10 Intriguing CRE Deals and the Brokers Who Made Them Happen

While leasing and sales volumes slowed in 2022, many significant transactions were completed. Here’s a sample of captivating deals with insights from the dealmakers.

It’s not the purchase prices or square footages that make these deals standouts for CPE. Rather, these transactions show ingenuity, passion, and grit, in light of changing market dynamics, on the part of the brokers who arranged them. Enjoy these snapshots and read more about these deals in our online feature

From a nonprofit assisting at-risk children with complex medical difficulties relocating to a Midtown Manhattan office tower to the leasing of a 3-million-square-foot industrial park in Phoenix designed for the city’s emerging chip fabrication plants, the sector has had no shortage of stand-out deals. At a time when commercial real estate experiences both deep success and challenges that show no sign of disappearing, it is important to recognize the people behind the numbers and headlines. Here are ten deals that stand out in such a way and insights from those that made them happen.

JLL Arranges New HQ Lease for Non-Profit

New Alternatives for Children, a non-profit that provides medical and mental health care for medically at-risk children, leased 60,000 square feet at 852 Seventh Ave., a 196,616-square-foot mixed-use office building in Midtown Manhattan. A significant upgrade from their previous headquarters, NAC will lease the 5^th, 6^th and 9^th floors for 30 years.

• JLL represented NAC in the transaction, led by Vice Chairman Matthew Astrachan, Executive Vice President Ellen Herman and Vice President Hale King.
• Avison Young Principal John Ryan alongside Vice President Edward Riguardi of Vornado Realty Trust acted on behalf of the building’s owner, Edward J. Minskoff Associates.

Astrachan told Commercial Property Executive that he has known NAC founder & Executive Director Arlene Goldsmith since his childhood. He encountered her in a restaurant at the height of the pandemic and she told him that NAC’s current headquarters was in a dilapidated, dangerous space with a landlord “who didn’t get it.” Though NAC had been working with JLL prior to Astrachan partaking in the transaction, they had struggled to find favorable leasing terms. The new lease protects NAC, allowing it to know what the expenses will be throughout the entirety of its lease, and gives the organization a dedicated front-door entrance. “[This is] a better and more productive environment for all the people that they serve,” Astrachan concluded.

Perry Homes Relocates to Greenway Plaza

Houston-based housing construction and development firm Perry Homes has relocated its corporate headquarters to 83,319 square feet of Greenway Plaza’s Phoenix Tower, a 629,054-square-foot Class A office building located at 3200 Southwest Freeway in Houston. Transwestern assisted Perry Homes, one of the largest privately-held woman-owned companies in the nation, in the consulting, site selection and leasing process, as the firm moved its base of operations across the city. Additionally, Transwestern will provide Perry Homes with construction management services for its renovations of the space.

• The Transwestern team representing Perry Homes was led by Vice President Katy Gragg, Executive Managing Directors Eric Anderson and Larry Serota, Managing Director Chase Bourdelaise and Leasing Agent John Heard.
• Building owner Parkway Properties was represented by Directors Amanda Nebel and Rima Soroka.

The transaction provided many opportunities and challenges for those involved in it. The negotiations of the move was taking place as a new COVID variant was surging. As Bourdelaise described the transaction to CPE, Perry Homes had considered several factors across numerous dimensions of their decision-making process, including asking questions of “when, where and how employees work in the current office environment.” Of note was the company’s use of data analytics for understanding the most optimal uses of their new space; “Insights from data, people and location analytics, and executive visioning are more important than ever and ultimately guided Perry Homes through this process where their decision was to relocate to Greenway Plaza,” Bourdelaise added.

Brookwood Financial Inks 17 Leases Totaling 225KSF Across 10 Buildings

Commercial property manager Brookwood Financial Partners closed on 10 leases totaling 225,000 square feet of office, life science and commercial space in its space in the Iron Run Corporate Center, a 10-building, 650,000-square-foot business park located at 7535 Windsor Dr. in Allentown, Pa. A team from Avison Young represented Brookwood in its leasing efforts. The leases follow Brookwood’s investment of more than $1 million for the construction of new office suites and amenity spaces, including a full renovation of the lobby of the park’s flagship building.

