Scott Miller's Commercial Real Estate Update for October 2013


Calendar of Events


Lending Alternatives You Can Bank On


Monday, November 4, 2013 at 1:00 PM Eastern Standard Time


There are a myriad of reasons why more and more owners, developers, and investors are exploring the favorable financing options afforded by credit unions and their affiliate organizations (CUSO's). Unlike banks, their not-for-profit status translates to lower borrowing costs and more flexible terms.


 


Environmental Symposium


Wednesday, November 06, 2013


Wednesday, November 06, 2013

 


November 11 and 12

We're hoping to catch you at REALSHARE INDUSTRIAL on November 11 and 12 at the Viceroy, Miami. First of all, it would be great to have an even more diverse array of companies represented here, but also, you’ll hear from a stellar speaker lineup.

 

Local


 


Bellevue Galleria sells for $88 million


This time the Bellevue Galleria really did sell.


Documents recorded with King County on Friday show that MPH-1 Bellevue Limited Liability Co., paid $87.6 million for the 204,000-square-foot retail and office complex in downtown at 550 106th Ave. N.E.


 


Health care to dominate Beacon Hill tower once again


Pacific Medical Center was built 80 years ago as a hospital for seamen, Merchant Marines, Coast Guardsmen, veterans, and the poor and indigent. Over the decades, it served the cause of public health and medical research in Seattle before becoming better known as the former headquarters of Amazon.com Inc.


 


Major redevelopment planned for Rainier Square in downtown Seattle


The University of Washington plans to select a developer next month to transform a large portion of Rainier Square, part of the university's prime property holdings in downtown Seattle.


 


R.C. Hedreen Co. submits new drawings of its Seattle mega hotel


The latest renderings of a proposed convention-center hotel planned for downtown Seattle show a tapered, 41-story tower rising from Howell Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues.


 


Seattle, Bellevue streets high on list of pricey office addresses


Union Street and 108th Northeast are among the nation’s most expensive office addresses. Also, Microsoft rewards a Windows hack with $100,000, and the new owner of Walt’s automotive shops is sued over a ‘lifetime’ contract.


 


The Seattle group that developed the GreenHouse apartment building in Seattle’s Columbia City neighborhood has sold the property — after saying earlier that it couldn't let it go.

 


After years of study, a Bellevue church is getting close to selling a valuable piece of downtown property where high-rise office and residential towers could be built.

 


Seattle commercial real estate company Schnitzer West had a $547.5 million payday Tuesday when it sold two assets — the Bravern Signature Residences in Bellevue and a collection of 11 office buildings in Bothell — to two different buyers

 


Seattle-based Security Properties has prevailed in one of the greater Portland area's most competitive apartment offerings in recent memory

 


The Bravern Signature Residences in Bellevue have sold for $308 million, which is a record price of $692,134 per unit.

 


Skanska USA plans to break ground Wednesday on its 400 Fairview office and retail project in Seattle now that it has poached tenant Tommy Bahama from Vulcan Inc.

 


Members of Congress could learn a thing or two from Myrtle Woldson, a 103-year-old Spokane resident who owns a choice chunk of downtown Seattle waterfront property.

 


Island-lifestyle retailer Tommy Bahama has leased more than one-third of a 13-story Seattle tower that broke ground Wednesday, with executives gripping brightly colored beach shovels filled with sand and sipping coffee from cups with umbrellas

 


A property in the Belltown area of downtown Seattle sold Thursday for $11.5 million, according to public records.

 


Officials of GIS International Group said Wednesday that they’re starting to plan development of a hotel-condo building in the Denny Triangle area of downtown Seattle.

 


Microsoft, which once envisioned a major campus in the Issaquah Highlands, sold the 63-acre tract to a local developer for a mixed-use project.

 


Market Leader, a residential real estate technology company, is moving to downtown Bellevue, where it has leased nearly 72,500 square feet of space at 110 Atrium Place. It's the largest new lease so far this year in Bellevue, where office rents are rising and show no sign of slowing down.

 


A year ago, a vacant property in Redmond sold for nearly $17 million. On Friday, the same property traded hands for just over $60.6 million.

 


The marketing flyer for Bellevue Center states that the planned office tower will be downtown’s “next modern architectural landmark” and will be engineered to meet the power and cooling demands of tech companies.

 


A California development company is updating plans for a high-rise residential project near the Space Needle — complete with a rare parking system that stows your car away

 


Coast Aluminum and Architectural Inc. is the latest company to lease a large amount of warehouse space in the Kent Valley

 


It might sound odd, but food trucks are playing a role in multi-million dollar commercial real estate investments.

 


The Exchange Building in downtown Seattle traded hands Tuesday for $66 million, according to public records.

 


Developers of a planned 24-story condo tower at 1321 Seneca St. in Seattle said they will begin construction in mid-2014.

 


The Seattle area office market is outperforming the rest of the country, according to a new study.

 


 


The Empire State Building's owner saw its initial public offering price at the low end of expectations, marking tepid demand for one of the largest such deals ever by a U.S. landlord.

