Commerce Plaza Office Complex Sold for $125M

The Blackstone Group is selling Commerce Plaza, a three building, 515,005 square foot office complex in Oak Brook, Illinois, for $125 million to Chicago-based Zeller Realty. When completed, this will be the biggest suburban office deal of 2016 and the largest since Blackstone and Wells Fargo bought Deerfield's Corporate 500 Centre from GE Capital Real Estate for $154M last year, according to a Bisnow report. Full terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Blackstone was represented by CBRE in the deal. The building was previously owned by Arden Realty Inc.

Located at 2001, 2015 and 2021 Spring Road and originally constructed in 1974, Commerce Plaza's seven-story buildings are currently over 95% leased, with TreeHouse Foods leasing roughly 100,000 square feet of space for its headquarters. Conveniently located in the heart of Oak Brook, Commerce Plaza is 20 minutes west of downtown Chicago and 15 minutes south of O’Hare International Airport. The property features interconnected buildings surrounded by landscaped grounds with a courtyard focal point and an attached covered parking structure and plenty of surface parking. Zeller also has a deal to buy Woodfield Preserve Office Center in Schaumburg for about $74 million, according to Chicago Business; the acquisitions are Zeller's first in the Chicago suburbs since 2007.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

HKMA Buys Stake in NYC Skyscraper for $1.2B

Real Summit Investment, an investment fund of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Exchange Fund (HKMA), has purchased a 49% stake in 1095 Sixth Avenue from Ivanhoe Cambridge and Callahan Capital Partners for $1.15 billion. Ivanhoe Cambridge, the real estate investment arm of Quebec's public pension plan, and Chicago-based fund manager Callahan, originally acquired the tower — also known as the Salesforce Tower New York and 3 Bryant Park — for $2.2 billion from Blackstone Group in January 2015, according to a report from The Real Deal. The new transaction values the office tower at $2.35 billion. Eastdil Secured brokered the transaction; terms of the deal were not disclosed.

HKMA — whose mission is to control the exchange rate of the Hong Kong Dollar — apparently made the move to control the exchange rate of the Hong Kong Dollar whose value is linked to the US Dollar by government policy. "To diversify risks, we decided to allocate, in a prudent and incremental manner, a small portion of the Exchange Fund to alternative asset class comprising global private equity and overseas real estate," the HKMA's deputy chief executive Eddie Yue said in a December speech.

The 1.2 million-square-foot office tower at 1095 Sixth Avenue between 41st and 42nd streets was 97% leased at the time of sale. "The opportunity to acquire a truly iconic property like Three Bryant Park is extremely rare," said Ivanhoe Cambridge's executive vice president Arthur Lloyd. He added that acquiring the office tower "represents a cornerstone of our expanding U.S. office platform."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

100 Montgomery Sold for $285M

Blackstone Group’s wholly owned subsidiary Equity Office has sold 100 Montgomery Street, a 429,000-square-foot office tower in San Francisco's Financial District, for $285 million. The property was acquired by Vanbarton Group LLC and a U. S. pension fund partner, according to a San Francisco Business Times article. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though Vanbarton did announce that Cushman & Wakefield will handle exclusive leasing for the property. Equity acquired the property four years ago for $165 million, a deal that more than doubled the $67.5 million Hines and Sterling American Properties paid for the office tower in 2006.

"Situated in an unparalleled location with immediate access to public transportation and premier amenities, the building provides the features that tenants are seeking today," said William Bond, a managing director with Vanbarton Group, in a press release.

100 Montgomery was originally designed by Wilbur D. Peugh and developed by Equitable Life Insurance as their headquarters in 1955, and is considered a historically significant structure in downtown San Francisco. In 2006, Hines and Sterling began a 36-month, $30 million redevelopment plan for the building, with redesign services by Robert A.M. Stern Architects. The 25 story office building with ground floor retail appeals to both traditional office users as well as technology and media companies, with major tenants including City National Bank, the U.S. General Services Administration, Segal Co., Enovity, Trucker Huss and Wells Fargo Bank.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

$87M Sale of SunTrust Center in Ft. Lauderdale

Miami-based investment company Steelbridge Capital has purchased the SunTrust Center, a 270,000 square foot office complex in downtown Fort Lauderdale, for $86.5 million. SunTrust Banks Inc. sold the Class A property, arranging to remain in the block-sized complex as long-term retail and office tenants. According to a report from The Real Deal, Steelbridge financed the deal with a $75.4 million loan from the Blackstone Group. Terms of the sale were not disclosed, with Lincoln Harris representing the seller and CBRE representing Steelbridge, in addition to sourcing the financing.

