WSJ Roundup: Blackstone, Germans, and a Tenant’s Market
October 30, 2009
Blackstone’s Hilton Deal
The LBO market was torrid during 2006-2007. So was commercial real estate. Combine the two, and you have the Blackstone/Hilton deal.
In the Hilton negotiations, Blackstone is considering contributing $800 million of new equity to buy back debt at a discount. It also is seeking to extend debt maturing in 2013 to 2016, while [...]
Subleases Now Account For 40% of Midtown Manhattan Office Space
May 26, 2009
From the NYT:
In Midtown Manhattan, for example, 13 percent of prime, modern, well-located offices — which brokers often refer to as Class A space — was available in April, up from 6.5 percent a year earlier, according to Colliers ABR, a commercial real estate services company. And sublets now account for some 40 percent of [...]
Tenant Concerns About Landlords Sweeping The Market
March 13, 2009
About a week ago we wrote a post on tenant’s increasingly becoming concerned with the financial condition of their landlords. The SF Business Times today featured an article covering that very same topic. The article touched on non-disturbance agreements, as well as tenants seeking to have landlords put Tenant Improvmenet money in escrow accounts to [...]
Read More >>Tenants Concerned About Landlord Financials
March 4, 2009
The NYT had an article yesterday about tenants scrutinizing landlord’s financials as a precaution against the property owners getting into financial trouble or losing the building to the lender. We’ve discussed in extensive detail over the past year how deteriorating commercial rents, and an increasingly difficult (or impossible for many) lending environment is putting unprecedented [...]
Read More >>Generic Office Tenant Improvement (TI) Construction Costs
November 4, 2008
Sam Burkhouse, the President of TiCon Construction (408-866-1500; sam@ticon.com) has been kind enough to provide some up-to-date pricing for generic office tenant improvement costs in Silicon Valley. It should be noted that the below numbers are “high level” and actual site conditions, the size of the project, and market forces will all have an effect [...]
Read More >>SF Chronicle Article Today On San Francisco Office Space Market
October 3, 2008
The SF Chronicle today is featuring an article discussing the trouble San Francisco office market is facing as a result of all that is going on in the equity and debt markets. There are two key takeaways in this article. The first is that we could see a 900 basis point increase in the office vacancy rate in [...]
Read More >>Legacy Partners Buying Oracle/BEA/Sobrato Tower at 488 Almaden?
July 25, 2008
The Business Journal is reporting this morning that according to their sources, Legacy Partners is in fact that buyer of the Oracle/BEA/Sobrato tower located at 488 Almaden Blvd in San Jose which Oracle (ORCL: 25.47 +1.03%) acquired as part of the BEA acquisition. The Business Journal is reporting the sale at “nearly” $100M at about $275 [...]
Read More >>Economic Stimulus Act Includes Provision For Commercial Construction
March 24, 2008
Under current law, only 2.5% of a improvement costs to a commercial (or residential) property could be written off in the first year. The new economic stimulus package now allows for up to 50% of the improvement costs to be written off the first year provided the work is started and completed this year.
This will [...]
“Back of the Envelope” Office Construction Prices
September 10, 2007
Tenants are often amazed at how quickly construction costs for interior build out of offices can add up. Very high end office construction (venture capital, private equity, law firms) is now in excess of $100 a square foot with some jobs moving in on $150 per square foot territory, with office construction for a typical [...]
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