at a rapid pace, and after extensively researching the market, we've seen an untapped opportunity to grow in the upper economy to mid-scale category. We're now seizing the opportunity to introduce the Hampton by Hilton brand at scale with an unprecedented partnership with Plateno Hotels Group."

"We're thrilled to partner with the global hospitality leader Hilton Worldwide to bring Hampton by Hilton to China," said Eric Wu, CFO of Plateno Hotels Group. "There is a substantial demand in China for a quality mid-scale lodging option, and we believe that Hampton is the right product to meet this need. Its enthusiastic and caring culture, together with its sought-after amenities such as free Wi-Fi, clean, comfortable beds and a 100% satisfaction guarantee, will be very appealing to Chinese travelers."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Meritex Developing Chandler Industrial Park

Minneapolis-based Meritex Enterprises Inc. and Metro Commercial Properties received approval last week from the Chandler City Council on the Planned Area Development (PAD) zoning request and site plan approval for Chandler Airport Center, a general industrial park at the SWC of Germann and Cooper Roads in Chandler, Arizona. Meritex, under Meritex Chandler, LLC, will move forward with the development of Chandler Airport Center in association with Tempe-based Metro Commercial Properties, who will provide development and property management services to Meritex for the three building industrial park.

"The site has fantastic visibility on German Road with over 2,000 feet of frontage along with direct access from four public streets," said Dan Williams, Chief Investment Officer of Meritex. "The project will provide excellent opportunities for general industrial users to gain prominent visibility for their wholesale & service facilities and locate closer to their customer base in the Southeast Valley."

The 20-acre project, located immediately north of the Chandler Municipal Airport, is slated to include a three-building industrial park totalling as much as 260,200 square feet. Lee & Associates principals Chris McClurg and Ken McQueen are handling the leasing on the project, according to a Phoenix Business Journal article.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Rockefeller Takes Majority Stake in TA Realty

The Rockefeller Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Estate, announced this week that it has entered into an agreement to acquire a majority interest in TA Realty LLC, a leading Boston-based real estate investment management firm with approximately $12 billion in assets under management. As part of the acquisition, TA Realty will become The Rockefeller Group's primary real estate investment management platform in the United States, establishing a global investment management platform totaling $32 billion in assets under management on a worldwide basis under Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd. Full terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"We're proud to advance our investment management capabilities with the investment in TA Realty in the United States," said Atsushi Nakajima, president and chief executive officer of The Rockefeller Group. "TA Realty brings an experienced management team with more than 20 partners averaging more than a decade with the firm. The team's long tenure and industry experience signals a strong cultural fit with The Rockefeller Group, on top of the complementary business objectives of both companies."

"We are very pleased to join The Rockefeller Group, and by extension the Mitsubishi Estate platform," said Michael Ruane, founder and managing partner of TA Realty. "These are complementary businesses with decades of expertise in real estate investment management. Our investors will benefit from the strengths of this partnership as it ensures the sustainability of TA Realty's investment management culture for many years to come. In addition, the partnership allows for the opportunity to expand the breadth of equity to our partners and key professionals enhancing our alignment with investors."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

JV to Build Mixed Use Complex on 58 Acres Near Denver

United Properties, in a joint venture with Principal Real Estate Investors, announced that it had recently acquired 58 acres of land near Denver to develop Dry Creek Corporate Center, a mixed-use office, industrial, hotel and residential campus located just east of Interstate 25 and East Dry Creek Road in Centennial. United Properties plans to develop approximately 650,000 square feet of single and multi-tenant office and industrial buildings, with the residential and hospitality portions of the campus to be sold to outside developers.

"This is one of the largest fully-entitled parcels of land in the heart of the southeast suburban market," said Kevin Kelley, vice president, United Properties. "With improving market conditions and low supply, we’re excited to bring this new Class A product to the market."