 


When superstorm Sandy hit parts of New Jersey, it sparked concerns about future investor demand for commercial real estate in the waterlogged region.

 


When the financial sector began healing after its 2008 crash, New York landlords were hopeful that big banks would return to their traditional roles as the growth engine for the nation's largest office market.

 


New York is experiencing its biggest hotel expansion in a generation, attracting a host of new brands and developers betting that the good times will continue.

 


Cerberus Capital Management LP, which completed raising a $1.4 billion real-estate fund this week, expects to keep a major focus on distressed European property.

 


Many U.S. banks are starting to see new growth from the old business of commercial real-estate loans.

From office buildings to shopping centers to warehouses to apartments, lending to developers and owners of such properties is on the rebound because of rising real-estate values and improved credit quality.

 


Related Cos. is taking its fight over Chicago's most notable pit to bankruptcy court.

The New York developer this summer bought the soured debt on a stalled construction site on the edge of Lake Michigan, where North America's tallest building, known as the Chicago Spire, was supposed to have risen.


Carlyle Group LP, CG +1.91%a private-equity firm that has interests in everything from an oil refinery to a vitamin maker, is adding trailer parks to its portfolio.

 


A slumping mortgage market pressured regional banks during the third quarter, but a pickup in commercial lending helped limit the damage.

 


Blackstone Group BX +0.85% LP rode a jump in profits from real-estate deals to higher third-quarter earnings, despite a fall in the performance of its corporate-buyout funds.

 

Michael Jordan's Home Heads to Auction


Michael Jordan is auctioning off his 56,000-square-foot compound in a Chicago suburb. He first put the home on the market in February 2012 for $29 million, but earlier this year lowered the price to $21 million.


 


Blackstone Approaches Pivotal IPO


As Blackstone Group BX -2.28% LP prepares an initial public offering for shopping-center landlord Brixmor Property Group Inc., investors and analysts are watching the deal to see what tone it sets for other Blackstone-led IPOs waiting in the wings.


 


TRI Pointe Nears $2.7 Billion Deal


TRI Pointe Homes Inc., the West Coast home builder controlled by Barry Sternlicht's Starwood Capital, is in the late stages of negotiating to buy Weyerhaeuser Co.'s home-building unit for roughly $2.7 billion, according to a person familiar with the talks.


 


State Farm Is There


When building a campus for 8,000 employees, you need to provide more than cubicles and conference rooms.


 


Making Art Out of Dough


A flour mill that played a significant role in the growth of Minneapolis during the industrial revolution is set to be converted into an artist community under a development plan that recently obtained financing


 


 


LONDON—More property firms will list on European stock markets in 2013 than in any year since the financial crisis, bucking a trend that has seen the Continent fall behind the U.S. and Asia as a home for real-estate stocks.

 


Mexico's new-home industry, still suffering from the global economic downturn and from shifting consumer preferences, is bracing for yet another blow from a package of steep tax increases proposed by President Enrique Peña Nieto.

 


As Mexico's upper middle class has grown, Avenida Presidente Masaryk, the main drag in the capital city's ritzy Polanco district, has transformed from a sleepy street of mom-and-pop shops to Mexico's version of Rodeo Drive, packed with boutiques including Burberry, Cartier and Bulgari.

 


Investors in retail property are piling back into China's biggest cities as slower economic growth makes second- and third-tier centers—once considered a good way to bet on brands' eagerness to expand into new markets—less appealing.

 


Thousands of apartments still sit vacant in Dubai, the wreckage from a massive property bubble that burst in this tiny Persian Gulf emirate only five years ago.

The unlikely response: Developers are moving ahead with billions of dollars in new projects.

 


Foreign investors are showing a growing appetite for Italian commercial real estate, a sign that the gradual improvement of the European economy is being felt in some of the Continent's weaker property markets.

 


SHANGHAI—Average new-home prices in 70 Chinese cities rose to another fresh high in September, amid signs of panic buying driven by fears that prices will rise further.

 


Chinese investors have been snapping up real estate in the world's most important cities this year. While it's easy to dismiss rich foreign buyers as the dumb money in any market, these investors are taking a sensible approach.

 


LONDON—London's hot property market has commercial-real-estate investors scouring the rest of Britain.

 


SHANGHAI—Shanghai-based developer Greenland Holdings Group plans to invest 1 billion Australian dollars (US$957 million) in real estate in Sydney and Melbourne in the next two years, as part of an aggressive global expansion that has already included billion-dollar projects in the U.S. this year.

 


Nonbank lenders are providing more financing for commercial-real-estate lending in the Netherlands as investors grow more confident in the European recovery and properties that are outside the most favored markets of London, Paris and Germany.

 

MultiFamily

 


Facebook Inc.'s FB +1.52%sprawling campus in Menlo Park, Calif., is so full of cushy perks that some employees may never want to go home. Soon, they'll have that option.