"Iconic is a term that is often thrown around, however, in this case, we could not be more pleased to have this truly iconic asset under our ownership," said Mike Manno, managing principal at Steelbridge Capital. "We are pleased to partner with SunTrust Bank, our lead tenant and an established financial brand within the Southeast, to elevate this asset to compete at the highest level within the downtown submarket."

501 and 515 E. Las Olas Blvd. includes a 17-story office tower and three-story annex, and is the largest office building to trade in Broward County's downtown submarket so far this year. The complex, which covers a full city block in the CBD, will undergo improvements under new ownership, with Steelbridge announcing that it intends to spend millions to renovate the complex to give it a new façade, first-floor retail space and a remodeled interior. The property, which SunTrust had owned since 1999, was 77% leased at the time of sale.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

Boston Properties Buys In to Colorado Center

New York-based mega investment firm Blackstone Group is selling its stake in a Santa Monica office complex to Boston Properties for more than $500 million, marking the real estate investment trust's first purchase in southern California. According to a report from The Real Deal, it is the priciest single-property commercial sale to go down in L.A. County this year. The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA), a financial services organization, still controls the other 50% interest in the property.

Blackstone Group is selling the 50% stake in the Colorado Center that it acquired in 2007 from Equity Office Properties Trust as part of a $39 billion buyout of the company, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported. Equity Office bought the complex for $443.6 million in 2004 from Tishman Speyer Properties through a joint venture with TIAA-CREF, leaving Equity's net share of the purchase price at approximately $221.8 million. Prior to that, Tishman Speyer acquired the office property for about $353 million in 2000 from Maguire Partners.

"After a decade-plus of Boston Properties angling for a way to buy into the westside L.A. office lifestyle, it seems that the company has finally been able to plant its flag near the Santa Monica beaches," Alexander Goldfarb, an analyst with Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP, wrote in a research note after the Real Deal report. "Boston Properties' fortress balance sheet makes it well-suited for these sorts of purchases."

Colorado Center, formerly known as the Yahoo Center and MGM Plaza, is a six building, 15-acre property in the Silicon Beach area of Santa Monica with over a million square feet of office space. Originally built in the 1980s, the property has undergone several renovations, including a major overhaul prior to Yahoo's arrival by then-owner Tishman Speyer. The property was roughly 63% leased at the time of sale, with major tenants including Hulu, Yahoo! Inc., Riot Games Inc. and eHarmony.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

BioMed Picks Up University Towne Center Buildings for $55M

BioMed Realty, a San Diego-based self-advised REIT, announced that it has purchased a two-building laboratory and office property in San Diego's University Towne Center (UTC) market for $55 million. W.P. Carey, a leading global net-lease REIT, sold the buildings. While terms of the deal and represenation were not disclosed by either company, Jones Lang LaSalle has both properties listed on their marketing website. The transaction marks BioMed's first acquisition since being acquired by affiliates of New York-headquartered Blackstone Group in an $8 billion transaction that closed in January.

"This acquisition in the UTC life science hub of San Diego greatly expands our presence within one of the most vibrant innovation communities anywhere," said Tracy Murphy, senior vice president, west coast leasing at BioMed Realty. "We strive to provide our tenants with the best opportunities to grow and collaborate, and acquiring these premier buildings in the heart of UTC allows us create a true campus environment with our 4570 Executive Drive building in order to attract and retain more of San Diego's leading biotech companies here."

