Plans for a $900 million mixed-use project at Denver International Airport (DIA), the 10th busiest airport in the world, take on a greater sense of reality as officials unveil renowned architect Santiago Calatrava’s conceptual design for the South Terminal Redevelopment Program.

The project will be constructed in phases, with the first stage carrying a development price tag of $650 million. Phase I will consist of a 500-room hotel to be designed by architectural firm Gensler, approximately 40,000 square feet of meeting space. “We think there will be great demand for the hotel,” John Ackerman, Acting Deputy Manager of Revenue and Business Development,” told CPE. “The nearest hotel to the terminal is about five to six miles away and the next nearest hotel is about 10 miles away, so we will have the only hotel situated directly on the airport property. And, with a strategic location in the middle of the country there will be robust demand from companies planning to fly people in and out for day-long meetings.”

In addition to the hotel, there will be a plaza featuring approximately 38,000 square feet of retail and concession offerings. “We want a blend of restaurants and amenities for our customers,” Ackerman said. “We’re in the early stages of looking at a mix of offerings to complement what we already have in the terminal. The project’s mixture of uses will be a regional draw to people to experience the plaza retail offerings and the hotel.” The first phase will also produce a rail bridge and a terminal train station that will ultimately be incorporated into commuter rail service between the airport and Union Station in downtown Denver.

No date has been set for the commencement of Phase II of the South Terminal Redevelopment Program; however, should plans proceed to the second stage, the cost of the entire redevelopment endeavor will increase by $250 million for a final development cost of $900 million.

Financing for the program will be provided predominantly through General Airport Revenue Bonds to be repaid by airport revenues. Airport officials will forego usage of taxpayer dollars altogether.

Mortenson, Co. is on board as construction manager and contractor for DIA’s South Terminal Redevelopment Program. Completion of Phase I, which will result in the creation of over 6,000 jobs, is on schedule for 2016.

In Michigan, Southfield’s loss will be Detroit’s gain now that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has committed to relocating to the 5.5 million-square-foot mixed-use GM Renaissance Center. The nonprofit healthcare insurance carrier will occupy approximately 435,200 square feet of the complex’s 2.3 million square feet of office space, bringing the office segment’s occupancy level up to 90 percent.

Blue Cross will lease the space from General Motors, owner of the Renaissance Center since the company acquired it to serve as the company’s global headquarters in 1996. The complex, which recently underwent a sweeping $500 million renovation, encompasses a 1,300-room Marriott Hotel encircled by four 39-story office towers. A five-story podium beneath the five buildings houses 165,000 square feet of retail space. As a result of the recent upgrade, the property also features a five-story glass winter garden, a 1,100-seat food court and a suspended glass walkway connecting the four office facilities. It will share the tenant roster with a bevy of businesses including Deloitte, national law firm Dykema Gossett PLLC, Hewlett Packard, insurance broker and strategic risk advisor Marsh Inc. and Urban Science Applications Inc., which maintains its global headquarters at Renaissance Center.

In 2011, Blue Cross will commence a phased relocation of approximately 3,000 employees from its current digs about 15 miles away in a four-building complex in Southfield at 11 Mile Road, which the organization plans to sell. The move to Renaissance Center will allow Blue Cross to form a multi-structure Detroit campus, as it already occupies office space at 500 and 600 Lafayette Boulevard and 441 East Jefferson Avenue.

The Renaissance Center lease agreement has its pluses–and minuses. Blue Cross anticipates that it will, over the long-term, save about $30 million in real estate costs. However, as the company’s office needs decreased last year with the acceptance of voluntary separation packages by numerous employees, it will be occupying 400,000 square feet less than it occupies currently, thereby potentially leaving a sizeable and much dreaded office vacancy in Greater Detroit. While the area’s office vacancy rate is leveling off, according to a second quarter report by real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis Co., it is still at a staggeringly high 25.2 percent.

KBS Real Estate Investment Trust II has just expanded its portfolio by more than a million square feet. The REIT has closed on the purchase of the 1.3 million-square-foot, 60-story 300 North LaSalle office building in Chicago.

Located on the north bank of the Chicago River in the River North submarket, the property was completed in March 2009 and is currently 93 percent leased. Its tenants include law firm Kirkland & Ellis, L.L.P., which occupies 687,857 square feet and management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, which occupies 124,253 square feet.

The transaction boosts KBS-purchased commercial real estate to more than 3.5 million square feet thus far in 2010. That square footage includes properties in Dallas, St. Louis, San Diego, Portland and Herndon, Va.

