Recent commercial real estate acquisitions
Below is a sampling of recent property transactions tracked by Real Capital Analytics. The largest completed transactions included two office properties in Chicago and Massachusetts.
In Chicago, KBS REIT III purchased 500 West Madison, also known as Citigroup Center, an iconic, 1.5 million-square-foot mixed-use tower in Chicago, for $425 million. The sellers were joint venture partners General Electric Pension Trust and Estein & Associates. The 40-story building is located in the city's West Loop submarket. The purchase is KBS REIT III's largest and brings its total acquisition volume to $1.26 billion. The 500 West Madison acquisition is the latest in a series of high-quality KBS REIT III purchases in 2013 and the largest since the REIT commenced operation in 2011. The transaction follows KBS REIT III's $121 million purchase earlier this month of 201 Spear St., a 246,563-square-foot, waterfront class A office tower in San Francisco's South Financial District.
In Wellesley Hills, Mass., Wellesley Office Park sold for $237 million to Manulife Financial Corp. The 650,000-square-foot, eight-building campus was sold by The Blackstone Group. The property was part of its Equity Office portfolio, which the firm acquired when it bought Equity Office Properties Trust for $23 billion in 2007. The portfolio included more than 580 buildings totaling more than 105 million square feet nationwide.
Blackstone has already sold several Equity Office properties in the region. New England Executive Park in Burlington, Mass., was sold to Charles River Investors for $216 million; 25 Mall Road in Burlington was purchased by TA Associates for $77.1 million; Hines bought Riverside Center at 275 Grove St. in Newton, Mass., for $197 million; and 1–3 Center Plaza in Boston is under agreement with Shorenstein Properties.
Other Massachusetts assets listed by Blackstone include the property formerly known as the State Street building in Boston’s Financial District; 60 State St. and 100 Summer St. in Boston’s Financial District; 500 Boylston St. in Boston’s Back Bay; and 125 and 150 Cambridgepark Drive in West Cambridge, Mass.
| Buyer | Seller | Type | Size | Location | Price (M) | Price/Units |
| Fan Du | Guardian Life Insurance Co. | Apartment | 295 units | Malden, MA | $60.00 | $203,389.83 |
| BC Property Investments | Harbor Group International | Apartment | 624 units | Nashville, TN | $57.00 | $91,346.15 |
| Florida Sunshine Investments/Forest Properties | TIAA-CREF | Apartment | 117 units | Astoria, NY | $47.20 | $403,418.80 |
| Acacia Capital Corp. | Security Properties | Apartment | 194 units | Bellevue, WA | $41.85 | $215,721.65 |
| TriBridge Residential | Winter Properties | Apartment | 166 units | Charlotte, NC | $21.00 | $126,506.02 |
| Monarch | Harry Freeman | Apartment | 370 units | Fenton, MO | $19.00 | $51,351.35 |
| Gaia Real Estate Holdings | Pfizer Corp. | Apartment | 21 units | New York, NY | $14.60 | $695,238.10 |
| Prudential Real Estate Investors | Laramar Group | Hotel | 297 rooms | Chicago, IL | $86.80 | $292,255.89 |
| Shoham Amin | Thayer Lodging Group | Hotel | 115 rooms | Sarasota, FL | $10.80 | $93,913.04 |
| Shoham Amin | Thayer Lodging Group | Hotel | 121 rooms | Sarasota, FL | $9.00 | $74,380.17 |
| Inland Real Estate Group | Winstanley Enterprises | Industrial | 416,599 sf | Bristol, CT | $42.00 | $100.82 |
| Kohl's | JF US Industrial Trust | Industrial | 300,120 sf | Menomonee Falls, WI | $15.20 | $50.65 |
| Paradigm Capital Advisors | Praedium Group | Industrial | 160,000 sf | Boston, MA | $12.30 | $76.88 |
| KBS REIT III | GE Pension Trust/Estein & Associates | Office | 1,460,000 sf | Chicago, IL | $425.00 | $291.10 |
| Manulife Financial Corp. | The Blackstone Group | Office | 641,700 sf | Wellesley Hills, MA | $237.00 | $369.33 |
| Rockrose Developmentd | Savanna | Office | 143,869 sf | New York, NY | $105.00 | $729.83 |
| Epic UK Ltd. | Clarion Partners | Office | 105,000 sf | Washington, DC | $52.78 | $502.70 |
| CA Ventures | Franklin Street Properties | Office | 257,508 sf | Minneapolis, MN | $33.00 | $128.15 |
| Gladstone Commercial | Opus | Office | 97,797 sf | Englewood, CO | $18.25 | $186.61 |
| RREEF Property Trust | Meriwether Partners | Office | 31,774 sf | Seattle, WA | $12.75 | $401.27 |
| Melvin Mark Cos./Becker Capital Management | Jeld-Wen | Office | 65,000 sf | Portland, OR | $12.30 | $189.23 |
| Dunhill Partners | Long Wharf Real Estate Partners | Retail | 295,949 sf | Riverside, CA | $61.27 | $207.03 |
| Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. | Vons Cos. | Retail | 100,408 sf | La Canada Flintridge, CA | $35.90 | $357.54 |
| National Retail Properties | Brian Pellowski | Retail | 50,000 sf | Minneapolis, MN | $13.83 | $276.60 |
| Schnitzer West | Aspen Growth Properties | Retail | 15,864 sf | Bellevue, WA | $12.00 | $756.43 |