• The Avison Young team acting on the part of Brookwood was led by Vice President David Smith and Principal Paul French

Smith noted the leases are reflective of the “flight to quality space” throughout the office sector. At the same time, having an effective, flexible and easy to work with team is equally important. “We try to be as flexible as we can to get deals done,” Smith said. “We have the nicest product with an institutional-sized landlord and on-site property management helps drive those things home.”

SanFran Medical Office Building Purchased by Tenants

Pan-Med Enterprises has completed its $44.5 million purchase of the Pacific Professional Building, a five-story, 132,000-square-foot medical office building located at 2100 Webster St. in San Francisco. A CBRE Capital Markets team represented the buyer, a group doctors whose practices occupy the building. CBRE secured a 10-year, fixed-rate, non-recourse loan for the financing of the acquisition, provided by Silicon Valley Bank, according to CommercialEdge data.

The CBRE team acting on behalf of Pan-Med was spearheaded by Executive Vice Presidents Michael Taquino and Kyle Kovac, Vice President Giancarlo Sangiacomo and Senior Associate Alec Haley.

The deal presented a considerable opportunity for the buyer. San Francisco’s life science and medical office market is booming, and there is a dearth of available space. Meanwhile, the property benefits from its close proximity to several full-service hospitals and therapeutic centers. “It’s common for doctors to buy assets,” said a member of the CBRE team. “This was an opportunity for them to invest into their practice.” Still, there were challenges in completing the deal. Historic interest rate increases led to volatility in the capital markets, and lenders became wary of financing office space. Fortunately, the team succeeded in locking up its interest rate well before the completion of the purchase.

Colliers Arranges Defense Company’s New Digs

Virginia-based defense and shipbuilding giant HII leased 36,809 square feet of office space at 2451 Crystal Dr. in National Landing, a mixed-use office, retail and residential neighborhood located in Arlington, Va. JBG Smith, the building’s owner, arranged the lease, which gives HII another presence in close proximity to its most prominent customer, the U.S. Navy. HII will lease the space for 11.5 years, joining a list of U.S. Government agencies and clients leasing space in the complex. HII will move into the space in 2023. JBG Smith had secured over 1.4 million square feet of new leases and extensions with federal agencies and government contractors in National Landing, one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in the D.C. metro.

• JBG Smith was represented in-house by Senior Vice President Andrea Murray and Associate Connor Stewart.
• A Colliers International brokerage team led by Executive Vice Presidents Adam Schindler and Persifor Frazer acted on behalf of HII.

Highlighting the appeal of office space at National Landing to companies such as HII, Murray explained to CPE that in addition to the location, it is the development’s attraction of massive public and private investment that has “transformed [it] into a global hub for innovation.” Murray detailed JBG Smith’s partnership with AT&T for the construction of 5G networks over the entire neighborhood. For its part, Arlington had been selected as the site for Amazon’s second corporate headquarters, in addition to a new Innovation Campus from Virginia Tech. Consequently, the area has unfettered access to top engineering and tech talent, which in part motivated the move to the new office.

Newmark Brokers Sale of Amazon-Leased Portfolio

South Korea-based Mirae Asset Global Investments purchased an eight-building industrial portfolio totaling 1.16 million square feet for $520 million from Greenlaw Partners and Gardner Batt. Newmark represented both parties in the off-market transaction. Based in metros of Utah and California, the portfolio is triple-net leased in its entirety to Amazon, which uses the properties for last-mile distribution around Midwestern and West Coast transit hubs and population centers.

• Newmark Vice Chairman David Milestone and Senior Managing Director Brett Green acted on behalf of Mirae.
• Newmark’s Co-Head of U.S. Capital Markets Kevin Shannon, Vice Chairman Alex Foshay, Executive Managing Directors Ken White, Andrew Briner, Bret Hardy, Jim Linn and Greg Galusha represented the seller.