The seller was represented by Glenn Whitmore, Jamie Fink and Jeff Bramson of the New York and Chicago offices of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, while Mike Kavanau of the Chicago office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler assisted with acquisition financing.

KBS was founded in 1992 by Peter Bren and Charles Schreiber, Jr. Since that time, it has completed transactional activity exceeding $17.6 billion via 19 separate accounts, six commingled funds and four non-traded REITs.

Northern California commercial office landlord Equity Office has inked two new lease transactions at Skyway Landing in San Carlos, California.

Wells Fargo Insurance Services has taken 40,257 square feet at 959 Skyway Road – the building’s entire second floor – and will relocate from its current quarters in Redwood City. Wells Fargo was represented by Marcus Wood of Cassidy Turley/BT Commercial, while Equity’s in-house Peninsula leasing team of Vahe Soghomonian and Rick Buziak along with the Cornish & Carey listing team of Jack Troedson, Kristoph Lodge and Graham Woodall represented the landlord.

In adition, information infrastructure software firm MarkLogic Corp. has extended its existing lease at 999 Skyway and nearly doubled its occupancy by expanding into an additional 18,630 square feet, making for a total of 40,268 square feet. Derek Johnson and Chris Holland of Jones Lang LaSalle represented MarkLogic, while Soghomonian represented the landlord.

The 247,000-square-foot Skyway Landing was built in 2000 and sits on 12.6 acres.

Rosemont, Ill.-based ACG Equities has made a 100 percent equity purchase of Atlanta’s Vinings Main mixed-use commercial and residential condominium development, which fell into foreclosure last December. The $24 million acquisition was the first allocation from the firm’s Midwest-based $150 million private equity fund.

ACQ principal and Atlanta office managing director David Lang said that the company will in the future seek to acquire value-oriented income-producing developments as well as residential properties.

Vinings Main was built in 2008 at a pricetag of $57 million. It has 34,000 square feet of condominium space, 17,000 square feet of retail space and a 461-space parking deck. Retail tenants include the Social Vinings restaurant.

ACG operates as a sponsor and operator specializing in value-added commercial property acquisitions and dispositions for private investors and equity funds. In addition to its headquarters, it also has offices in the Atlanta, Denver and Minneapolis markets and plans to open a Washington, DC area office.

In Aurora, Colo., The Children’s Hospital has commenced construction of a new 350,000-square-foot tower at its facility less than ten miles west of Denver. The $230 million expansion project will address a demand that has been on the rise since 2007 when the hospital opened its new location at the 227-acre Anschutz Medical Campus, a recently developed education, research and patient care complex.

According to officials, Children’s Hospital has experienced an annual increase in inpatient admissions of 10 percent or more over the last three years. “When we first moved to the Anschutz Medical Campus in September 2007, we wondered if our patients would follow us,” Jim Shmerling, President and CEO of The Children’s Hospital Colorado, told CPE. “The response has been a resounding, ‘yes!’ Here we are three years later, about to build another ten floors, about five years ahead of schedule.”

Phipps/McCarthy is handling construction of the East Tower, which will ultimately accommodate the addition of 500 patient beds. The new 10-story building, designed by ZGF Architects and H+L Architecture, will meet standards for LEED certification.

Children’s Hospital is hardly alone in its quest to provide additional space to address demand–demand that is only going to increase with the 32 million uninsured Americans that will become insured in a few years as a result of healthcare reform. Turner Construction Company broke ground this week on a $161 million, 216,000-square-foot patient tower at the Inova Fairfax Hospital campus in Falls Church, Va. In June, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs kicked off development of a 1.5 million-square-foot replacement medical center in New Orleans, and in May, work commenced on the $750 million, 1.2 million-square-foot Wishard Memorial Hospital replacement hospital in Indianapolis, Ind.

The new tower at Children’s Hospital in Aurora will open in late 2012, bringing the hospital’s total footprint at the Anschutz campus to nearly 1.8 million square feet.

Having reached an agreement with Paramus, N.J.-headquartered REIT Vornado Realty Trust and Los Angeles-based Geyser Holdings, MGM Resorts International has taken the next step in the planned disposition of assets at The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa. The Las Vegas-based global hospitality company will sell four long-term ground leases and the corresponding underlying real property parcels at the Atlantic City gaming property to the partners for $73 million.

With ownership of land leases and underlying land at The Borgata, Vornado and Geyser will have a tidy income stream from the seven-year-old hotel and gaming property, which offers 2,000 guestrooms, a 161,000-square-foot casino floor and a 54,000-square-foot spa. The Borgata also features a 2,400-seat event center, a 1,000-seat theater and retail and restaurant space.

