Eight years after selling The Plaza at Legacy in Plano, Texas, Hines has welcomed the 215,000-square-foot office property back into its portfolio.

Capitalizing on what will likely be a strong year for retail, Clarion Partners has acquired a 187,000-square-foot shopping center in Covington, Wash., for $31 million.

Omninet Capital has closed on the purchase of Commerce Office Park, a 285,368-square-foot institutional-quality office campus at South Eastern and East Slauson avenues in Commerce, Calif.

The Internal Revenue Service, acting through Government Properties Income Trust, just signed a 10-year, 531,976-square-foot lease renewal in Fresno, Calif.

U.S. personal income grew 0.5 percent in December, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. All but two EU nations voted to enact Germany’s fiscal policies. And the Midwest Manufacturing Index rose by 1.7 points in December.

Walker & Dunlop L.L.C. has come through for Principal Management Partners with a $163.8 million loan package for the refinancing of a four-property apartment portfolio in Connecticut.

Aided by $52 million of financing placed by Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P., The Scion Group and Arch Street Capital Advisors have snapped up two student housing properties in Texas.

“Debt” is going to be the name of the game for the European real estate markets in 2012, according to Emerging Trends in Real Estate Europe 2012, the industry forecast published by PwC and the Urban Land Institute.

CoSentry, an Omaha-based provider of data center, cloud computing, co-location and managed-Internet services, has purchased a 57,500-square-foot former light industrial building in Lenexa, Kan., for use as a data center.

Eight months after The Miami Herald Co.’s Miami digs were sold in a short-term, sale-leaseback transaction, the newspaper has signed a long-term lease for the 158,300-square-foot former U.S. Southern Command headquarters at Westpointe Business Park in neighboring Doral, Fla.