Here are the news stories you might find interesting today regarding commercial real estate and business:
Tempe Centerpoint’s auction yields no bids; lender forced to take over project The Centerpoint condominium towers in downtown Tempe failed to sell at a foreclosure auction Tuesday, forcing the lender, ML Manager LLC, to take over the property. Peoria-based ML Manager, the successor to real-estate lender Mortgages Ltd., asked a minimum bid of $8 million to sell the property at the foreclosure auction. Because there were no bidders, ML Manager now owns the property. “Our plan is to market the towers to a buyer who will finish them,” said Mark Winkleman, chief operating officer for ML Manager. View article…
Nordstrom to open first Rack store in Tucson Nordstrom Inc. said it will open its first Rack discount store in Tucson in the fall of 2011. The Seattle retailer (NYSE: JWN) already operates Arizona Rack locations in the Phoenix-area cities of Scottsdale and Chandler and another is scheduled to open in Peoria later this year. The retailer also operates two full-line stores in the Phoenix area. The 33,200-square-foot Tucson Rack store will open at The Corner shopping center at the intersection of Oracle Road and Wetmore Road, across the street from the Tucson Mall. View article…
4,500 Acres Trade in $28M Distressed Deal A 4,500-acre parcel located in the Merrill Ranch master-planned community has sold for $28 million in a foreclosure deal with a consortium of more than 60 banks. The buyer was a partnership comprised of Southwest Value Partners (SWVP) and GoldenTree InSite Partners (GTIS Partners). View article…
HSL CONTINUES ASSAULT ON MULTI-FAMILY MARKET . . . PICKS UP 323 UNITS FOR $16.75 MILLION Casa Grande – A company formed by HSL Properties Inc. in Tucson (Humberto Lopez, principal) paid $16.75 million ($51,857 per unit) to buy the 323-unit Desert Sands apartments located at 720 W. O’Neil Drive in Casa Grande. The seller was Desert Sands Apartments LLC, a company formed by Charles Heers of Inland Empire Builders in Las Vegas, Nev. View article…
DUKE REALTY SPENDS $8.75 MILLION FOR WEST SIDE INDUSTRIAL PROJECT Phoenix – Companies formed by Duke Realty Corp. of Indianapolis, Ind. (NYSE:DRE) paid just over $8.756 million ($34.98 per foot) to buy a 250,157-square-foot distribution building at 1002 S. 63rd Avenue in Phoenix. The seller was 1600 Broadway LLC, a company formed by investor Clarence Furuya in Honolulu, Hi. View article…
New indoor skateboard park opens in Mesa A Queen Creek couple believe that providing a safe, supervised, indoor venue – including instructors and a pro shop-for young skateboarders will fill a niche and add up to business success. Bryan and Alicia Peterson, both 35, recently opened SK8 Asylum on east Pecos Road in the Southeast Valley, not far from Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. The 10,000-square-foot skate place is in an industrial park that’s the southernmost tip of Mesa a few blocks from Queen Creek and Gilbert. View article…
Safeway coming to Goodyear’s Estrella community this fall Residents hope Estrella’s first grocery store will bring stability and growth to the community. Safeway will be the first grocery store serving the Goodyear community. View article…
Glendale releases lease proposals for Phoenix Coyotes arena Glendale posted lease agreements with two competing buyers of the Phoenix Coyotes for the first time publicly Friday, capping months of speculation about the future of the professional hockey team. But one of the groups, Ice Edge Holdings, accused the city of working out an agreement unfairly beneficial to the second bidder, a group led by Chicago sports tycoon Jerry Reinsdorf. View article…
Valley bankruptcies spiked in March Valley area bankruptcy filings hit a new cyclical high in March, despite some encouraging national numbers suggesting that the strains on consumers might be easing. Filings in the Phoenix metro area rose to 3,063 in March, up 59 percent from a year earlier and an increase of 999 filings from the February 2010 total. View article…
Empire SW to acquire machinery dealer Mesa-based Empire Southwest said Wednesday it agreed to acquire assets of Arizona Production Machinery & Supply in Casa Grande, an agriculture machinery dealer. The acquisition will expand Empire’s current product line of Caterpillar and Challenger machines to include agricultural machines from AGCO, Claas, and Massey Ferguson, which now includes Hesston. View article…
N. America property firms stymied by supply drought A wave of distressed properties expected to flood the North American market over the past year has never materialized, investors say, even as their ability to finance real estate deals improved considerably. As a result, Canada’s largest real estate firms have plenty of cash but few places to put it to work, executives gathered for an industry conference in Toronto said on Thursday. View article…
CMBS Market Shows Increasing Vitality The commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) market appears to be on the mend, with a spike in issuance compared to the same period a year ago and a glimmer of the first conduit deal since 2007. With investors feeling more confidence about the state of the U.S. economy in general and commercial real estate prices in particular, issuance this year could reach $30 billion, some market observers say. View article…
Feel free to contact me regarding any of these stories, the current market, distressed commercial real estate opportunities or your property.