Real Estate: 2007

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Irving office overlooking Las Colinas completed

Construction is complete on a 106,000-square-foot speculative office building in an Irving overlay district that targets development of high-end projects.

The two-story building southwest of State Highway 161 and Walnut Hill Lane was finished about 90 days behind schedule because of the rainy spring and early summer, said development partner Jim Poynter of Arlington-based Poynter Scifres Cos. But the delay has worked to the company's advantage because leasing has accelerated in the Las Colinas area submarket this fall, he said.

Space in the building will lease for $21.50 a square foot plus electricity. Poynter declined to disclose the project's cost.

Built on a hill overlooking Las Colinas, the project is next to but not inside the 12,000-acre masterplanned development. The building's views are comparable to those in much taller buildings, said Tom Dyer, a longtime Las Colinas area broker with GVA Cawley Realty Services, who handles project leasing.

Tenants in the project, called the Offices @ 161/Walnut Hill, can have major building signage because the location isn't in Las Colinas proper, where such signs aren't allowed, Dyer said. It's also close to retail and restaurants, he added.

"It's a strategic and centralized location that is not lost in a cluster of numerous other office projects," Dyer said. "When you combine all of its features with its hilltop views, you've got a real winner."

Dyer said he hasn't inked any leases, although a 40,000-square-foot prospect has narrowed its search from 15 buildings to three, including the Offices @ 161/Walnut Hill. He said he expects the project to lease quickly because the owners are willing to break up leases for several smaller tenants instead of holding out for a full-building deal. Initially, the building is open to firms looking for 10,000 square feet or more.
Abundant office space

More than 383,000 square feet of new office space had been built in the Las Colinas submarket through the end of the third quarter of this year, bringing the submarket's total stock to 24.4 million square feet before completion of the Offices @ 161/Walnut Hill, according to statistics from real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle. An additional 292,000 square feet are under construction.

Year-to-date absorption -- a measure of office space leased less space vacated -- totaled 297,791 square feet through the third quarter, JLL's statistics show. Vacancy in the submarket stands at 21.5%.

Transwestern broker Nora Hogan said the supply of office space in the Las Colinas submarket is high, with about 20 buildings available that can provide 100,000 square feet or more.

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source: bizjournals.com

New service offers foreclosure alternative

As Metroplex foreclosures soar, a Dallas realty firm is launching a service aimed at giving distressed homeowners a less painful alternative.

Home Sales Remedy, a program being kicked off by Keller Williams Realty's Dallas City Center, will help homeowners whose mortgage is "upside down," meaning their home sale will not cover their obligations to their lender, said Keller Williams Realtor Steve Shatsky. Shatsky developed the program to successfully handle these types of transactions, known as short sales.

"Foreclosures are painful for everyone involved," Shatsky said. "Short sales give homeowners in a bind an alternative to help them get out of a home they can no longer afford before they get too far down the path (to foreclosure)."

In a short sale, the lender agrees to take a loss and let the homeowner sell the home at slightly below its market value. Lenders agree to it because they avoid the time-consuming and expensive foreclosure process. Homeowners benefit because they're released from their mortgage without a foreclosure stain on their credit, Shatsky said.

Few real estate professionals knew much about short sales when Shatsky started specializing in them four years ago, he said. But the process has become a more commonly used option as foreclosure rates climb.

Short sales involve a much different process than traditional home sales because the lender is involved at the outset, and the lender requires more information from the seller, Shatsky said.

About 43,000 Dallas-Fort Worth region home foreclosure postings have been recorded for 2007, 10% more than this time last year, according to the most recent statistics from Foreclosure Listing Service. The number of homes posted for foreclosure in December is 14% higher than it was in December of last year, the Addison-based firm reports.
Call for entries

The deadline is fast approaching for the Dallas Business Journal's annual Best Real Estate Deals competition. All entries must be made online by midnight Dec. 14. (Late entries will be accepted only for deals that close in December. For late-entry nomination forms, e-mail Christine Perez at cperez@bizjournals.com.)

Now in its 16th year, DBJ's Best Deals competition has become the "Oscars" of the Dallas commercial real estate industry. Categories include office, industrial, retail/hospitality, mixed-use, residential and land, along with best headquarters/corporate campus move, best deal announced, best commercial property sale, best medical and best community impact. In the office, industrial and retail/hospitality categories, there are separate divisions for both new developments and deals that went into existing space.

To enter your deals and projects, visit www.dallasbusinessjournal.com, and click on the nomination form in the center of the page under "Events & Networking." All submissions will be considered for the top award -- Best Real Estate Deal of 2007.

Winners will be announced at a black tie awards gala Feb. 28 at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas and will appear in a special publication Feb. 29.
Up the ladder

* CB Richard Ellis' Darrell Gage has been promoted to director of asset services in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Gage assumed the role after holding the position of senior property manager for Campbell Center.
* The Valuation Services Group of Cushman & Wakefield of Texas Inc. has promoted three appraisers in the Dallas office. Jerry Fulwiler and Jeff Coulston have been elevated to senior director, while Ben Langford has earned the associate director title.

Cushman & Wakefield's Valuation Services Group includes 23 appraisers in Texas. The group services office, retail, industrial, multifamily and hospitality properties throughout the Southwest.

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source: bizjournals.com

Red Cross to build operations center at Dana site

The Cincinnati branch of the American Red Cross has completed its search for a new disaster operations center, signing a letter of intent to build a 50,000-square-foot facility at Keystone Parke on Dana Avenue.

The Red Cross said the plans are preliminary and has yet to sign an agreement. It must complete a $14 million fundraising campaign before construction can begin on the building, planned to house 150 full-time, part-time and per-diem employees and provide parking for its many volunteers.

