Princeton Pike Corporate Center Trades Hands

Bloomfield, NJ-based Prism Capital Partners announced the sale of Princeton Pike Corporate Center, an eight-building, 800,000-square-foot office park in Central New Jersey's Mercer County for an undisclosed price. The property previously traded in 2013 when Brandywine Realty Trust sold the complex to Prism Capital Partners and Angelo Gordon for $121 million, or $151 per square foot. As the operating partner, Prism Capital Partners launched a series of upgrades after purchasing the property, including tech updates and new entrances and amenities. Joe Garibaldi, Tom Walsh and Michael Fenton of Jones Lang LaSalle brokered Princeton Pike Corporate Center's sale to Lenox Drive Office Park LLC.

"We added tremendous value during our ownership of Princeton Pike Corporate Center," said Edwin Cohen, Prism Capital Partners principal partner. "The improving economy brought renewed velocity to the office leasing market, and we capitalized on that through significant capital improvements and aggressive leasing."

"Our purchase acumen was proved correct through the considerable profit we earned," added Eugene Diaz, another Prism principal partner.

Constructed on 100 acres between 1984 and the early 1990s, Princeton Pike Corporate Center's class A office buildings range in size from the 97,000-square-foot 997 Lenox Drive (Princeton Pike 3), to the 180,000-square-foot 1009 Lenox Drive (Princeton Pike 4). The eight buildings each feature central atriums, onsite café and fitness centers, on-site management, and offer close proximity to area hotels. The property was 90% leased at the time of sale, with major tenants including Wells Fargo, Ken Clark International, Stark & Stark, the Princeton Healthcare System, Fox Rothschild, Citigroup, MetLife, Philadelphia Insurance Co., and Ono Pharma USA.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

Griffin Towers in Santa Ana Sold for $129M

An affiliate of Blackstone, the global investment and advisory firm, completed the purchase of the Griffin Towers in Santa Ana, California for $129 million, making it the largest commercial office transaction to take place in Orange County this year. A joint venture between Lincoln Property Company and Angelo, Gordon & Co. sold the property with representation from CBRE while Blackstone represented itself. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Our acquisition and subsequent sale of the Griffin Towers is representative of Lincoln's value-add strategy as an owner, operator and manager of Class-A office space across Southern California," said Kevin Hayes, Senior Vice President at Lincoln Property Company. "We identified a trophy asset in financial distress, invested energy and capital into alleviating deferred maintenance, and took a hands-on approach to improving occupancy in a challenging leasing environment."

The twin 12-story office buildings at 5 and 6 Hutton Centre Drive was previously purchased by the Lincoln-led JV in 2010, which then made thorough upgrades to the common areas, improving the occupancy rate from 71% to 88%. The buildings' largest tenants include Corinthian Colleges, one of the largest post-secondary education companies in North America; CH2M Hill; Ultimate Software; and Premier Business Centers.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Invesco Acquires SSF Logistics Center

Invesco Real Estate has purchased the SSF Logistics Center in South San Francisco from a partnership of New York City-based Angelo Gordon & Co., Lafayette-based Orchard Partners and Chicago-based Centrum Properties. The property was brought to the market for sale in May, and brokered by Cassidy Turley/BT Commercial. While the terms of the deal and final sale price were not disclosed, industry sources say the property would have sold for around $120 million, according to a report from The Registry.

"The team of Orchard, Cassidy Turley and Centrum brought to bear decades of industrial investment, leasing, entitlement, construction and management expertise, as well as deep locale market relationships and perspectives, on this project. Following a yearlong re-entitlement and redesign for a major logistics company, we are thrilled to consummate this sale to Invesco," said Steve White, a managing director with Angelo Gordon in a prepared statement.

"SSF Logistics Center has been thoughtfully conceived, and on a fully renovated basis has been transformed to a state-of-the-art logistics facility. This is something rarely found on the Peninsula," says Tyler Higgins, managing partner of Orchard Partners.

The SSF Logistics Center has two separate buildings covering 26 acres located along the west side of 101 and north of US 380 at 1070 San Mateo Avenue. The 453,076 square-foot warehouse building is 93% leased to Federal Express with a recently signed lease that expires in 15 years with two five-year extension options, with the General Services Administration taking up the remainder of the building for the Drug Enforcement Administration. The second 9,240 square foot building offers retail/cafe/business services space and is currently under construction, with an expected delivery date sometime this December.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

JV Completes $121 Million Acquisition of Princeton Pike Corporate Center

A joint venture between Prism Capital Partners and Angelo, Gordon & Co. has completed the acquisition of Princeton Pile Corporate Center in Lawrenceville, New Jersey for $121 million, or $151 per square foot. Brandywine Realty Trust sold the 800,000 square foot complex; terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"This was a strategic acquisition and an expansion from northern New Jersey into the Princeton marketplace," said Eugene Diaz, principal of the Bloomfield, N.J.-based Prism Capital Partners. "Princeton Pike is a high quality set of assets in a cohesive office park environment, one that also offers future development opportunities on approved land. We are also very familiar with the asset, dating back to a relationship with the original developer, DKM, so this acquisition made complete sense."

