11 Dupont Circle Buyer Found

BlackRock Realty put 11 Dupont Circle in Washington, DC on the market this May and may have already found a buyer for $88.5 million. According to a GlobeSt. report, Cassidy Turley, which had been selected to market the property by BlackRock, has found an unnamed buyer that will acquire the building at a pricepoint well in excess of the $54.5 million Brickman Associates paid for the property in 2005.

BlackRock acquired the 149,000-square foot office building in 2006 for $62.1 million. Built in 1974 and renovated in 2004, the property is currently fully leased but its best known tenant is the street-level retailers Books-A-Million, which serves as one of the anchors of Dupont Circle. The building is central to one DC's most dense and affluent population centers with a daytime population of forty-five thousand within a quarter mile.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Synergy Commercial Advisors Merges with Cassidy

Cassidy Turley announced this week that it had acquired Synergy Commercial Advisors, the Morrisville, NC-based boutique brokerage firm. In the six years since Rich Harris and his four partners started Synergy, the firm has grown to become one of the 10 largest commercial real estate brokerage firms in the region with a client base that includes the American Tobacco Campus in Durham and Alexandria Real Estate Equities' portfolio of lab buildings in Research Triangle Park. according to a Triangle Business Journal article. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"We have been looking for the ideal strategic move for our Raleigh operations, and, with Rich and his team, we have found it," said Doug Brandon, Regional Managing Principal, Southeast, at Cassidy Turley. "We look forward to blending and enhancing their tenant representation and project leasing practice with our broader platform. In addition, we're excited to leverage Rich's leadership skills and reputation to serve our Raleigh-Durham office as Managing Principal."

"My entire team is thrilled to now be part of Cassidy Turley," said Rich Harris, who founded Synergy Commercial Advisors in 2008. "Beyond tenant representation and corporate services, this move allows us to offer clients an expanded geographic reach and a full-service platform – including best in class capital markets, property management and project and development services. We place high value on the cultural fit, both locally and nationally, and the overall strategic alignment that exists between our firm and Cassidy Turley's executive management. I'm excited to part of the new Raleigh-Durham team and expect us to be a market leader from day one."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Developers Make Moves on Miami Riverwalk

Chetrit Group, the New York-based real estate investment and development firm led by Joseph Chetrit, has purchased 6.2 acres of real estate with Miami developer Ari Pearl with plans to build a major mixed-use development called Miami Riverwalk. According to a Miami Herald article, Miami-Dade property records show that CG Miami River, led by Chetrit Group and Pearl, bought the Finnegan's River property at 401 S.W. Third Ave. for $11.5 million, from Ocean Drive Clevelander.

The development is planned for a three-block area bordered on the north by the river, on the south by Southwest Seventh Street, on the west by Southwest Third Avenue and on the east by Southwest Second Avenue. The Miami Riverwalk, to be designed by Miami architect Kobi Karp, will create a major mixed-use development along the Miami River to include four 60-story condo towers with a combined 1,749 units, plus a marina and hotel, retail space and offices. Plans are still not finalized and will be revised within the month. Renderings of the project can be viewed here.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

United Properties Sells Northland Center for $51M

United Properties, a Minneapolis-based commercial real estate developer and investor, has sold Northland Center in Bloomington for $51 million to California-based KBS Realty Advisors. Terms of the agreement haven't been disclosed, according to a Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal article, and officials from KBS and United Properties declined to comment.

"Northland Center is a well-located, highly amenitized, multi-tenant office complex within one of Minneapolis’ largest and most active submarkets," KBS central regional president Ken Robertson said in a GlobeSt.com article. "This property benefits from its location along the border of affluent Edina, MN, as well as within the I-494 corridor, which is the second-largest submarket in the Twin Cities."

"The amenity mix at Northland Center gives it a definite boost in this market," added KBS senior vice president/market leader Gio Cordoves. "The property also enjoys close proximity to an abundance of shopping, dining, hospitality and entertainment options, as part of the great location near France Ave., a major north/south thoroughfare."