But the early agreement calls for Neyer Properties to sell a portion of its property at Keystone to the Red Cross. Neyer would then build the agency's new center and would adjust its plans for the rest of the site.

"The location is very strategic," said Susan Redman Rengstorf, the Red Cross's chief development officer.

Due to a national reorganization of the agency in July, the local chapter now serves 25 counties in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, up from 16.

"This will have the latest in communications technology, emergency services, and it's got great visibility and access," she said.

The Red Cross announced in 2006 that it would sell its longtime headquarters on Sycamore Street downtown and seek a location for an $11 million facility.

The need for free parking and ownership of the property made the search challenging, Redman Rengstorf said. The agency had looked at the Keystone site on and off, but only recently found a way to make a deal.

Neyer already has the first building at the park, at 70,000 square feet, under construction. Two letters of intent are signed and a third is on the way, claiming 30 percent of the available space.

Neyer Properties' President Dan Neyer hopes to begin construction next summer.

"Anytime you can create momentum in a development with a party that is well recognized, that helps," Neyer said.

He'll alter his site plan for the Red Cross, reducing the size of two buildings to accommodate a fourth. All will be designed by PDT Architects and be constructed according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards.

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source: bizjournals.com

Design firm LPK opens London office

Downtown design firm LPK has opened its fourth international office that, pound for pound, could vastly expand its creative operations.

The office, in central London, joins operations in Geneva, Frankfurt and China and furthers LPK's plan to compete internationally with some of the world's biggest firms.

The 400-employee company expects to do this through its very structure - LPK is employee-owned, rather than controlled by a holding company. As such, its far-flung offices cooperate closely with each other.

With this kind of organization, LPK can mix its best talent across nations, while controlling expenses across currencies.

"We are building one seamless organization globally and we're doing that not just in how we talk about it but in how we structure our business," said John Recker, chief strategic officer at LPK, who is responsible for international relations.

LPK's clients, including Procter & Gamble, Kellogg's and Hershey's, are demanding it as they increasingly expand their brands globally. To best understand the lifestyles of these widely dispersed consumers, a designer also needs to be immersed in their communities.

But LPK's overseas offices are not each limited to their geographies. Unlike some major firms, its offices do not operate as individual profit centers with their own client bases and profit requirements. Rather, the offices collaborate on resources and clients.

London, because it is the headquarters to many large communications and media firms, is becoming increasingly significant to designers, said Thomas Lockwood, president of the Design Management Institution, a Boston nonprofit that promotes the importance of design in business.

"A lot of people are beginning to turn to these major design firms for a much broader scope of work," he said.

Which is why LPK has been looking at London since it opened its first overseas office, in Geneva, four years ago.

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source: bizjournals.com

Fallon balks at plans for Jimmy's Harborside site

Developer Joseph Fallon is objecting to plans to redevelop the former Jimmy's Harborside Restaurant because the proposed $35 million project will block views to the Harbor from Fallon's Park Lane Seaport apartments across the street.

The site's developer, Cresset Development LLC, plans to redevelop the Jimmy's site, located on Northern Avenue on a plot of land known as Parcel E, into about 70,000 square feet of restaurant and office space.

In a letter filed Nov. 29 with the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Fallon's in-house attorney, Myrna Putziger, said The Fallon Co. "strongly objects to the current building configuration of the two buildings proposed to be constructed on Parcel E."

Putziger's letter was submitted in response to an environmental notification form filed by Cresset with the EOEA. The development is subject to approvals from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), which owns Parcel E, and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP).

Based on the letters from neighboring businesses, property owners and state agencies and its own review, EOEA will issue a certificate that either says no further environmental review is needed or that the project warrants further study. A decision is expected by Dec. 13.

Fallon objects to the project primarily because a view corridor -- which would let retailers and residents at Park Lane Seaport see Boston Harbor from their windows and storefronts -- will be restricted. The corridor's proposed street would run between two buildings that Cresset has proposed to take the place of the single structure where Jimmy's once stood. The view corridor, according to the letter from The Fallon Co., is supposed to line up with a street and sidewalks that already runs between the Park Lane Seaport apartments called Harborview Lane, said Putziger in a phone interview.

"We think it's a great development," said Putziger. "It's just that there had been years of planning and site plans that showed a wider opening between buildings. We have retail space to lease and we want our retail tenants to be able to have the views that were contemplated based on the original planning."

In addition to questioning the width of the corridor that will run between the two new buildings Cresset is proposing, The Fallon Co. said in its letter that the redevelopment of Jimmy's "appears to be limited to a restaurant project and not a mixed-use project."

"A commercial restaurant facility, not a commercial and restaurant facility," is what was originally agreed upon by Massport and the DEP in 2001, the letter states.

Ed Nardi, president of Cresset Development, said he believes office space is an allowed use and said, "I think certain people may have a difference of opinion." As for widening the view corridor, Nardi said he was "trying to provide better access and view corridors from Northern Avenue."

Nardi's plans call for constructing two new buildings -- one will be a 19,000-square-foot, two-story building that will contain only restaurant space, and the other will be a 50,000-square-foot building that will contain two floors of restaurant space and two floors of office space. Nardi also plans another small kiosk building that will total 1,000 square feet of restaurant space. Nardi said he hopes to begin construction on the project by mid-2008 pending city and state approvals.

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source: bizjournals.com

Real Estate

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Irving office overlooking Las Colinas completed

New service offers foreclosure alternative

Red Cross to build operations center at Dana site

Design firm LPK opens London office

Fallon balks at plans for Jimmy's Harborside site

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