United Properties purchased the land for Dry Creek Corporate Center in a joint venture with Principal Real Estate Investors. David Lee, Jason Addlesperger and Mike Wafer of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank will lease the property on behalf of the ownership. Powers Brown Architecture is the lead architect for the vertical development.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

SF's 235 Pine Trades Hands

235 Pine Street in San Francisco traded hands this month as a fund managed by CBRE Global Investors purchased the office property for a reported $88.8 million, or $591 per square foot, according to The Registry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Built in 1990, the property features 207,500 square feet on 25 stories, is located in the heart of San Francisco's Financial District between California and Market streets near amenities including restaurants, gyms and public transportation.

235 Pine is currently home to the soon-to-be-vacating GSA Bankruptcy Court, the buyer confirmed. Phil Hench, principal at CBRE Global Investors, said the company saw the Pine Street building as a valuable asset not only because of its proximity to BART, but also because the bankruptcy court will soon give up its more than 50,000 square feet on the top six floors.

"The traditional (finance, insurance and real estate)-type users that went through a difficult period of downsizing – and since then have been status quo and haven't added jobs or space – are in fact expected to recover and accelerate," he said. "We'll see a lot of activity from that sector, and at the same time more and more of these tech companies are not afraid to go into traditional vertical highrise office buildings."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Tampa City Center Sold for $128M

Cushman & Wakefield announced this week that it had arranged to sale of Tampa City Center for $128,125,000 in what brokers call the largest transaction in the area in recent memory. The building was sold by One Tampa City Center LLC, a joint venture between Carval Investors of Minneapolis and Mainstreet Capital Partners of Fort Lauderdale, and purchased by Alliance Partners of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the East Coast operating arm of Hawaii-based Shidler Group. The transaction was managed by Cushman & Wakefield Executive Director Mike Davis, Director Rick Brugge, Executive Director David Meline, and Senior Director Michael Lerner.

"City Center is one of Tampa's most prestigious office properties, and it delivers unparalleled comfort, convenience and service in the heart of downtown Tampa," said Mike Davis, Cushman & Wakefield Executive Director, Capital Markets. "This transaction is further proof that Tampa Bay's commercial real estate market has returned to health."

Located at 201 N. Franklin Street, the 38-story office tower containing 749,035 square feet of Class A office space was 88% leased at the time of sale with major tenants including Merrill Lynch, University Club, Bank of Tampa, Florida Bank, Ernst & Young, PNC Bank, Verizon, and Northwest Mutual Insurance Company. The tower was built in 1981, and was the city's tallest building until 1986; in 2013 it won an EARTH Award from the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA).

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Patoka Capital Sells Real Estate Holdings

Patoka Capital, a New Albany, IN-based private investment firm, has sold six Regal Cinema locations to Spirit Realty Capital, a Scottsdale, AZ-based REIT, for $44 million. The sale of the six commercial properties, located in Missouri, South Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, was completed last month; terms of the deal were not disclosed. Patoka Capital will use the proceeds from the sale of the theater buildings to boost its investment portfolio, which now stands at $150 million, said Change Ragains, CEO and managing director at Patoka Capital, in a statement.

Ragains and his family formerly owned 25 Great Escape Theaters, according to a Louisville Business First article. The family sold the business to Knoxville, Tenn.-based Regal Entertainment Group in November 2012 for $91 million. The family had retained ownership of the six theater buildings that were sold recently. In a recent interview with Business First, Ragains and Dan Von Behren, managing director and chief financial officer of Patoka Capital, said that the private investment firm is looking for investments in commercial real estate, light manufacturing and service-based businesses that are privately held. Both said the investment firm is looking to invest in businesses that are in industries that are not heavily regulated.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

IPMS Interview with Neil Shah

GlobeSt.com recently conducted an interview with Neil Shah, New York City-based managing director of the Americas at RICS, part of the International Property Management Standards Coalition, exploring the benefits of the international property measurement standard (IPMS). The IPMS is a standardized and globally applicable method for measuring property developed by the IPMS Coalition, a group of 52 professional and not-for-profit organizations from around the world working together on the development and implementation of these standards. An excerpt from the interview follows:

GlobeSt.com: How will IPMS take global effect? How will it impact investment in the US?

