Downtown Nashville's Oldest Building Sold to Local Investors

William Soileau and Aline Richardson sold a historic downtown Nashville building for $1.87 million to a group of local investors, including Rob Lowe with Cassidy Turley. According to a Nashville Business Journal article, the new owners plan to spend $350,000 renovating the building and hope to secure a restaurant tenant by the fall. The building is across the street from Bridgestone Arena, home of the Tennessee Titans. "It's absolutely an investment in location," Lowe said.

The brick two-story, 5,000 square foot building is considered the oldest residential building in downtown Nashville. The building at 104 Fifth Avenue South was used by the "underground railroad" prior to the Civil War to help runaway slaves escape to the North. A renovation on the property in the 1980s revealed an 18-inch layer of silt and sand in a sealed-off basement, evidence that the Cumberland River had flooded as far west as Fifth Avenue in the early 1800s.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Cal-Bay Acquires $200M NorCal Commercial Development

Cal-Bay International, Inc. announced this week that it is acquiring 50% ownership in a joint venture agreement of land development with First Capital Real Estate Investors. The 200 acre commercial development project in Oroville Industrial Park in Northern California, an approved California "Enterprise Zone,", is expected to be valued in excess of $200 million when fully developed. The two companies will form a Cal-Bay Subsidiary LLC, equally jointly owned by Cal-Bay and First Capital, titled Cal-Bay First Capital LLC.

The current market value of the 200 acre fully entitled land in Oroville, as surveyed by Michael Dequine and Associates, Inc., is appraised at $17.4 million. Plans for the property have not yet been disclosed. Closing of the deal is anticipated to be on or before May 5 according to a Central Valley Business Times article.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

SWBC Acquires Royalton Real Estate Capital

SWBC announced this week that it had acquired 100% interest in Royalton Real Estate Capital, forming a new company called SWBC Real Estate, LLC. According to a San Antonio Business Journal article, SWBC acquired a 59% stake in the real estate firm — a developer and investor of commercial real estate properties throughout Texas — in 2008 prior to this transaction, which secured the remaining 41% of the company. SWBC has said that all of Royalton's current employees will stay in the company.

"This has been a very successful venture since our original investment," said SWBC President Gary Dudley. "So, naturally we are excited about the acquisition."

"Our goal is to continue to see growth in this real estate operation," said SWBC Chairman Charlie Amato. "In 2008, SWBC entered into a relationship with Royalton. It has been such a great fit that we decided we wanted to expand our ownership in the company."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

New $1B Manufacturing Plant Build in GA

Baxter International, a global leader in biologic medical therapies, announced this week that it will build a $1 billion manufacturing facility in Covington, Georgia to support growth of its plasma-based treatments. The new facility is expected to create more than 1,500 full-time employment positions in Georgia, and over 500 more across multiple U.S. locations. The new facility will support plasma fractionation, purification, fill-finish and include a testing lab.

"This investment demonstrates our long-term commitment to patients around the world who rely on our plasma-based therapies," said Robert L. Parkinson, Jr., Baxter's chairman and chief executive officer.

According to a report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution state incentives totaling $78 million helped with the decision to locate in Georgia. Furthermore the company could qualify for an estimated $32 million in savings from a sales tax exemption on machinery and equipment plus construction materials included in a new tax law, according to the paper. Another $13.75 million grant comes from the OneGeorgia discretionary fund, as reported by IndustryWeek.

"Baxter's decision to come to Georgia marks a new era in the growth of our biosciences industry and will have far-reaching impact on our economy," said Georgia Governor Nathan Deal. "We are honored to welcome this flagship company to Georgia and proud that our state's vast resources for the biomedical field will assist the company with the groundbreaking medical advances it is renowned for. Baxter's commitment to Georgia moves us closer to making Georgia the No. 1 state in which to do

"We would like to thank Governor Nathan Deal and the many other officials involved in the site selection process, and we look forward to becoming part of the Georgia community," said Ludwig Hantson, Ph.D., president of Baxter's BioScience business.

