The Dallas and Chicago offices of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, L.P. said Friday that they have completed the sale of a first mortgage loan on The Village at Camp Bowie, a six-building, 270,069-square-foot retail and office development in Fort Worth, Tex.

Situated on a 19-acre site on the north and south sides of Camp Bowie Boulevard, the property is 76 percent leased to tenants including Frost Bank, Starbucks, Spring, Edward Jones and State Farm. It underwent extensive renovations from 2004 to 2007.

HFF senior managing directors Doug Hazelbaker and Jim Batjer, along with managing director Bill Mitchell, marketed the loan on behalf of the seller, Wells Fargo Bank. Western Real Estate Equities, L.L.C. bought the loan for an undisclosed price.

“This was an excellent opportunity to purchase a first-mortgage position on a renovated retail center that is located in one of Fort Worth’s best submarkets,” Hazelbaker said when announcing the news.

Operating out of 17 offices nationwide, HFF is a provider of commercial real estate and capital markets services to the United States commercial real estate industry. These include debt placement, loan sales, private equity and advisory services.

A portfolio of four Class A office buildings featuring an aggregate 725,000 square feet in the Preston Center submarket of Dallas, Tex., has just come under new ownership. The CBRE Strategic Partners U.S. Value 5 fund, a commingled private equity real estate fund sponsored by Los Angeles-headquartered CB Richard Ellis Investors, has purchased the three-building Preston Commons and Sterling Plaza from Chicago-based real estate investment firm Capri Capital Partners L.L.C.

CBRE is remaining mum on the amount of money it shelled out to acquire Preston Commons and Sterling Plaza. Los Angeles-based BentleyForbes had purchased the properties in 2005, relying on two separate first mortgage loans totaling $114.5 million from Hypo Real Estate Capital Corp. Capri provided two mezzanine loans for the properties and, after an agreement on refinancing was not reached between Capri and BentleyForbes, Capri stepped in as owner of the assets earlier this year.

Carrying addresses on Preston Rd., the three buildings that comprise Preston Commons feature a total of nearly 422,000 square feet on a 4.3-acre site. Preston Commons I is a 10-story structure that is also known as the Bank Building, and Preston Commons II and II are both eight-story buildings. According to BentleyForbes’ documentation on the properties, Preston I was originally developed in 1954, while the remaining two buildings sprouted up in 1986. Preston Commons also features three levels of structured parking accommodations.

Sterling Plaza, located on a 2.1-acre parcel at 5949 Sherry Lane, wraps up the group of buildings CBRE just acquired. The 19-story tower was built in 1984 and renovated in 2005. The property also boasts six levels of structured parking.

Now that CBRE has added the office assets to the Value 5 fund, it will institute a capital improvement program to reposition the properties. Currently, Preston Commons has an average occupancy level of 73.7 percent, and Sterling Plaza is 82.6 percent leased. The numbers, specifically for Preston Commons, come as no surprise given the current state of the Dallas office market. As per a second quarter report by real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis Co., the average vacancy rate in the Dallas area is 23.2 percent. With a 17.4 percent vacancy rate, Sterling Plaza is ahead of the game.

CBRE, however, is undeterred by the lackluster figures. “Dallas is a market where we have significant experience,” Vance Maddocks, President of CBRE Strategic Partners U.S., noted in a prepared statement. “We believe our strength of ownership coupled with our market knowledge will allow us to add considerable value to these already high-quality buildings.”

Newport Beach, Calif.-based KBS Realty Advisors’ KBS Real Estate Investment Trust II fund has acquired the Dallas Cowboys Distribution Facility in Irving, Tex. The 400,100-square-foot warehouse is fully leased to companies related to Dallas Cowboys merchandising activities.

Carrying the address of 2500 Regent Blvd., the Dallas Cowboys Distribution Center occupies a 22-acre parcel within the 500-acre Dallas Fort Worth International Commerce Park, a master-planned business park development endeavor spearheaded by Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. DFW Airport is larger than the island of Manhattan and DFW Airport officials’ original rationale for developing the park was to land the shuttle. Now the site is being developed to draw in companies seeking premium space near airport transportation and the benefits that come from a location within a foreign trade zone.

Developed by Bandera Ventures Ltd. in 2009, the state-of-the-art two-story building serves as the Cowboys’ merchandising headquarters, with Dallas Cowboys Merchandising Ltd., Dallas Cowboys Pro Shops L.P. and Blue Star Graphics and Design making their home at the site. The tenants lease the space at a cost of $3.86 per square foot, for a total base rent of $1.5 million. KBS shelled out $19 million for the property acquisition, which includes a 40-year ground lease.

Commercial real estate services firm CB Richard Ellis represented the seller in the transaction, while KBS relied on internal representation. “There was a ton of interest in the property,” Josh McArtor, senior vice president with CBRE’s Institutional Group, told CPE. “A lot of people want to have a piece of the Cowboys. They’re buying a piece of the Cowboys enterprise and they’re getting a credit tenant.”