The acquisition of 9360 and 9390 Towne Centre Drive adds another 144,300 square feet of presence for BioMed in the UTC life science market, where it already owns another two buildings in the 9800 block of Town Centre Drive. The UTC Campus offers companies a mix of office and lab space situated around a reflecting pond, with ingress and egress access points to both the I-5 and I-805 freeways. Originally built in 1989, 9360 Towne Centre Drive features 71,390 rentable square feet of space with an existing 100% office build-out, while 9390 Towne Centre Drive offers a 65% office/35% lab split across 72,921 square feet. Each three-story building contains its own lobby area, secured underground parking, a commercial kitchen, fitness center and large conference rooms.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners

Bellevue's Sunset North Sold for $155M

M-M Properties, in partnership with a large unnamed institutional investor, has completed the acquisition of a three-building, 464,000 square foot office campus in Bellevue, Washington for $155.3 million. The property, known as Sunset North, was sold by a fund managed by Beacon Capital Partners; Beacon originally acquired the property in 2007 as part of a $6.35 billion, 39 property portfolio from Blackstone Group. The deal includes the three buildings at at 3120-3180 139th Ave. S.E., a parking lot and two adjacent vacant lots, according to property records. CBRE's Institutional Properties team represent the seller in the transaction with assistance from the Broderick Group. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"We are excited to add Sunset North to our expanding institutional investment portfolio," said Ken Moczulski, CEO of M-M Properties. "Following our October 2015 acquisition of the Sawgrass Centre office portfolio in Fort Lauderdale, the acquisition of Sunset North continues our geographic diversification into high-quality institutional assets."

"Sunset North is among the highest-quality office properties in Bellevue's I-90 corridor," added Tom Pehl, a senior vice president with CBRE Capital Markets. "The complex's unobstructed views of the downtown Seattle skyline and Olympic Mountains and easy access to downtown Bellevue and downtown Seattle have attracted an impressive mix of tenants."

Built in 1999-2000, Sunset North was developed jointly by Wright Runstad & Company and Equity Office Properties Trust. Wright Runstad started the 83-acre Sunset Corporate Campus, which includes Sunset North and three other buildings, in 1990 with Obayashi America Corp. as its financial partner. Obayashi later purchased Wright Runstad's interest in other sections of the campus, but Wright Runstad retained rights for the remaining three building sites, partnering with Equity Office when development began in 1998. The office park was designed by the award-winning firm of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca and features polished Canadian Gold granite, a state-of-the-art energy management system, and an on-site fitness center with showers and deli. Sunset North is currently 99% leased and anchored by The Boeing Company.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

YouTube Buys San Bruno Office Campus for $215M

Los Angeles-based Hudson Pacific Properties announced that it has sold the Bayhill Office Center in San Bruno, California to online video giant YouTube in an all-cash, off-market transaction worth $215.0 million, or about $388 per square foot. The 554,328-square-foot Class A office campus is adjacent to YouTube's existing headquarters in San Bruno; the company has yet not announced its plans for the new space, but has been tweaking its business strategy. Hudson Pacific originally acquired the complex as part of the San Francisco Peninsula and Silicon Valley portfolio purchased in April 2015 from Blackstone Group LP.

"Our sale of Bayhill Office Center highlights continued strong demand from the world's leading technology companies for high-quality office space along the Peninsula," said Victor Coleman, Chairman and CEO of Hudson Pacific Properties in a press release. "The asset was non-core to our portfolio, and we sold it at a premium to our original purchase price allocation as part of the Blackstone portfolio acquisition."

"This deal indicates the belief that digital media and new digital content, as opposed to movie and TV studio content, is where entertainment and information is heading," said Chris Shipley, a Redwood City-based independent analyst and consultant for the innovation and media sectors.

Bayhill Office Center is currently full and existing tenants include Oracle, Walmart Labs and other, smaller companies. It is unclear if prices will go up for tenants, or whether YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc., wants a good portion of the space for themselves. For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

Dallas' Galleria Towers Sold to CBRE

California-based Cannon Commercial Inc. has sold the three-building Galleria Towers office complex in Dallas, Texas to CBRE Strategic Partners U.S. Value 7, a fund managed by Los Angeles-based CBRE Global Investors. The sale is likely to be the largest in North Texas this year, with a sale price expected to total more than $300 million, according to a Dallas Morning News report today. "This will likely be the largest office sale in D-FW this year," said CBRE's Gary Carr who brokered the transaction along with John Alvarado, Eric Mackey and Robert Hill. "Galleria Towers is one of the most recognizable office projects in the Southwest."