 


State-owned property developer Greenland Holdings Group of China agreed to buy a majority stake in a 15-tower apartment project in Brooklyn, N.Y., that would rank as the largest commercial-real-estate development in the U.S. ever to get major backing directly from a Chinese company.

 


The Seattle group that developed the GreenHouse apartment building in Seattle’s Columbia City neighborhood has sold the property — after saying earlier that it couldn't let it go.

 


The Bravern Signature Residences in Bellevue have sold for $308 million, which is a record price of $692,134 per unit.

 


A South Florida developer is converting a closed Miami Beach hospital into a condominium, the latest example of an obsolete hospital property being brought back to health as a residential project.

 


MIAMI—Carmel Apartments, a 51-unit multifamily property in North Miami Beach, is the latest in a rash of apartment communities to trade hands in South Florida. The asset sold for $3.15 million, or $61,765 per unit.

 


Many condominium developers who rode out the real-estate downturn by renting out their units are reverting to for-sale housing, in another sign of the market's continued recovery over the past year.

 


When a luxury condominium development overlooking San Francisco's waterfront was approved by county officials last year, it appeared to have cleared the last hurdle before construction could start.

 


Developers of a planned 24-story condo tower at 1321 Seneca St. in Seattle said they will begin construction in mid-2014.

 

DISTRESSED

 


Fannie Employees Reinstated After Probe Ends


Four employees at Fannie Mae FNMA -3.90%who were placed on administrative leave two years ago amid a federal investigation have returned to work after officials didn't allege wrongdoing on their part.


 


Troubled CMBS Debt to Get Permanent Homes


Firms overseeing troubled commercial real estate mortgages may suddenly be in a hurry to sell the debt after years of trying to find a better solution for investors.


 


Real-estate market haunted by ‘vampire’ foreclosures


Vampire foreclosures are homes that have gone through the court proceedings and are bank-owned but are still occupied by their previous owners. Nationwide, 47 percent of bank-owned homes are still occupied by their previous owners.


 


China Moves to U.S. Projects


An unlikely participant increasingly is showing up in the bidding for distressed office buildings, hotels and other overleveraged commercial properties left over from the boom years: Chinese investors.


 



 


Respect Still Eludes Mexican REITs


Mexico's real-estate investment trust industry reached a symbolic milestone last year when the country's largest REIT, Fibra Uno, paid about $100 million to buy a 49% stake in the Torre Mayor complex that includes the tallest building in Mexico City.


 


Investors Turn From Once-Hot REITs


Real-estate investment trusts posted negative returns in the third quarter and continued to trail the broader stock market, raising the prospect that the sector is losing its luster in the eyes of investors.


 


Real-Estate Pioneer Loses Its Touch


Vornado Realty Trust VNO +1.82% grew from a small, New Jersey strip-center owner to a giant in real estate partly through its strategy of buying big stakes in retailers to get a piece of their valuable holdings of malls, stores and parking lots.


 


American Realty to Buy Cole Real Estate


This past spring, executives of Cole Real Estate Investments Inc. COLE -0.04% rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from a company led by Nicholas Schorsch, accusing Mr. Schorsch's company of having "structural flaws" and using "too much leverage."


 


Plum Creek Timber to buy MeadWestvaco land for $1 billion


Plum Creek Timber, a Seattle-based real-estate-investment trust with investments in forest products, agreed to acquire MeadWestvaco’s U.S. timberlands for $1.09 billion.


 


 


Nick Sinatra, the owner of a small real-estate investment firm, believes he has found the next big opportunity in the housing market: renovating and flipping million-dollar properties.

 


Consumer confidence registered its sharpest one-week drop since the period immediately following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, according to recent Gallup polling

 


LOS ANGELES-Over the past several months one sentiment has remained constant—change is imminent. With the 10 year Treasury climbing over 100 basis points since May, many investors have had to adjust their investment strategy yet again.

 


GROSSE POINTE, Mich.—Just outside bankrupt Detroit, where thousands of homes are being sold this week at auction for as little as $500, real estate is hot again.

 


As the holiday season approaches, temporary stores selling Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas merchandise are sprouting up in malls across the country. But whether pop-up stores are a positive or negative trend for retail landlords is an open question.

 


The slowdown in sales of newly built homes since last summer has sapped momentum from the land market, as home builders are starting to balk at paying increasingly lofty prices for lots

 


It might sound odd, but food trucks are playing a role in multi-million dollar commercial real estate investments.

 

RE Blogs Education

 


Four years ago, BOMA International was one of the founding members of the Better Buildings Alliance (originally called the Commercial Building Energy Alliance – CREEA). BOMA, the Department of Energy (DOE), and a small number of the leading national commercial real estate companies who were leading the charge on sustainability got together to see if collectively we could identify the “game changers” that would transform the energy marketplace – and the commercial real estate industry.

 


As a general rule, you cannot cut down trees or vegetation on another person’s property without their express permission. If you do so, Washington has two separate statutes that can impose significant damages in a civil action: Trespass and the so-called “Timber Trespass” statute.

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