And the facility is much more than an industrial property. It features retail space and, with a full data center, “serves as the technological nerve center that runs and backs up the distribution center, Cowboys Stadium and Valley Ranch [team headquarters],” McArtor said.

KBS’s purchase of the Dallas Cowboys Distribution Facility dovetails with anticipated investment trends in the Dallas-area industrial market. As market conditions begin to stabilize in the second half of the year, institutional investors will have high quality properties with stable tenancy on their radar, and opportunity investors will pursue well-located properties with occupancy challenges or financial issues, according to a second quarter report by commercial real estate research firm Delta Associates.

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Commercial real estate services company Avison Young has opened a new office in Houston, thereby continuing its United States expansion. The office is the company’s fourth outside of Canada.

Avison Young said Wednesday that effective immediately, Rand Stephens and Josh LaRocca will join the new office as principals, bringing with them more than 40 years of combined industry experience. They were most recently co-managing principals of the Houston office of Dallas-based tenant representation firm Mohr Partners.

Stephens will oversee the office’s daily activities along with growing the company’s presence in Houston as well as in Texas itself. LaRocca will lead transaction execution, primarily in terms of helping clients optimimze occupancy decisions and address key strategic issues.

The company’s U.S. expansion kicked off in 2009 with the opening of its Chicago office, followed by offices in Washington, DC and Atlanta. Over the past year and a half, Avison Young has grown from 11 to 18 North American offices and doubled its employee roster from 300 to 600-plus.

“The opening of our newest office in Houston is in line with our strategy to harness the immense potential for Avison Young’s client-centric service model, which recognizes the importance of aligning the needs of our clients with the intellectual capital of our professionals, and eliminating service line silos to allow for the delivery of integrated solutions.” Avison Young chair and CEO Mark Rose said when announcing the news.

Founded in 1978, Avison Young is headquartered in Toronto.

Skanska USA has been awarded the construction management assignment for the expansion of the Holly Hall Hospital in Houston. The new five-story, approximately 172,222-square-foot building will house specialized clinics with services such as diagnostics imaging and radiation therapy.

Construction is scheduled to begin in August and slated for completion by July 2012.

Skanska is also building two other expansion projects at Houston’s LBJ Hospital for Harris County Hospital District, the same customer as with Holly Hall. The first phase is contracted for $30 million, with additional phases expected to total $27 million.

Earlier this month, Skanska was awarded its first road assignment in the northwestern United States: construction of the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle. The project is estimated to cost $115 million.

Skanksa USA has four business units: Skanska USA Building, Skanska USA Civil, Skanska Infrastructure Development, and Skanska Commercial Development. The New York-based firm has approximately 7,000 employees.

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Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is undergoing a massive makeover and Balfour Beatty Construction, along with its joint-venture partners, will do the handiwork. The team has been awarded a $900 million contract to facilitate all preconstruction and construction services for DFW’s Terminal Development Program, which will span seven years.

Known as BARC, the joint venture team includes Azteca Enterprises, H.J. Russell & Company, and CARCON Industries. The partners will tackle the redevelopment of two terminals erected 36 years ago, and the construction of a new rail station and temporary facilities.

New airport construction projects are popping up across the country, and work on many previously planned endeavors continues to move forward. In March, Airport Plazas Inc., the airport development arm of Jericho, N.Y.-based GAZ Realty Inc., won bids for the design, construction and operation of a plaza project at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Fla., and at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

And in February, Walsh Austin Joint Venture, a partnership involving Walsh Construction Company and Austin Commercial, broke ground on the $1.5 billion, 1.3 million-square-foot Bradley West Project at Los Angeles International Airport. As a result of the LAX project, 4,000 new jobs will materialize over the next four years.

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After four years of litigation and a five-week trial, a jury has awarded Keystone-Texas Property Holding Corp. a more than $80 million judgment against Host Hotels and Resorts L.P., formerly known as Host Marriott, L.P., as well as its subsidiary HMC Hotel Properties II L.P.

The lawsuit was centered on the San Antonio Rivercenter Mall and the attached Rivercenter Marriott. Keystone, which owned both properties, entered negotiations in 2005 to sell them. Ten days before the Marriott hotel parcel closed, Host Marriott notified Keystone that it was in default under the parties’ lease agreement and first needed to separately negotiate with HMC for the sale of the property at a fair market value acceptable to both HMC and Host Marriott.

Host Marriott then sought an injection to bar Keystone from selling the property, alleging claims of breach of contract. This resulted in Keystone being unable to close the transaction, though the injunction was eventually denied. Keystone then filed counterclaims against Host Marriott and HMC, with the eventual trial centered on interpretation of the lease language highlighted in Host Marriott’s demand letter.

Keystone was awarded $34.3 million in compensatory damages for its tortious interference claim and $39 million for its claim on slander of title. It was also awarded $5 million in punitive damages against Host Marriott and $2.5 million in punitive damages against HMC.