Baxter, unlike some other health-care companies, has seen consistent sales and profit growth in recent quarters as the medical devices, pharmaceuticals and biotechnologies it makes treat serious medical problems that can't be ignored, such as cancer, immune disorders and trauma according to a Wall Street Journal report.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

CBOT Building Sold for $151.5M

CME Group announced this week that it had sold two of the three buildings that comprise the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) complex for $151.5 million to a joint venture between GlenStar Properties LLC and USAA Real Estate Company. The sale price for the north and south towers, totaling roughly 1.3 million square feet of space, came in at the low end of an anticipated range of $150 million to $180 million reported by The Wall Street Journal in February. As part of the sale, CME Group will lease back the 150,000 square-feet of space it currently occupies in both buildings for a 15-year term, including the Agricultural Trading Floor as well as office and trading floor support space. According to the WSJ, the property initially had been expected to fetch as much as $210 million, but its value was seen affected by economic uncertainty stemming from the European debt crisis as well as the collapse of brokerage firm MF Global Holdings Ltd., a major tenant.

"CME Group, which has been headquartered in Chicago for more than a century, continues to be committed to this city and to maintaining our trading floors and office space in the 141 W. Jackson building," said CME Group Chief Financial Officer Jamie Parisi. "We are extremely pleased to be able to sell our landmark building to the GlenStar Properties and USAA Real Estate Company consortium who will be great landlords for us and the other tenants. It will also allow CME Group to continue to focus on what we do best - running our exchanges and providing risk management tools to the world."

The new owners of the property plan to use its infrastructure to attract "a wealth of new technology companies," according to a statement from Michael Klein, principal at GlenStar, as reported by Fox Business.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Russell Investments Center Sold for $480M

Northwestern Mutual announced Friday that it has sold the Russell Investments Center at 1301 Second Ave. in Seattle to CommonWealth Partners, a privately held real estate investment, development and management firm based in Los Angeles, for $480 million. According to the Northwestern Mutual press release, it is believed to be the largest single asset office sale in the Western United States since 2006. CBRE served as broker for the transaction through a team led by Vice Chairman Kevin Shannon.

"This transaction is an example of how we actively manage our $5.8 billion real estate equity portfolio to generate strong returns on behalf of our policyowners," said Paul Hanson, managing director - real estate, Northwestern Mutual. "The company's real estate strategy typically focuses on long-term holds; however, the Seattle market rebounded quickly, creating an excellent opportunity for the company to realize a gain for our policyowners."

"It speaks volumes about real-estate market cycles," said Ann Chamberlin, managing director with brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle, in a Seattle Times article. "That building was purchased [by Northwestern Mutual] at the absolute bottom of the market. Now we're bouncing back and they're getting a nice return."

Northwestern Mutual originally purchased the 42-story, 872,000 square foot office building in the fall of 2009. The sale is not expected to cause disruption for tenants with long-term leases, including Russell Investments, Boeing, Nordstrom, Dendreon, JP Morgan Chase and Zillow.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

American Realty Acquires 5 Assets, Including The Quadrangle

American Realty Advisors announced this week that it had acquired five institutional-grade core real estate properties in diversified markets across the United States. The acquisitions were completed on behalf of one of American’s commingled real estate funds. American Realty Chairman and CEO, Stanley L. Iezman, said of the purchases, "The acquisition of these five assets represents another opportunity for the firm to invest in high-quality, strategically-located core assets that we believe will likely generate solid gains for our investors over the long-term." The terms of the purchases were not disclosed.

The properties include:

18401 Von Karman, a Class A 114,295 SF multi-tenant office building located in Orange County, CA.

Rancho Cucamonga Distribution Center, comprised of two Class A industrial buildings totaling 434,871 square feet located on 22.1 acres of land in the heart of Inland Empire, a prime submarket in the Southern California industrial market.

Weston Lakes Plaza, a 96,342 SF, Class A grocery-anchored shopping center located in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

ALARA North Point, a 264-unit Class A luxury apartment complex in the suburb of the Atlanta, GA.

The Quadrangle, a Class A 194,221 square foot mixed-use office and a retail development located in the Uptown Dallas submarket.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.