Bloomberg Signs Lease for More NYC Space

Bloomberg L.P. announced this week that it has reached an agreement to lease 16 floors, totaling more than 400,000 square feet of office space, at 120 Park Avenue in New York according to a New York Times article. The company said that it expanded its presence in the former Philip Morris building, across from Grand Central Terminal, to accommodate the company’s rapid growth. Bloomberg will continue to maintain its headquarters space of about 900,000 square feet at 731 Lexington Ave.

"This new location is ideal as we build upon our record-setting year in 2010 and position ourselves for future growth," said Peter Grauer, Chairman of Bloomberg L.P. "We continue to hire in New York and we expect that to continue as we expand our businesses and move into new markets worldwide," said Daniel Doctoroff, President of Bloomberg L.P.

The new space at 120 Park Avenue is owned by Eastgate Realty Corporation, with CBRE representing Bloomberg in the transaction. Terms and pricing for the lease were not disclosed, but Bloomberg said it expects to begin occupying the new offices in late 2011 after renovations to the space.

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Facebook Moving HQ to Menlo Park

In the biggest lease deal in Silicon Valley since 1991 when Apple signed an 865,000-square-foot lease agreement, Facebook held a news conference at Menlo Park City Hall on Tuesday explaining that the crowding in their current location pushed the move to a larger space in Menlo Park where the social networking company will assume multiple office buildings to serve as its headquarter campus according to a CNN article. The company will begin moving its employees this summer and said that it would be renovating the campus to make it a fun place to work.

"There are very few opportunities for a city to have an 'it' company," Mayor Richard Cline said of Facebook after the press conference. "And we also have facilities that are vacant. This solves a big problem." Facebook will rent the one million square feet, nine building campus from Deutsche Bank AG’s RREEF in a 15-year sale-leaseback deal; RREEF purchased the 57-acre property from Sun Microsystems owner Oracle Corp. for an undisclosed amount. The property was built between 1993 and 1995 and was the corporate headquarters for Sun Microsystems until it was acquired by Oracle.

Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman noted that Facebook has the option to buy the property in five years. The company also bought an adjacent 22-acre property, connected to the new site by a tunnel, for future development.

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Strategic Storage Trust Secures $29.1M CMBS Loan

Citigroup Global Markets Realty Corporation, a CMBS lender, provided a $29.13 million loan to Strategic Storage Trust for the refinancing of 11 of its properties in various locations throughout the United States according to National Real Estate Advisor. The ten year loan was set at a fixed interest rate of 5.77% and a 30-year amortization. CBRE Capital Markets arranged the financing.

"This financing was our first time utilizing a CMBS execution since the 2007 change in the market," said H. Michael Schwartz, CEO of Strategic Storage Trust, Inc. "Despite the more constrained documentation and extensive due diligence requirements of the new CMBS programs, the CBRE team did an excellent job helping us navigate our way through the process and closing the financing. The low 10 year fixed interest rate will be accretive for our FFO going forward as the money is invested in new acquisitions." The 11 facilities are located in Metro Chicago, Las Vegas, Alpharetta, Biloxi, Florence, Gulf Breeze, New Jersey, and West Mifflin for a total of 7,785 units and 944,500 square feet.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

CoStar Sells DC HQ, Makes $60M Profit

1331 L Street in the heart of Washington's Business District traded hands this week as CoStar agreed to sell the 169,430-square-foot building to GLL L-Street 1331, a subsidiary of GLL Real Estate Partners. The sale of the headquarter building of CoStar is scheduled for close later this month for $101 million - a $60 million profit for the company according to the Washington Post. CoStar bought the Class A building last year from the Mortgage Bankers Association for $41.3 million with the help of a $6.1 million, 10-year tax abatement from the city that was contingent on the publicly traded company hiring 100 District residents.

"We nailed the bottom and are getting out while we go into the recovery," said CoStar's chief executive, Andrew Florance. The seller was represented by executive managing directors, Paul Collins and William Collins, senior managing director, John Flood and senior vice presidents, James Cassidy and Judson Ryan of Cassidy Turley Commercial Real Estate Services.

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WMAP Picks Up Atlas Park for $53.75M

A newly-formed group called WMAP, LLC acquired The Shops at Atlas Park in Queens this week for $53.75 million. The beleaguered center was unveiled in 2006 as an outdoor "lifestyle center," but went into foreclosure in February 2009. WMAP iincludes Macerich, a Chicago-based development corporation that specializes in revitalizing ailing real estate, as well as Walton Street Capital according to TrafficCourt. The financier, Socié́té́ Gé́né́rale, was still owed $119 million at the time of the sale. The sale is expected to close within 30 days.

"They're just really excited, eager to basically have a rebirth," said attorney Boris Sorin, who represents eight Atlas Park shops.

"We can finally move forward with developing Glendale's own shopping center," said Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley. "The community welcomes the new leadership with open arms and is eager to help Atlas become an engine for economic growth."

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Colony Picks up $817M FDIC Portfolio

A consortium of investors organized by Colony Capital has acquired two portfolios of distressed assets from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for about $193 million. The loans, which were for residential and commercial property acquisition, development and construction, had a total unpaid principal balance of $817 million. Los Angeles-based Colony, led by Chairman Tom Barrack, already has won four other portfolios of FDIC mortgages valued at more than $3 billion, making it the largest winner of multiple deals according to a Wall Street Journal article.

Colony, which put some money in the purchase, will be in charge of disposing of the assets, working out settlements with the borrowers, foreclosing or reselling the loans. Colony said it acquired the two portfolios of 1,505 residential and commercial loans for 23.6 cents on the dollar.

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Tishman Speyer Sells DC Office Building for $137.4M

Carr Properties, in a joint venture with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and MetLife Real Estate Investments, has purchased the Floyd Akers Building from Tishman Speyer for $137.4 million according to a CoStar report. Tishman originally acquired the building at 1255 23rd Street, NW for $107.88 million from Blackstone/CarrAmerica in 2006 as part of a larger portfolio.

The Floyd Akers Building was developed in 1983 by The Oliver Carr Company and is a 341,443-square-foot, Class A office property in the West End submarket of Washington, DC. At the time of sale the building was nearly 95% leased with major tenants including Mercer LLC, the Chronicle of Philanthropy and The Chronicle of Higher Education. CoStar reports that the asking rent per year is roughly $40 per square foot.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.