Sunday Summary: Talkin’ ’Bout My Generation

It’s beach season. That means it’s time for us to take our diets seriously. (We probably should have done this about eight to 10 weeks ago, but spilled milk. Mmm… Milk.)

And, while one could theoretically dust off the Peleton, screw it — we’re paying the $1,400 per month for Ozempic.

Indeed, with those kinds of prices it’s no wonder that Ozempic’s creator — Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk — has $4.1 billion to invest in building up its presence in North Carolina, starting with a 1.4 million-square-foot manufacturing plant at 2641 Powhatan Road in Clayton, southeast of Raleigh

“Through this expansion and continued investment in our global production, we’re building Novo Nordisk’s ability to serve millions more people living with serious chronic diseases in the future,” Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, president and CEO of Novo Nordisk, said in a statement.

It wasn’t just the pharmaceutical companies that were laying out those sweet, sweet billions.

KKR (KKR) (who had been sort of alluding to it in our recent interview with Ralph Rosenberg) just plunked down $2.1 billion to buy an 18-asset apartment portfolio in California, Washington, Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Colorado and New Jersey from Quarterra Multifamily.

“We believe this is a great moment to invest in real estate, as transaction activity starts to pick up on the heels of two years of dislocation in commercial real estate markets,” said KKR’s Justin Pattner. “Across our platform we are finding opportunities where our scale, strong relationships, multiple pools of capital and local knowledge give us advantages as a buyer of large pools of high-quality, irreplaceable assets.”

Actually, there were a lot of sales last week

We’ve been sort of waiting for the last couple of years with bated breath for the binge of sales from all the capital that had been sitting on the sidelines waiting to strike.

And, while the multibillion-dollar sales mentioned above are still rare, we nevertheless saw some modest, but still good, sales over the course of the last week.

In Midtown Manhattan, the Korean investor John Choi paid Sachs Companies $36 million for a 13-story mixed-use office and retail property at 65 West 55th Street.

In continuing the trend of owner-occupier real estate purchases, Success Academy Charter Schools bought 7801 and 7815 Bay Parkway for $37.2 million from Magen David Yeshivah in Gravesend, Brooklyn.

In Plantation, Fla., Pine Tree, the open-air retail operators, purchased The Fountains, a collection of five open-air malls totaling 438,051 square feet, for $70 million from Site Centers. (Further proof that investors love shopping centers right now.) 

And, in Surfside, Ian Bruce Eichner (for his second play in as many weeks!) offered owners of The Four Winds condo at 9225 Collins Avenue a whopping $141 million to buy them out, presumably to build a far glitzier and more expensive condo in its place.

And there was even more financing!

If you were worried that money was still frozen, it would be difficult to deny a distinct thaw last week.

To start with the biggest first, Morgan Stanley provided Brookfield (BN) with a $750 million refinancing of One Liberty Plaza with plans to do “significant capital investments” in the property over the course of the next few months. (Speaking of Brookfield, we also got word that Andrea Balkan, the head of Brookfield Asset Management’s lending arm, is leaving the firm by the end of the year.)

Over in Jersey City, Bravo Capital secured a $169.3 million construction loan for its 477-unit West Side Square development in Journal Square.

In Brooklyn, Affinius Capital and Kennedy Wilson provided a massive $300 million cash infusion in the form of senior construction financing to Tavros, Charney Companies and Incoco Capital for the 668-unit, 631,000-square-foot multifamily project they’re building at 310 and 340 Nevins Street in Gowanus.

And, on the West Coast, Bank of America provided a $125 million CMBS loan to Tarsadia Investments to refinance the 1,030-room Anaheim Marriott Hotel at 700 West Convention Way in Anaheim.

Oh, plus Jason Illoulian’s Faring nabbed $35 million from Centennial Bank for a 400,000-square-foot, 123-key hotel called Robertson Lane that’s planned for West Hollywood.

Who’s who

Finally, Thursday is July 4.

Happy Independence Day (in advance)! Be sure to enjoy the burgers and dogs (we’ll start Ozempic on Friday), go see some fireworks, and reflect on the hardwon freedoms that we enjoy.

And, as you wind down, it would be worth your time to take a good, solid look at CO’s Young Professionals issue that we published last week.

We tried to showcase some of the bankers, brokers, architects and engineers who will be inheriting the mantle soon enough. (Chuck Kohaut of Cushman & Wakefield (CWK) let CO tag along for a day of wheeling and dealing.)

One thing that one must say about the Class of 2024 is that they’ve gotten through the hard part — they might be young but they lived through a global pandemic and real estate’s most existential crisis. Even the grizzled veterans can learn something from their aplomb, their enthusiasm, and their savvy.

We raise a hot dog to them all!

May the Fourth be with you.