While MGM Resorts will be relinquishing ownership of the 11.3 acres of real property parcels that come with the ground-leases at The Borgata, it will continue to possess a substantial chunk of Atlantic City land–developable land–in its portfolio. The company still owns 85 acres in the famous gaming town, and approximately 70 of those acres are located across from The Borgata. While Atlantic City, like most gaming markets across the country, has yet to fully recover from the ramifications of the economic downturn, the city is heading in a direction that will call for new development.

“Atlantic City is making an effort to diversify its entertainment offerings, and they’re trying to evolve into a travel destination, similar to the evolution Las Vegas had in the 1990s”, Jacob Oberman, Director of Gaming Research & Analysis with real estate services firm CB Richard Ellis’s Global Gaming Group, told CPE. “The market is evolving and Atlantic City has to compete with surrounding states.” If relying on Las Vegas as a model, Atlantic City’s transformation could reach fruition in the early 2020s. “Over the course of a 10-year period, Las Vegas evolved from a gaming city into a tourist city.”

Wilson Commercial said Tuesday that it had inked leasing assignments for 13 retail centers totaling more than 2 million square feet in the first six months of 2010.

Those assignments include three new developments, five redevelopment projects and five existing centers. The company also completed 32 leases totaling 600,000 square feet during the first half of the year.

The largest assignments include the 487,370-square-foot Commons at Quartz Hill in Lancaster, California, the 218,503-square-foot Crossroads at 395 in Victorville, California and the 224,783-square-foot Granada Village in Granada Hills, California.

“During this challenging economic climate, landlords understand the importance of retaining a firm who has the experience and knowledge to improve occupancy at their center,” Wilson president Chris Wilson said. “We have a deep understanding of the landlord and tenant side of the business, enabling us to deliver results in this ongoing challenging market.”

Wilson currently oversees leasing at 90 retail properties totaling 8.3 million square feet in Southern and Central California.

The federal government and government contractors like ASM Research Inc. continue to liven up the market in suburban Washington, D.C. The technology solutions provider has just signed a new lease for approximately 91,400 square feet of premier space at the 410,000-square-foot Centerpointe office complex in Fairfax, Va.

Located about 20 miles west of the District, Centerpointe sits on Legato Road at the intersection of I-66 and Route 50, and consists of Centerpointe I and Centerpointe II, twin structures that were developed in 1987 and 1989, respectively. Los Angeles-headquartered Thomas Properties Group Inc. has owned the two-building office park since 2007. ASM will make its home at Centerpointe II, consolidating employees from two Fairfax locations. The company’s current offices total 80,000 square feet, so ASM is actually absorbing 20,000 square feet in the market.

Real estate services firm CB Richard Ellis represented Thomas Properties Group in the lease transaction, while Newmark Knight Frank stood in for the tenant. Laurence D. Bank, managing principal with Newmark Knight Frank, told CPE, “It was a combination of location, quality of the building and the economics that led to the selection of Centerpointe.”

While the Northern Virginia office market has not escaped the ravages of the economic downturn, it is reaping the rewards of federal government expansion. According to a second quarter report by CB Richard Ellis, growth among the federal government and government contractors resulted in an increase in net absorption during the second quarter. Additionally, the office vacancy rate in Northern Virginia decreased from 14.4 percent to 14.2 percent, quarter-over-quarter.

While stabilization is afoot, it is still a tenants’ market. “We don’t see that changing for a couple of years,” Bank said. “When we’re getting an overall vacancy rate of 5 to 10 percent, that is more of a landlords’ market.”

Commercial real estate investment management firm Pembrook Capital Management has provided a $47.1 million, 24-month fixed-rate loan to recapitalize 100 11th Street in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.

The condominiums have been completed and 26 of 54 units sold. The loan was closed within three weeks from the date the owners signed the loan application.

100 11th Street is a 23-story tower designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. It sits at the intersection of 19th Street and the West Side Highway along the Hudson River.

“We are very pleased to be able to play a pivotal role in the ongoing success of such a beautiful addition to the Manhattan skyline,” Pembrook founder and CEO Stuart Boesky said when announcing the news. He added that the transaction was originated by Los Angeles-based employee Jonathan Schurgin, who worked with Meridian Capital to make the deal happen.

Pembrook provides capital to developers and owners of real estate on a national basis through the acquisition and/or origination of real estate debt and equity. The firm also participates in the distressed debt markets.