The sale price would closely mirror the $300 million Cannon Commercial paid for the property in May 2008 when it was reportedly fully occupied. Prior to that, Fortis bought the Galleria Towers for $285 million from The Blackstone Group in November 2006, which acquired them from Trizec Properties. Terms of this week's deal have not been disclosed.

"This is a great asset in a great location and it has been like that for a long time," added Walter Bialas, vice president and market research director for JLL's Dallas office. "With the LBJ Expressway construction completing, I think there is a good upside for those assets. They have easy access in a good location with good visibility."

Located at 13355, 13455 and 13155 Noel Road adjacent to the Galleria Mall and built in the 1980s and early 1990s, the 1.4 million square foot Class A office complex was 70% leased at the time of sale, with one large tenant is exiting soon. Colliers International, the leasing broker for the Galleria Towers, has been working with the landlord on plans to re-lease the FedEx Office space, which is expected to leave eight floors totaling about 200,000 square feet at Three Galleria Tower at 13155 Noel Road upon completion of its new headquarters campus in West Plano within the $2 billion, 240-acre Legacy West development. CBRE Global Investors plans to invest heavily in the property adding its signature 5-Star Worldwide service and amenity program, including conference facilities, a fitness center, and enhanced on-site tenant amenities, in each building.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

Blackstone to Transform Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

In a new Wall Street Journal article titled Blackstone Looks to Buck the Odds on Vegas Strip, Craig Karmin examine's the company's move to turn around the Cosmopolitan Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas. An excerpt follows:

At the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, the top four floors of the hotel's 52-story east tower offer some of the Strip's prime real estate. Views from the wraparound balconies stretch for miles, and ceilings soar up to 16 feet. Yet these rooms sit unfinished and have never been occupied by guests.

Now, Blackstone Group LP plans to transform that space into grand suites in hopes of attracting high rollers from around the world who have largely ignored the property's underperforming casino thus far. The New York investment firm bought the hotel and casino property for $1.73 billion in December from Deutsche Bank AG.

The makeover is part of Blackstone's vision for turning around the Cosmopolitan, which has been one of the biggest real estate busts of all time. Deutsche Bank, which took control of the property in 2008 after the original owner defaulted, spent about $4 billion on the project before unloading it.

Blackstone executives said they expect to spend up to $200 million on the property, in part by completing elements of Deutsche Bank's aborted plan. In addition to the top-floor suites, Blackstone has ideas for new VIP rooms in the casino areas and is looking to add new bars and restaurants in vacant space on the first three floors.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Blackstone Sells Three Bryant Park for $2.2B

Ivanhoé Cambridge, the real estate arm of Canadian pension fund Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, and its partner, Callahan Capital Properties, announced this week that it had purchased Three Bryant Park at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in New York City for $2.2 billion. The Blackstone Group sold the asset for the second highest price ever paid for a single U.S. office building, just behind the June 2008 sale of the GM Building at 767 Fifth Ave. in New York City for $2.8 billion, according to a CoStar report. The U.S. office portfolio Ivanhoé Cambridge is building with Callahan now totals almost 5 million square feet in New York City and more than 10 million square feet nationally, Callahan chief executive officer Tim Callahan said.

"The opportunity to acquire a truly iconic property like Three Bryant Park is extremely rare," said Arthur Lloyd, Executive Vice President, Global Investments Ivanhoé Cambridge in a press release. "As we redeploy capital that has been rotated out of non-core assets globally, Three Bryant Park represents a cornerstone of our expanding U.S. office platform. The property is 97% leased for the long term to a roster of high-credit quality tenants. It fits perfectly into our investment strategy of building a diversified portfolio of top-quality office properties in gateway U.S. office markets."