The deal was noteworthy for more than just its size, Shannon said. Nearly half of the portfolio is centered around Salt Lake City, the buyer was a selective foreign entity, and the economy was shifting as the deal was being negotiated. Still, Newmark pulled through. “Our team also completed the debt execution for the buyer Mirae Asset on this portfolio sale, which got very complicated as rates moved,” said Shannon. “[We] ended up structuring a combination of floating-rate and fixed debt in a clubbed lender execution to best meet Mirae Asset’s needs.”

Historic Brooklyn Property Trades for $40 Million

Tankhouse LLC acquired a 142,500-square foot development site located at 450 Union St. in Brooklyn, N.Y., situated along the Gowanus Canal. Ariel Property Advisors represented the seller, Pilot Real Estate Group, with the sale including a Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Requirement. The property was built as in 1920 and was originally used as an industrial space that hosted a granite cutting mill and icehouse. The property, which is part of an 82-block rezoning plan, was transformed into a commercial space in 2008.

The Ariel team acting on behalf of the seller was led by Partner Sean R. Kelly and Director of Investment Sales Stephen Vorvolakos.

“[Pilot] purchased this in 2014, at a time when there wasn’t a lot of talk about the Gowanus rezoning, but they had tenants in place that allowed them to carry it, producing a positive cash flow,” said Kelly. “They purchased it for $12.3 million and sold it for $40.6 million.”

For the buyer, the property’s historic roots and unique location on the west side of the canal presented a lucrative opportunity. “It’s really low-density zoning, [with] minimal opportunities for larger scale development.”

Rakuten Renews Salt Lake Office Lease

Tech giant Rakuten completed a five-year lease renewal of a full floor and of offices at Union Park Center III, a Class A office complex located at 6985 Union Park Center in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. A Cushman & Wakefield team acted on behalf of the building’s owner, Stanton Road Capital, in extending the lease, which took place during a large-scale improvement project at the building.

The Cushman & Wakefield team representing Stanton Road Capital was led by Executive Managing Directors Dana Baird and Mike Richmond and Vice President Amanda Lawson.

At the time of the signing, Baird said, Rakuten still had a sizeable portion of its employees working from home and could very well have significantly reduced its space. Still, the full floor lease was renewed at market rate as part of a concerted effort to get employees back to the office. “Tenants want to have space that their employees want to come back to,” Baird explained, “Rakuten committed to this space because it has all the things that employees want to come back to–a great suburban location in an amenity-rich area.”

Cincinnati Office Portfolio Changes Hands

Shelbourne Capital acquired the Summit Woods office portfolio, a two-building complex located at 100-300 E Business Way in Sharonville, Ohio totaling 214,570 for $22 million, subject to a $19.8 million loan provided by First Financial Bank. Marcus & Millichap represented Shelbourne in the transaction, and also acted on behalf of the seller. The assets were purchased with a high degree of confidence in the Cincinnati suburb’s office market on part of the buyer, in addition to the property’s potential future income streams. Still, the process had its challenges.

The Marcus & Millichap team was led by Senior Managing Director Joseph Di Salvo, Senior Associate David Pierce and First Vice President Alexander Nulf.

“The sale was a great indication of confidence in the office market in this submarket of Cincinnati,” said DiSalvo. “There were a lot of challenges in the rent roll of the property at the sale, but the deal was priced and structured such that the buyer paid for income on dark tenants. They were confident they would backfill the spaces before the exisiting leases rolled.”

Vintage Chicago Building Sells for $19 Million

Intersection Realty Group purchased 65 E Wacker Place, a 222,728-square-foot historic Chicago office tower for $19.3 million. Intersection is planning to convert a portion of the property into apartments, keeping the ground-floor retail space. The building, built in 1928, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A JLL Capital Markets team represented the undisclosed seller and procured Intersection as the buyer.

The JLL team was led by Senior Directors Sam Di Francesca and Patrick Shields, as well as Managing Directors Jaime Fink and Bruce Miller.

Read the December 2022 issue of CPE.