Shah: The Coalition plans to launch The International Property Measurement Standard (IPMS) for offices this year, after being drafted by an independent standards committee and following significant global consultation. The Coalition has been discussing the initiative with stakeholders around the world and some early adopters include the Dubai government, Vodafone and the International Monetary Fund. Coalition members in North America, such as Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), CoreNet and the Institute for Real Estate Management, will continue to roll out the standard to the market.

We believe that demand will continue to be driven over time through a growing awareness of the benefits that IPMS offers in providing comparable information from one market to the next. Initially it will particularly impact investors in the United States with portfolios over more than one market who want the comparables, or foreign investors into North America who are already using IPMS across the markets—real estate service providers will need to be comfortable with the operation of the standards.

GlobeSt.com: How will these standards address inconsistencies in property measurement?

Shah: The office standards apply common principles across space measurement and allow full disclosure of the property's actual size. So depending on the market you are in, lifts, stairs, columns, car parking spaces, floors not actually present, may all be included in the measurement of the usable office space. This means that currently if an occupier is looking for office space for 100 staff members in another market, these unanticipated differences in measurement might result in a capacity of just 76 staff. Using IPMS and its consistent approach will alleviate this problem.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Google Buys Part of Pacific Shores Center

A joint venture between Starwood Capital Group and Blackstone Group has sold six office buildings in the Pacific Shores Center office park in Redwood City, California for $585 million. Google said in its quarterly report that it bought land and buildings but provided not additional information about the transaction. "We expect to continue to hire aggressively for the remainder of 2014," Google said in the filing. "Acquisitions will also remain an important component of our strategy." Additionally, the filing also revealed that the company committed to nearly $1 billion in office lease agreements through 2028.

Starwood Capital bought Pacific Shores Center in December 2006, near the height of the commercial-property market, from its developer and Walton Street Capital, and immediately resold two of the buildings, according to a Bloomberg report. Starwood Capital paid about $833 million in the deal, its first office acquisition in the San Francisco Bay area.

Councilwoman Rosanne Foust, who also heads the San Mateo County Economic Development Association (SAMCEDA), said she thinks Google will be an excellent partner with the city, its schools and community much as it has in Mountain View and similar to how Redwood Shores' Oracle has participated with money and volunteerism. "Google is an iconic company. It is a very community-oriented company and there is the potential for it to be a real partner with Redwood City," she said.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Flint Hills Holdings Group Buys Hughes Bros Candy Factory Building

Flint Hills Holdings Group, a Kansas City-based development group, has purchased a 111-year-old building south of downtown Dallas from SkyWalker Property Partners. SkyWalker Property in Arlington was planning to convert the five-story building, bought just one year ago, to residential units when Flint Hills Development Group made an offer to buy the site. Christopher Gibbons of Venture Commercial represented the buyer; terms of the deal and a sale price were not disclosed.

"The location and robust redevelopment activity in the Cedars neighborhood clearly worked to our investors' advantage," said Clint Holland, acquisitions director for SkyWalker Property Partners. "The offer was such that it made sense to sell."

The property at1401 S. Ervay St., is in the Cedars neighborhood on the south side of downtown Dallas, was originally built in 1903 for $50,000 and served as the Hughes Brothers Candy Factory until the company's demise during the Great Depression. In 1940, Gulf Cone Products paid $30,000 for the factory, where it produced ice cream cones at the site until 1997. The original owner's name, Hughes, is embedded into the lintel above the main entrance of the red brick building, part of a once-affluent neighborhood of Victorian homes developed in the late 1870s as Hughes Circle. The factory is the only structure still standing in Hughes Circle, now Sullivan Drive.

"Flint Hills Development Group has experience redeveloping projects with national and state historic tax credits and wanted to take on this project," added Holland. "We are pleased the buyer appreciates and understands preservation."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

World Class Capital Picks Up Kimco Portfolio

World Class Capital Group, an Austin-based privately owned national real estate investment firm, has added another 1.2 million square feet to its roster with the acquisition of an eight property portfolio purchased from Kimco Realty Corp. The shopping center portfolio includes properties located in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma, spread across major markets across the Midwest including Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Des Moines, and Oklahoma City. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"We are pleased to announce that we have closed on this strategic portfolio acquisition. This purchase from Kimco will allow us to increase our presence across the Midwest for our growing national retail property operating platform," said Nate Paul, President and CEO of World Class Capital Group. "We plan to maximize value by performing capital improvements to the properties, filling vacancies, and developing pad sites across the portfolio."

