Sunday Summary: Slow News Weeks Are No More!
By The Editors July 28, 2024 9:00 am
reprints
There was a time, a simpler time, when the summer was a season of respite. You could pack up for a couple of months, chill out on Fire Island or Martha’s Vineyard, and assume that the world would be more or less the same when you returned.
In July of 2024 that feels so … touchingly naive.
Yes, we might be alluding to the fact that the last month was possibly the nuttiest month in politics since — well, ever. But that being said, it has been years since the humble real estate broker could unplug and unwind from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
And we have a lot of evidence to back this up.
The dollars are flowing
Exhibit 1: Oko Group and Cain International managed to secure $565 million to pay off their construction loan for their gleaming, new 57-story Miami office tower, 830 Brickell, from Tyko Capital.
Exhibit 2: The Goldberg Group scored $265.5 million from Walker & Dunlop to refinance two student housing properties — Vantage and the View at Montgomery, encompassing some 606 units — near Temple University in Philadelphia.
Leases are being inked
Exhibit 3: The law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher signed a monster 20-year, 315,000-square-foot lease renewal at CommonWealth Partners’ 787 Seventh Avenue.
Exhibit 4: Carter’s (you know them — they make OshKosh B’gosh among other children’s clothing lines) signed a 23,000 square foot lease at ESRT’s 1350 Broadway.
Capital is being deployed
Exhibit 5: Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen, his brother Tyler and their brother-in-law Pouya Abdi swiped Wilshire Rodeo Plaza, a mixed-use complex, from Nuveen for a cool $211 million.
Exhibit 6: A pair of Irvine-based limited liability companies purchased the Coto de Caza Golf & Racquet Club and the Aliso Viejo Country Club for $81 million and $40.6 million, respectively, from the Dallas-based Invited Clubs.
Exhibit 7: Like a plague-ridden peasant in a Monty Python sketch, industrial is not quite dead. In fact, if you’re NBP Capital, it’s still going at full speed. NBP just sold a 150,000-square-foot fully leased complex in the San Fernando valley to Center Capital Partners, Authentic Capital Group and TPG Angelo Gordon for $41.5 million, or roughly 80 percent more than what they bought it for in 2017.
There were a lot more exhibits we could throw at you. But you get the idea. People are busy, and more focused on bottom lines than tan lines this year.
We need to talk about Oceanwide
You might have noticed something in those last three deals. They were all West Coast. Specifically, Southern California. And while those two deals were extremely compelling, they were not the only ones.
There is activity, both good and bad in Los Angeles.
On the good side there’s something like the fact that the 7.3-acre Yamashiro Hollywood where they shot “Kill Bill” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” is on the market for the humble price of $100 million.
Then there are the problem properties, like 777 Tower (also known as 777 South Figueroa Street) which is being sold to a syndicate of lenders for $120 million, or $117 per foot. Or the Gas Company Tower (aka 555 West Fifth Street) which the County of Los Angeles is attempting to purchase out of foreclosure.
Last week, Commercial Observer published our California edition where we dove into the 2028 Olympics. (Long and short of it: Folks in Los Angeles are going to need to think much more seriously about lodging and transportation.) We also discussed the upcoming San Francisco elections and its greater meaning for NIMBYism.
But the big story that has been on our mind for some time has been Oceanwide Plaza, aka Graffiti Towers, the multibillion-dollar boondoggle in the heart of Downtown L.A.
Last week there was a feint to purchase the property for $500 million, but the bidder missed the deadline. (However, the bidder could soon try for another bite at the apple.) But for misty-eyed developers it presents a white whale of real estate. A massive, still unformed, potential gold mine / potential fortune killer.
We took a deep dive into the history of the beguiling project, which might make you think that sometimes stepping away from work during the summer months might be for the best.
Oh, and if you’re an Olympics fan, check out our piece about the Paris Games. And if you decide to actually go to Paris, don’t forget to check out the Paris version of One Vanderbilt’s Summit.
A bientôt!