"When we considered the quality and unique characteristics of this property, along with the continued enhancements in the immediate area around Three Bryant Park, it was clear this is a compelling long-term investment opportunity," added Tim Callahan, Chief Executive Officer of Callahan Capital Properties. "We continue to be very pleased with the progress we have made in expanding our U.S. office platform with Ivanhoé Cambridge, which now totals almost 5 million square feet in New York City and over 10 million square feet nationally."

Three Bryant Park is located at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan between 41st and 42nd Street. The 41 story 1.2 million-square-foot office building, completed in 1972, occupies a 1.4-acre site and has direct access to New York City's major transit hubs. The property was 97% leased at the time of sale with major tenants including MetLife, Verizon and Dechert LLP.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

US Impacts European CMBS Rebound

A new article from the Wall Street Journal titled CMBS Make a Comeback in Europe examines how the commercial mortgage-backed securities market recovery in the United States is having an impact on the European market as some of the biggest US originators are ramping up European deals. While deal volume is still below pre-crisis levels, there have been seven new European CMBS issues this year worth €2.57 billion ($3.2 billion), according to data firm Trepp LLC, compared with €47.3 billion in the peak year of 2006. An excerpt follows:

In Europe, after a limited number of deals in 2012, the CMBS market slowly restarted in 2013, but was dominated by refinancing of multifamily portfolios. Last year, about €7.2 billion of CMBS was issued, but almost all of that was from the refinancing of three large German residential portfolios, according to Trepp.

"The predominance of German multifamily in new securitization at the beginning of 2013 was significant," said Patrizia Pirinoli, CMBS analyst at Goldstar Research Ltd. Most issues, she added "stemmed also from previous securitizations."

The recovery of Europe's CMBS market is partly due to work by a trade organization, the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council, which issued new guidelines for the securities in Europe, so-called CMBS 2.0. The guidelines are meant to guarantee to investors "more transparency, more access to the underlying documents," said Charles Roberts, a partner at Paul Hastings.

Many of the deals this year have been more complex than simple refinancing. Some have provided debt to borrowers to finance new acquisitions and others involved multiple loans. For example, Goldman Sachs completed two CMBS originations backed by loans on Italian portfolios owned respectively by Blackstone Group and Morgan Stanley.

Deutsche Bank has been a leading player in Europe this year. For example, in October, together with Crédit Agricole CIB, it sold a £750 million ($1.18 billion) CMBS issue to refinance the Westfield Stratford City shopping center in London. This year, Deutsche Bank also underwrote the first postcrisis multiborrower CMBS in Europe backed by two loans on retail and office buildings across the Netherlands.

Markus Kreuter, director for CRE origination at Deutsche Bank, confirmed that Deutsche Bank expects more deals and added France, Benelux and Spain among the markets that might see more CMBS activity next year. Italy is another market where, in the lights of Italian banks' negative results to the European Central Bank's stress tests, CMBS "is a product that can bring liquidity," said Mr. Kreuter.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Colony Capital Moving Forward on $1.6B Industrial Deal

Santa Monica, California-based Colony Capital LLC is buying a 291-building industrial portfolio from Irving, Texas-based Cobalt Capital Partners according to several reports this week. Commercial Mortgage Alert reported Friday that GE Capital has agreed to provide $1.2 billion of the portfolio’s purchase price via a floating-rate loan for the 291-property industrial portfolio. The terms of the loan are now being finalized, with Colony weighing a menu of options from GE that include varying amounts of proceeds tied to the degree of leverage, according to people familiar with the process.

Colony has agreed to pay about $1.6 billion for the 29.5 million-square-foot portfolio, which contains mostly light-industrial buildings of less than 250,000 sf in 18 markets across the U.S. The 291 buildings are 85% leased by more than 650 tenants. Eastdil and CBRE are jointly brokering the sale on behalf of Cobalt, CM Alert reported. CoStar reported last week that Colony, which is about to see a merger of two affiliated entities, beat out such would-be buyers as the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Blackstone Group and TPG. Blackstone is itself preparing to sell its IndCor Properties industrial platform, Bloomberg reported last week.

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.