At the time of sale the portfolio was 93% leased with major tenants including Home Depot, Ross, TJ Maxx, Big Lots, Marshall's, Office Depot, and other big-box retailers. World Class has been on a bit of a buying spree, according to GlobeSt.com. Last month, it acquired Manhattan Place, a roughly 140,000-square-foot shopping center in New Orleans from Weingarten Realty. The company has acquired over 3-million-square-feet of real estate in 2014, and now owns and operates a portfolio with properties in 15 states and over 25 markets.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Mixed Use Building Near WTC Sells for $53M

Eastern Consolidated and Cresa New York announced in a joint statement this week that they have arranged the $52.9 million sale of 110-112 Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan. The 66,530 square foot mixed use property was purchased by Hersel Torkian of the BHT Corp. Eastern Consolidated Chairman and CEO Peter Hauspurg, principal and executive managing director David Schechtman, senior director Lipa Lieberman, and associate director Abie Kassin; along with Cresa New York president and managing principal Mark Jaccom and senior advisor Elyse Schindler-Candella, exclusively represented the buyer, as well as the seller, 110 Greenwich Street Associates, in the transaction. Full terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"This premier property is one of the best redevelopment opportunities in the Lower Manhattan investment market," said Peter Hauspurg. "Its strategic location and potential for redevelopment for any number of future uses permitted as-of-right under its current, extremely favorable zoning designation, makes this a great asset for the new owner."

Located on the corner of Carlisle Street one block south of the World Trade Center Memorial and One World Trade Center, the property features 60 free market apartments, corner retail space, and 30,000 square feet of additional development rights. The property also comes with roughly 6,600 square feet of retail space and 30,000 square feet of commercial air rights, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Torkian Group, a development and property management company, said it plans to renovate the lobby, add a fitness center, new elevators and a new heating and cooling system to the building.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Houston Industrial Portfolio Sold

EastGroup Properties, a Jackson, MS-based self-administered REIT, has completed the sale of a three building industrial portfolio in Houston, TX to Cabot Properties Inc. EastGroup announced that it had sold Clay Campbell Distribution Center (118,000 square feet) and Kirby Business Center (125,000 square feet) in Houston for $13.4 million and recognized a gain on the sales of $7.2 million in the third quarter. According to a GlobeSt.com report, Cabot purchased the assets free and clear of existing debt. HFF marketed the portfolio on behalf of EastGroup Properties, with a sales team led by senior managing director Rusty Tamlyn, director Trent Agnew and real estate analyst John Rogers.

"Because of their tremendous functionality, these assets have enjoyed a strong historical performance under EastGroup's ownership and generated significant interest from both institutional and private capital investors," said Trent Agnew. "Like EastGroup, Cabot continues to be bullish on Houston's long-term prospects and these assets are a great compliment to their current holdings and give them exposure to the market within their latest fund."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Carthay Campus Sold for $75M

Douglas Emmett, Inc. (DEI), a Santa Monica, CA-based REIT, announced this week that it had acquired the Carthay Campus in Los Angeles for $75.3 million, or $360 per square foot. The 216,000 square foot office property was sold by a joint venture between Cambria Realty and PRP LLC, which originally purchased the property in 2009 for $44 million. Representation and terms of the deal were not disclosed, though DEI did announce that it financed the purchase using available cash and a portion of its credit line.

The Carthay Campus is a Class A mutli-tenant office property located at 6310/6330 San Vicente Boulevard. At the time of sale, the two-building property was roughly 83% leased.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

ARC Buys R&D Building for $23M

American Realty Capital announced this week that it had purchased a research and development building in Webster Groves, MO from Missouri-based Owen Ridge Associates, an LLC with a registered agent of Michael Barry of Owen Development. Colliers International closed the $22.8 million sale, negotiating the sale terms; according to their research, the total transaction dollar amount is the largest St. Louis has seen year-to-date for a single tenant, NNN leased office property sale. The Kase Group, an affiliate of Sperry Van Ness based in Northern California, represented American Realty Capital in the transaction.