The eight-building complex was approximately 90% leased at the time of sale. Situated on 100 acres at the intersection of U.S. Route 1 and I-195 and completed between 1984 and 1990, Princeton Pike Corporate Center is just minutes from downtown Princeton. Prism is handling the leasing of Princeton Pike Corporate Center. "This is a strategically located class A asset with access from all major corridors leading to and from the Princeton area," said Edwin Cohen, principal of Prism. "We anticipate a great deal of interest in the property's remaining availabilities."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

City Center Picks Up Downtown Minneapolis Office

City Center Realty Partners, in a partnership with investment advisor Angelo, Gordon & Co., announced this week that it had acquired a 320,000 square foot office building in downtown Minneapolis. Carlson Real Estate sold the Plaza Seven office building at 45 Seventh St. S. for an undisclosed sum, and the terms of the deal are unknown. The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal noted that the deal for Plaza Seven is somewhat unusual because it involved"condo-ing" the office portion of the building separately from the Radisson Hotel that occupies the lower 16-stories of the tower.

"City Center Realty Partners is thrilled to add this prime property to our growing portfolio of assets throughout the country," said Sigurd Anderson, Founding Partner with CCRP. Brent Robertson and Jon Dahl, brokers at Jones Lang LaSalle, were handling leasing for Carlson at the tower and are expected to retain that work after the sale. JLL's Minneapolis office is in Plaza Seven.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

UnitedHealth Group Sells Eden Prairie Campus for $50M

UnitedHealth Group Inc. completed the sale of its Eden Prairie OptumHealth division to an affiliate of Angelo, Gordon & Co., a New York-based private equity group that buys distressed assets, for $50 million. The sale comes shortly after UnitedHealth bought the property this past June for $39.5 million according to a Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal article. UnitedHealth has said that Optum will remain on the campus in a 12 year sale-leaseback deal.

The 90-acre campus is the former ADC Telecommunications headquarters and includes three buildings at 13625 and 13675 Technology Drive in Eden Prairie, MN. The campus has been renovated to house roughly 700 Optum employees that had previously been scattered at various sites throughout the area. UnitedHealth has announced that it is also planning a five-year, $250 million expansion near Highway 62 and Shady Oak Road in Eden Prairie. The 71-acre site will include 1.5 million square feet of office space, a parking ramp and room for light rail.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

CommonWealth REIT Picks Up Groupon HQ for $390M

The headquarters of Groupon at at 600 W. Chicago Ave. in Chicago traded hands this month for $390 million according to a Chicago Sun-Times article. Commonwealth REIT purchased the former Montgomery Ward catalog building from 600 West Chicago Associates LLC and assumed the existing financing. CoStar reports that affiliates of Angelo, Gordon & Co. sold 600 W. Chicago for $288.9 million or $184 per square foot in March 2007. HFF marketed the property on behalf of the seller, 600 West Chicago Associates LLC; HFF arranged the prior financing in 2007 and also arranged the $180 million in financing on the property for the previous owners in 2005.

600 West Chicago was originally built in 1908 and completely redeveloped in 2001 as a 1.5 million square foot mixed-use property. The property was reportedly 94% leased at the time of purchase with major tenants including Groupon, Wrigley, Fox Sports, Level 3, Japonais Restaurant and David Barton Gym.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

$380M Refinancing for Chelsea Market in NYC

CB Richard Ellis' Capital Markets Group secured a $380 million in conjunction with the recapitalization of Chelsea Market at 75 Ninth Avenue in Manhattan on behalf of Jamestown Properties according to a Citybizlist article. The loan, financed through Germany's Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg, was used by Jamestown to buy out its partners in the property, Angelo, Gordon & Co., Belvedere Capital and original Chelsea Market developer Irwin Cohen.

"Lending on Manhattan assets is seen as less risky than other markets and that's been evident through the downturn," Dan Fasulo, managing director with global commercial real estate research and consulting firm Real Capital Analytics, told Commercial Property Executive. "Of the troubled assets we had in the country, Manhattan had the highest recovery rate for lenders when there was a default. It's proven to be rather resilient versus other markets."

The mixed-use property was originally a 22-building complex that served as the National Biscuit Company (now known as Nabisco) factory complex, filling two entire blocks. Chelsea Market was 99% occupied at the time of closing with major tenants including Google, Scripps Networks, Major League Baseball, EMI and Anthropologie.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

JV Secures $23M Loan for DC Office Condo

In December of last year, Monument Realty and Angelo, Gordon & Co. bought 2055 L Street NW in Washington, DC in an all-cash deal; this month, they've secured a 23.2 million senior loan commitment from PCCP LLC for the acquisition and re-development financing of the property. With this loan in place, the joint venture will now commence a six-month rehabilitation to the owned 102,000 square foot condominium office portion of the 237,000 square foot building.

"The owner plans to renovate the property to position it as a quality Class A asset," said John Randall, senior vice president at PCCP, LLC. "The overall competitive vacancy rate in the CBD is approximately 6.4 percent. Once the renovation is completed, its quality and key location will be desirable to high-profile law firms, lobbyists, and non-profit organizations and associations."

Verizon sold the property, represented by Cushman & Wakefield, to the JV for $12.75 million. The JV plans to move forward in the coming months with a full renovation of 2055 L that will improve the now Class B building’s common areas, facade and building systems and add ground-floor retail space.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.