Blackstone Selling Bryant Park Tower

The Blackstone Group, a NYC-based multinational private equity, investment banking, alternative asset management and financial services corporation, is preparing to sell New York's 1095 Avenue of the Americas, a 42-story office tower that may fetch one of the highest prices ever for a U.S. skyscraper, according to a GlobeSt.com report. Blackstone has reportedly hired Eastdil Secured to market the tower, which serves as the headquarters of Verizon Communications Inc. The 1.2 million-square-foot tower was purchased in 2007 by Blackstone as part of its takeover of Sam Zell's Equity Office Properties Trust. According to a Bloomberg report, Blackstone is seeking as much as $2.25 billion for the 42-story office tower.

"If they were to hit this number, it would show the market is still extremely strong for these assets," commented Ben Thypin, director of market analysis at Real Capital Analytics. "If you want to buy an office building of this size, you only have so many choices." A spokesperson for Blackstone declined to comment on the Bloomberg report.

Constructed from 1972 to 1974 as headquarters of New York Telephone, 1095 Avenue Of The Americas received a $260 million renovation which upgraded the office space from Class B+ to Class A office space from 2006 to 2007. Originally, restoration was intended to be limited to structural maintenance, but later the building's developer, Equity Office Properties Trust, decided to upgrade the Class B+ property to Class A office space. The tower holds primarily office space, but some of the upper floors contains telecommunications equipment.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Blackstone To Sell Five Boston Towers for $2.1B

Oxford Properties Group, the property investment arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), is leading a consortium of buyers that has agreed to buy five high-rise office towers in Boston, MA from Blackstone Group for about $2.1 billion. According to a Boston Globe article, Blackstone originally acquired the properties when it bought Equity Office Properties Trust, a landlord built by the Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell, for $39 billion in 2007. Oxford Properties oversees about $20 billion of assets it manages for itself and on behalf of partners. Other bidders on the Boston portfolio reportedly include the Government of Singapore, and a joint venture of Norway's sovereign wealth fund and MetLife Inc.

As part of the agreement, Oxford would buy all of 100 High St. and 125 Summer St., according to a Wall Street Journal report. Oxford intends to partner with the asset management arm of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to buy three towers: 60 State St., 225 Franklin St. and One Memorial Dr. in neighboring Cambridge. The five-building portfolio totals almost 3.3 million square feet and are properties mostly in downtown Boston.

Blackstone Group is also selling its ownership stake in another Boston building in the portfolio, Rowes Wharf, to Morgan Stanley, which is its partner in the building.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Wellesley Office Park Sold to Manulife for $237M

The Wellesley Office Park, a master-planned office park in suburban Boston, traded hands this month as HFF announced that it had closed the sale of the trophy office park for $237 million. The Blackstone Group's Equity Office Properties affiliate sold the 649,184-square-foot office park in Wellesley to John Hancock, of the wholly owned subsidiary of Manufacturers Life Insurance Co. (Manulife Financial), Toronto. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Wellesley Office Park can easily be considered ‘best in class' and embodies all the long-term criteria standards of institutional investors: irreplaceable setting, convenient access, on-site amenities and marquee tenancy," said Coleman Benedict of HFF. "This distinction is overused in today's environment and only truly applies to those office properties that consistently outperform their peer group, regardless of market conditions."

"This property represents the type of high-quality asset we acquire in key markets as a priority for our strategic plan. The strong tenant roster and superb location make this an excellent addition to our investment portfolio," Ted Willcocks, Global Head of Asset Management for Manulife Real Estate told Commercial Property Executive.