The 460,000-square-foot two building office complex near France Avenue and I-494 at 3600 and 3700 American Boulevard West was originally developed by United Properties in 1983, and underwent renovations in late 2009. United Properties and its sister real estate companies, including Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq and NorthMarq Capital, occupies roughly one quarter of the property, and have indicated that they intend to continue leasing that space. In total, the complex was 80% leased at the time of sale, with other tenants including ConAgra Foods Inc., Xerox Corp., Kellogg Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Avison Young Acquires Aguer Havelock Associates

Aguer Havelock Associates, a Sacramento-based real estate brokerage company and a former member of the NAI network, has been acquired by Avison Young, the Canadian commercial real estate services firm. Founded in 1992, Aguer Havelock Associates is an independently owned commercial real estate brokerage firm offering a full slate of commercial real estate services to businesses operating in diverse sectors, and serving five counties: Greater Sacramento, El Dorado, Pacer, San Joaquin and Yolo. The change in ownership adds five new employees to Avison Young's operations in Sacramento, according to a GlobeSt.com article. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

"Sacramento, due to its proximity to San Francisco and other areas of Northern California, ranks as one of the most dynamic markets in North America," Mark Rose, Chair and CEO of Avison Young, said in a statement. "Although Avison Young already has a presence in the region, we are now able to offer brokerage services, a core element of our full-service model. With the acquisition of Aguer Havelock, we have once again strategically expanded in a key market, California's state capital, that has a strong demand for our Principal-led, client-centric business model."

Over the past five years, Avison Young has grown from 11 to 58 offices and from 300 to more than 1,500 real estate professionals across Canada, the U.S., and in Europe.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Olymbec Group Buys 1700 Pacific in Dallas

The Olymbec Group, a Canada-based family investment group helmed by Richard Stern, picked up one of Dallas' last skyscrapers on the market this week with the acquisition of 1700 Pacific. CBRE was selected to market the property in August of last year, and represented the seller, Berkeley Investments Inc. (which had owned the property since 2005), in the deal. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though according to the Dallas Central Appraisal District, 1700 Pacific is valued at $51 million.

"1700 Pacific presented an opportunity to acquire a meaningful stake in the ongoing transformation of the Dallas [Central Business District]," John Alvarado, senior vice president of CBRE, said in a statement. "Investors were attracted to this property because it is well positioned to capture surplus demand from Uptown by serving as a cost-effective alternative that provides high-quality space and amenities."

"They were excited about what they see happening in downtown Dallas," John Crawford, president and CEO of Downtown Dallas Inc., an advocacy group for the city's urban core, told the Dallas Business Journal. "They did their due diligence and decided to go hard with some money, which is a step in the right direction. But nothing is over until it's over."

The 1.3 million-square-foot, 49-story office building was built in 1983 and sits across the street from the planned Pacific Plaza park. The property was over 40% leased at the time of sale with major tenants including Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, Neiman Marcus, Mary Crowley Medical Research Center, and Southcross Energy.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

SL Green Sells 3 Manhattan Properties

SL Green Realty Corp., New York City's largest office landlord, announced this week that it had agreed to sell three of its Manhattan assets in separate deals that will generate net cash proceeds of $240 million. In the first deal, SL Green is selling ts leased fee interest in 2 Herald Square, an 11-story 365,000 square foot commercial office building, for $365 million. In the second, SL Green, with its partner Jeff Sutton, reached an agreement to sell all of their interests in a mixed-use asset at 180 Broadway for $222.5 million. Finally, SL Green also closed on the sale of its development properties at 985–987 Third Avenue for $68.7 million.

"While the strategic approach for each of these investments varied, we had one goal in mind: creating shareholder value. I am very pleased to say that with each of these transactions, we've successfully demonstrated our ability to identify, create, and harvest significant value. Our combined IRR across these three deals is in excess of 21%," said Andrew Mathias, President of SL Green, in a company statement.

In its announcement, SL Green Realty did not identify the prospective buyers in any of the transactions.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.