The 90,000-square-foot research and development facility at 381-385 Marshall Avenue is part of the Owen Ridge Business Park, a well-positioned, infill development catering to office, technology and services tenants, situated on approximately 32 acres in St. Louis, Missouri. According to the St. Louis Better Business Bureau, Covidien is listed as a tenant at the facility.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Real Estate Investors Pushing New Construction

In a new article from the Wall Street Journal titled For Real-Estate Investors, It's Out With the Old, Eliot Brown explores how the global hunt for yield is rippling through the U.S. property market. With foreign investors and pension funds push up prices for top-quality, low-vacancy office buildings, several publicly traded real-estate investment trusts such as Boston Properties are piling into new projects offering better growth potential, even if it means more risk. An excerpt follows:

"Most of the REITs are pivoting to development or heavy redevelopment as an investment strategy," said Jed Reagan, an analyst at Green Street Advisors Inc. who follows office landlords. "There's so much aggressive capital out there that's looking for a home," he said.

Boston Properties' latest deal, for the buildings at 601 Lexington Ave. in Manhattan and 100 Federal St. and Atlantic Wharf in Boston, puts the company on track for more than $2 billion in property sales this year, up from $1.3 billion in 2013. At the same time, it had $3.5 billion of projects under development in the second quarter, including a San Francisco site that is to be the second-tallest tower west of the Mississippi River.

A year earlier the company developed $2.5 billion of projects, its highest level in at least a decade.

"We're certainly more bullish on development than buying buildings," Mr. Zuckerman said in an interview in his Midtown Manhattan office.

"Older buildings are trading at higher prices per square foot than where we can build," added Owen Thomas, the former Morgan Stanley executive who became Boston Properties' chief executive last year.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Premium Point Investments Acquires Majority Interest in RCM

Premium Point Investments LP, a New York-based institutional asset manager, announced this week that it had acquired a majority interest in Residential Capital Management ("RCM"), an Atlanta-based landlord and property manager as the U.S. home-rental industry. Citi advised Premium Point on the transaction; terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2010, RCM provides a combination of investment management services, including acquisitions, construction, property management, property preservation, leasing, title and disposition services. RCM has offices in Marietta, Georgia and Nashville, Tennessee plus three offices in Florida, in Orlando, Tampa and Boca Raton. As of June, RCM had acquired, renovated, and managed over 7,200 homes since it was founded.

"We see great synergies between our businesses, and significant opportunities in the single-family rental market," said Anilesh Ahuja, CEO and chief investment officer of Premium Point. "In RCM, we have a partner that is a best-in-class operator with a proven track record of investing for large institutional clients."

For Premium Point, the partnership represents an opportunity to add to its investment platform across the residential markets in a proven institutional asset class. "Some groups have focused more on home price appreciation or discount to replacement cost looking for a shift in the market," said Lance Popp, president of RCM. "People who are entering now are trying to figure out how to operate as efficiently as possible and get the most out of every asset."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Overstock Breaks Ground on Peace Coliseum Corporate Park

Overstock broke ground this week on its new corporate campus, referred to as the "Peace Coliseum," which will look like a corporate glass-and-concrete version of the Roman Coliseum, but from the air, the three-story building will appear as a peace sign. The $100 million project will bring most of its 1,600 employees under one roof on a five-acre parcel of land in Midvale, UT, a suburb of Salt Lake City.

"We need a large space where we can get together as a company and have meetings all in one place or meals," said Overstock President Stormy Simon in a press release. "We currently don't have one in either structure that we're in, the capability to gather as one company. Our company is split and we're on different sides of town, 800 employees in one space and 800 employees in another. To have it created with the function of our company in mind so it works for us and how we see departments interact, it'll be a better work environment. To be at a point where we're doing well as an organization and be able to build a building that's just for us and unite our workforce is so exciting."

