Editors’ Weekly News Roundup December 2 – December 5
Two dissimilar stories about the sale of retail properties led the five most-read roster for Connect CRE over the past two weeks, including the shortened work week before Thanksgiving. Ranking first was the sale of a circa-1920 jewel box building in the Boston suburb of Maynard, MA that happened to house the original location of the Paper Store chain.
Original Home of the Paper Store Changes Hands in Maynard informed readers that the buyer of the two-story building was another retailer. The building was acquired by Fly By Night Furniture, which operates a large store in Northampton, MA and plans to expand its footprint.
Some 2,000 miles southwest of the Boston area, a grocery-anchored shopping center in Las Vegas changed hands. The buyer of Vista Commons was an institutional investor, AEW Capital Management, as readers learned in LV Retail Center Flips for $56.1M. The seller had purchased it in 2011 from what was then GGP.
It’s likely that the durability of the tenant base was among the main attractions both for the seller, MIG Real Estate, and the buyer. More than 95% of the rent roll has been in place for more than a decade.
Since the pandemic, rent rolls at many commodity office buildings have become considerably less sticky. That has been a factor in the increased traction achieved recently by the office-to-residential conversion movement, along with capitulation on pricing by owners of non-trophy properties.
Connect CRE reported this trend as Office Conversions Finally Gain Momentum, based on a report in the Wall Street Journal and ranking third among the past two weeks’ most-read stories. While the number of conversion projects that have been completed thus far in 2024 is up only slightly from the 12-month total for 2023, the number of projects in the pipeline is a different matter entirely.
Nevertheless, office leasing deals are still getting done, and not only in new-construction towers in Midtown Manhattan. As a case in point, Portland Law Firm Moving Downtown Office to Block 216 Building was the fourth most-read story of the past two weeks.
The law firm, Fisher Phillips LLP, is relocating its Portland, OR offices to a mixed-use property that also contains residential space, ground-floor retail and a Ritz-Carlton hotel. Block 216’s office component is anchored by another law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine.
Rounding out the top five was a story about residential development—but of the ground-up variety, not through conversion from a different property type. Chicago-area developer Optima, Inc. has gotten final approvals for a 128-unit luxury residential building in downtown Wilmette, IL.
Our story on the project, Optima Gains Approval for North Shore Luxury Residences, pointed out that the upcoming Optima Lumina is located just north of a 100-unit rental community, Optima Verdana, the success of which “has demonstrated the high demand for luxury new-construction multifamily housing on the North Shore,” said David Hovey, Jr., president of Optima, Inc.
Speaking of success, a story in the latest edition of Weekender identifies early 2025 as an auspicious time for capital raising. You can read that story here and arrange to have the Weekender mailing delivered to you here.