The campus is comprised of eight buildings totaling nearly 650,000 square feet on William Street, off Route 9 and overlooking the Charles River. Blackstone tapped HFF to market the complex in September, according to a Boston Business Journal article. The complex was 90% leased at the time of sale to tenants including AXA Equitable Life Insurance, Northwestern Mutual Life, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Eagle Investment Systems, Stream Global Services, UBS, Benchmark Senior Living, REZ-1, Baystate Financial, and F-Squared Investments.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Blackstone's Equity Office Buys Vegas' Hughes Center for $347M

An affiliate of the Blackstone Group, Equity Office Properties, announced the acquisition of the Hughes Center complex in Las Vegas, Nevada for $347 million. The property was sold by Crescent Real Estate Holdings LLC, a joint venture of Barclays Plc's Barclays Capital unit and Goff Capital Partners LP, based in Fort Worth, Texas. According to a CoStar report, Blackstone acquired the prominent property for $347 million through its global fund, Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII. HFF, led by the team of Executive Managing Director Mark Gibson, Executive Managing Director Scott Galloway and Senior Managing Director Dan Cashdan, represented the seller. Blackstone was self-represented, according to a Commercial Property Executive article.

"We see this as a tremendous opportunity to add value, both from a market entry standpoint and with our commitment to operate these buildings at the same high level as the balance of the Equity Office portfolio," said Frank Campbell, Managing Director, Southern California for Equity Office. "This acquisition is supported by the financial strength of Blackstone which will position the real estate to perform well as the market improves."

The Hughes Center covers roughly 1.5 million square feet and includes office space, a hotel, restaurants and corporate residential facilities, as well as three undeveloped parcels, according to the Equity Office website. Located along Howard Hughes Parkway between Flamingo Road and Sands Avenue, major tenants at the time of sale included Gordon Silver, Ameristar, Wells Fargo Bank, Venetian, Boyd Gaming, Snell & Wilmer, and Lewis and Roca L.L.P. Restaurants include restaurants Del Frisco's, Lawry's Prime Rib, Fogo de Chao, Bahama Breeze, Gordon Biersch Brewery and McCormick & Schmick.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Google Buys Mountain View Offices for $235M

In another big commercial real estate play, Google has made its largest purchase so far this year with the acquisition of a six-building portfolio in Mountain View, California for $235 million. Symantec, the popular software security firm, is currently leasing two of the buildings, where they will remain until their lease expires with Google serving as landlord. Google purchased the buildings from Equity Office, which acquired the properties when its parent, the Blackstone Group, acquired CarrAmerica Realty Corp. in 2006. As reported by the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the properties include:

- Mountain View Technology Center a 131,500-square-foot, two-building project at 313 and 323 Fairchild Drive, for which Google paid $82.2 million, or $625 per square foot.

- Gateway Center, a 236,400-square-foot project at 401 Ellis St. and 500 E. Middlefield Drive. Google paid $138.8 million, or $587 per square foot.

- 485 and 495 Clyde Ave., a pair of R&D buildings totaling 64,800 square feet. Google paid $15 million, or $230 per square foot.

"We haven't seen this kind of growth in a Bay Area tech company before," said Tom Foremski, editor of Silicon Valley Watch, an online site that tracks technology trends in the Bay Area.

"Google is in very-high-growth mode, obviously," said Phil Mahoney, a Cornish & Carey executive vice president who has handled several major leasing deals on behalf of property owners that were leasing offices to Google in Santa Clara County. "They have to put their employees somewhere."

"Google's growth is unique," said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Campbell-based Creative Strategies, a market research firm. "The Google search-engine business that's tied to their ads is growing exponentially. Their mobile is growing fast. They need much more staff to code, market and manage what they are doing in advertising, and more offices for those employees."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Lehman Sells Warehouse Portfolio to Blackstone & ProLogis for $960M

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has divested another real estate portfolio, selling of its North American Industrial Fund III portfolio to The Blackstone Group and ProLogis. Lehman sold the massive portfolio totaling 17.7 million square feet over 82 properties in Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania for a total of $960 million. Lehman was represented by Steven Klein, David Drewes, Justin Elliott, Edward Dix of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

According to a CoStar report, the portfolio was sold in separate transactions to the two buyers, with affiliates of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII acquiring the Reno assets, which will be managed by IndCor Properties, Blackstone's national industrial portfolio company. Prologis Inc., an existing partner with Lehman, acquired the Pennsylvania, Las Vegas and New Jersey properties. The decision to monetize the portfolio today enables Lehman "to capitalize on strong demand for high-quality industrial product and deliver significant value to its stakeholders," the company said in a statement.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.