The 231,000-square-foot office building will be located at 7295 S. Bingham Junction Blvd. In addition to the central office building, the campus will include an amenities building, park-like open green space and a parking structure, according to a Deseret News article. The developer is Gardner Co., the contractor is Okland Construction and the architect is EDA Architects Inc. The Overstock warehouses will remain in their present locations in Utah, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Campbell Picks BRT for Gateway District Development

Campbell Soup Co. announced this week that it had selected Brandywine Realty Trust, the PA-based REIT, as the developer of the mixed use development for Camden's Gateway District. The designation follows the approval of the Camden Redevelopment Agency, which gave the greenlight to develop the new complex on 13 acres located off Newton Avenue between Admiral Wilson Boulevard and 11th Street in Camden, NJ. Under the terms of the agreement, Brandywine will acquire several properties that Campbell has acquired and prepared them for redevelopment. Full terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Brandywine is a perfect fit for this project. Brandywine has consistently demonstrated a clear focus on high-quality, well-designed urban development and their experience will be an important catalyst to establishing the Gateway District as a sought after business center," said Richard Landers, Campbell's Vice President of Tax and Real Estate. at Campbell Soup Co. in a statement. "Today marks an important step in the revitalization of Camden's Gateway District that will help create jobs and spur economic growth."

"We are honored to have been chosen by Campbell as the developer for the Gateway District Development," added Gerard Sweeney, President and Chief Executive Officer of Brandywine Realty Trust. "The Gateway District Development, adjacent to the internationally renowned Campbell Soup Company, will be an important component in revitalizing the city of Camden and the opportunity is consistent with Brandywine's philosophy of developing multi-modal, office and mixed-use, town center developments of consequence. "

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Amazon Shopping NYC

Amazon will open its first retail outlet in New York City on 34th Street for the holidays this year, a block east from Macy's flagship at Herald Square, according to a CNBC report. The experimental pop-up store at 7 W. 34th Street, across from the Empire State Building, will function as a small warehouse, holding limited inventory for same-day deliveries only in New York. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment to CNBC about the project, except to say, "We have made no announcements about a location in Manhattan."

The New York Times' David Streitfeld and Charles V Bagli report that while sources indicate Amazon is indeed "taking over [the] entire building," — once the site of an Orbach's department store — "whether there will be an Amazon store any time soon on 34th Street seems an open question."

Opening a physical location is "about marketing the Amazon brand," said Matt Nemer, a Wells Fargo analyst. "Same-day delivery, ordering online and picking up in store are ideas that are really catching on. Amazon needs to be at the center of that." Other primarily online retailers have opened physical storefronts, including clothier Bonobos Inc., eyeglasses purveyor Warby Parker, and subscription beauty-products service Birchbox.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

One Hanover Park Sold to JV

A joint venture between Houston-based PM Realty Group and American National Insurance Co. announced this week that it had entered into an agreement to purchase the One Hanover Park building. The property was sold by a partnership between Cawley Partners and Stockbridge Capital; the sale price is unknown, but One Hanover Park was being marketed at $24 per square foot plus electricity. Terms of the deal were also not disclosed, but a press release notes that CBRE Group's Eric Mackey, Gary Carr, John Alvarado, and Robert Hill brokered the sale.

"One Hanover fits our strategy of buying A-quality properties with value-add returns in markets where PMRG has extensive operating experience," John Dailey, executive vice president of investments at PMRG, told GlobeSt.com. "The Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex office market will continue to show improvement as companies are attracted to the business-friendly environment with relatively lower business costs and a well-educated labor force."

