- What the Wall of Maturities Means “Panelists at CREFC’s High Yield and Distressed Realty Assets Summit, held this week in New York, were mostly celebratory about the impending flood of maturities, which they say will create opportunities for the right (i.e. smart) lenders.” (Commercial Observer)
- Large Banks Getting Back Into Manhattan’s Office Market “Big banks, the once-dominant industry for Manhattan landlords, are getting back in the office market and searching for new space after years of weathering the fallout of the financial crisis. Deutsche Bank AG is in the market for about 1 million square feet (93,000 square meters) of space, enough to anchor a new building. HSBC Holdings Plc is seeking as much as 700,000 square feet for its primary New York offices.” (Bloomberg)
- CoStar: It’s Taking Owners Fewer Days to Sell Their Commercial Real Estate Today “CoStar’s research — which covers the month of January — shows that commercial properties during the first month of the year sat on the market for an average of 390 days before finding a buyer. That’s down from an average of 417 days in January of 2013.” (REJournals.com)
- Owners Seek $225M for Piece of the Brill Building, Paid Way Less for Entire Property “The owners of the Brill Building want to sell its valuable retail space for $225 million—$40 million more than they paid for the entire property in 2013. A partnership between Allied Partners and Brickman—which purchased the 175,000-square-foot building two years ago for $185.5 million—has hired a sales team from Jones Lang LaSalle, led by Richard Baxter and Ron Cohen, to sell off the building's basement, ground, second and third floors as a retail condo.” (Crain’s New York Business)
- Dollar General to Open 730 Stores in 2015 as it Accelerates Expansion “Dollar General Corp. is not sitting back while rivals Family Dollar and Dollar Tree prepare to merge. Following its failed bid to acquire Family Dollar, Dollar General has accelerated its expansion plans for 2015. The discounter, which already has the retail industry’s most aggressive new store strategy said it will open 730 new stores and remodel 875 existing locations in 2015, translating into a 6% increase in total square footage.” (Chain Store Age)
- 10 Retailers Closing the Most Stores “Abercrombie & Fitch has taken a nose dive in recent years, a decline punctuated by the ouster of former CEO Mike Jeffries. The former CEO is infamous for wanting to sell only to ‘cool’ people, among other public relations disasters.” (24/7 WallSt.)
- Zell Puts New Spin on the American Dream “Sam Zell doesn't seen an end to the apartment boom anytime soon, saying demographics will continue to work in the market's favor. The Chicago financier, one of the nation's biggest apartment landlords, remains high on the sector even as the for-sale housing market continues to recover from the crash. ‘The American Dream is freedom, not a house,’ the Chicago billionaire said at an event last night.” (Crain’s Chicago Business)
- The Balance of Real Estate—Who Will Come Out on Top? “New York City real estate is a balancing act—between starting new and preserving the old, and between luxury and affordability. Increasingly, there have been tensions between the residential, manufacturing and hospitality industries to create a harmonious balance of real estate in each throughout New York City.” (Huffington Post)
- A Towering Investment “While it should be no surprise that the Willis Tower is likely to fetch a large sum–it is, after all, one of the tallest buildings in the country, and one of the most famous–this potential sale–whether to Blackstone or whoever else is sufficiently capitalized–will usher in a new era for the Chicago CRE market, one marked both by office sector value recoveries and the crossing of that once-mythical billion-dollar sale price threshold.” (llenrock.com)
- The Ground Floor Apartment is Moving On Up “Developers, eager to establish another coveted class of apartments, are aiming to rebrand the maisonette. They are redesigning the units with more space, better light and upscale amenities; touting the exclusivity of their private entrances—and charging far more for them than ever before, though ground-floor units are still typically priced at a 15% to 25% discount to their counterparts on higher floors.” (The Wall Street Journal)
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