Cawley Partners are finishing some renovations to One Hanover Park, an eight-story, 195,754-square-foot Class A office building at 16633 Dallas Parkway in North Dallas. Those renovations include developing spec suites and gutting the top floor for a new tenant, according to a Dallas Business Journal report. The group plans to finish the spec suites prior to the deal closing.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

AVE Aviation Gets $20M in Construction Financing

Grandbridge Real Estate Capital, a subsidiary of Branch Banking and Trust Company (BB&T), announced this week that it had secured $20,150,000 in first mortgage construction loans for two new industrial warehouse buildings at the AVE Aviation and Commerce Center in Miami. The loan, provided by BB&T, was provided to CPF Investment Group, the developer of the mixed-use business park. The funding will finance the development of two new buildings with approximately $9 million being allocated to construct Building "EF" and about $11.25 million for the construction of Building "J". Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Supply for Class A warehouse and distribution space is very limited east of the Palmetto Expressway (State Road 826)," said Ernesto Cambo, principal of CPF Investment Group. "Our unique location coupled with access to the airfield is a formula for a world-class business park."

"BB&T saw the benefits of AVE Aviation and Commerce Center, and Mr. Cambo’s ability to construct and lease up Class A industrial buildings in even the most challenging of economic times," Carlos Moore, senior vice president with BB&T, said of the deal. "Buildings EF and J are a continuation of an established lending relationship with Mr. Cambo."

"The loan was tricky given the fact that preleasing was less than 50 percent. However, the sponsor has a solid, 20-year track record of successful industrial development in Miami, which helped BB&T get comfortable with the transaction", added BB&T senior vice President Phil Carroll.

The AVE Aviation and Commerce Centre is a master planned 2.6 million square foot mixed-use business park on 178 acres on western region of the Opa Locka Airport. The buildings are 32 percent preleased to Turbopower, an aircraft engine repair firm; other tenants of the AVE Aviation and Commerce Center include the U.S. Postal Service, Off Lease Only, ArjoHuntleigh, Goodyear, Banyan Air Service, and SunTrade Imports.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Beaverton Corp Parks Sell for $160M

PS Business Parks, Inc., a Glendale, CA-based REIT focused on multi-tenant flex, office and industrial space, announced this week that it had completed the sale of two business parks in Beaverton, Oregon for $159.9 million. With representation from Eastdil Secured, PS Business Parks sold the properties to an unnamed buyer; terms of the deal were also not disclosed. After the sale, PS Business Parks has one remaining 102,000 square foot business park in Portland, Oregon, that it also intends to sell and, when complete, the company will no longer own assets in Oregon.

The first property, Cornell Oaks Corporate Center, was master-planned in 1982 and previously sold in 2002 for $87.5 million. The 12-building corporate park was the biggest deal of the year for Norris Beggs & Simpson in 2001. Talcott Realty I Limited Partnership had owned Cornell Oaks since 1995 and put it up for sale in November 2000. The second property, Creekside Corporate Park, is one of the largest business parks in the Portland metropolitan area with close to 525,000 square feet of Class A office and flex space. Occupancy of the portfolio at the date of sale was 89.6%, according to a press release.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Tishman Buys 183 Madison for $185M

Tishman Speyer Properties, together with the Cogswell-Lee Development Group, has entered into an agreement to purchase 183 Madison Ave. in New York City for $185 million, or $674 per square foot. The Argentinian real estate development firm IRSA is selling the art deco building known as the Madison-Belmont Building on East 34th and Madison. According to a New York Post article, Tishman is expected to target the building toward tech, advertising, media and Internet (TAMI) companies. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. IRSA and Rigby Asset Management purchased the building in 2010 for $85.1 million before IRSA took over full ownership of the building, as the Post noted.

The 274,413-square-foot building was designed by Warren & Wetmore, which also designed Grand Central Terminal, and was completed in 1925 for the Merchants & Manufacturers Exchange of New York as office and showroom space for silk companies in the developing Silk District of Manhattan. According to a press release from Tishman, the property is currently 95% leased.

"183 Madison Avenue, a magnificent property in the heart of one the world's leading magnets for technology, media, design and entertainment firms,” Tishman Speyer Co-CEOs Jerry Speyer and Rob Speyer said in a prepared statement. "Along with Tishman Speyer's recent acquisition of nearby 175 Varick Street, this continues our strategy of investing in New York City's fastest growing submarkets, including Midtown South, Hudson Yards and Long Island City."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.