“I believe the jury spent weeks evaluating the evidence and ultimately they arrived at the only possible conclusion,” J. Michael Ellis of Crouch & Ramey, LLP, who with Cole Ramey served as lead trial counsel for Keystone, told CPE. “I am satisfied with the jury’s verdict and appreciative of their diligence and hard work throughout the process.”

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W. P. Carey & Co. L.L.C. has gotten its hands on a piece of the 2.9 million-square-foot office portfolio that Brookfield Real Estate Opportunity Group recently acquired from JPMorgan Chase. In a transaction orchestrated simultaneously with Brookfield’s purchase of the group of 16 JPMorgan-owned properties, W. P. Carey acquired the 386,000-square-foot JPMorgan Chase Operations Center in Fort Worth, Tex., from Brookfield under a sale-leaseback deal that allows the bank to continue to occupy the entire building.

The Operations Center sits within the 1,200-acre CentrePort Business Park, which boasts a location midway between the Dallas Central Business District and downtown Fort Worth, and easy access to the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Financial details of W. P. Carey’s swift purchase of the property from Brookfield have not been disclosed, and the length of the lease is being described only as long-term.

Before the credit crunch took hold, sale-leaseback transactions, a reliable means for a company occupying its own real estate to expeditiously secure cash while maintaining its location, were somewhat prevalent.

But in 2009, the deals began to dwindle. “When commercial real estate debt was readily available and cheap, sale-leasebacks were popular,” according to a report released by commercial real estate research firm Real Capital Analytics in September of 2009. “On average, the spread between single-tenant property yields and corporate bonds has doubled to nearly 200 basis points. Sale-leasebacks are no longer a cheap form of capital for corporate owners, but for a few, it may still be their best option.”

JPMorgan leased back 60 percent of the 16-property portfolio it sold to Brookfield; however, its decision to sell 23 properties totaling 7.1 million square feet last summer was not spurred by a need to unload debt attached to distressed properties, as has been the case with many corporate property owners since the credit markets went into a deep freeze. Despite the fact that property values have plummeted over the last two years, a sale-leaseback transaction is still a good way of pocketing quick cash, too.

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Healthcare Trust of America, Inc., on Thursday announced its acquisition of a Pearland, Tex. medical office portfolio for $10.5 million. The purchase expands the real estate investment trust’s Texas portfolio to more than one million square feet.

That portfolio is comprised of two medical office buildings totaling 54,800 square feet, one of which is completely occupied while the other is 98 percent occupied. A Houston suburb, Pearland is located about 10 miles south of the Houston Medical Center and 15 miles south of central Houston.

Healthcare Trust executive vice president of acquisitions Mark Engstrom said that the buildings’ location in a rapidly growing Houston submarket, as well as the quality of the tenants, make the acquisition attractive. Tenants include Houston’s Methodist Hospital.

Earlier in the week, the company announced an agreement to buy the 60,000 square foot Sugar Land Medical Building from The Mission Co. for $12.4 million.

Since its inception in 2006, Healthcare Trust has made 53 acquisitions valued at approximately $1.46 billion, including 179 buildings and two other real estate-related assets. The company’s portfolio entails approximately 7.4 million square feet, which includes 160 medical office buildings, six hospitals, nine skilled nursing and assisted living facilities and four other office buildings located in 21 states.

With San Antonio’s office market rebounding in the third quarter, Transwestern’s local office hopes to take advantage of that good karma with the contract to handle the real estate services assignment for the Brooks City-Base development there.

Owned by the Brooks Development Authority, Brooks City-Base is a collection of approximately 2 million square feet of office, medical and technical laboratory, light industrial, retail and recreational properties set on over 1,300 acres. Brooks City-Base in San Antonio is a master-planned research and technology center resulting from a unique partnership between the United States Air Force and the city of San Antonio. The Brooks Development Authority, as owner, operator and developer of Brooks City-Base, is moving forward quickly with the redevelopment of the former Brooks Air Force Base.
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Brooks City-Base is made up of approximately 1,250 acres, with more than 300 acres available for immediate development. More than two million square feet of laboratory and office space, light industrial facilities and recreation/fitness areas already exists onsite with some space currently available for leasing. There are currently over $170 million in projects being planned and constructed at Brooks City-Base.

The scope of Transwestern’s work will include leasing of existing commercial space, land leases and sales, as well as seeking developers for build-to-suit and development opportunities.

For San Antonio, good things are going on, according to the Grubb & Ellis Office Trends Report for the third quarter. The San Antonio office leasing market rebounded this quarter with 156,118 square feet of positive absorption. This influx of leased space was a culmination of the relocation and expansion of several businesses and numerous entities associated with Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) at Fort Sam Houston, Grubb & Ellis reported.

Any quarterly occupancy losses seen across the market were countered by the occupancy of large tenants such as Medtronic moving into 145,000 square feet at the Overlook at the Rim and a government contractor leasing over 50,000 square feet in Bank of America Plaza, the report stated.

The positive net absorption is a much welcomed sight following the 320,000 square feet that was previously vacated by AT&T in their move to Dallas earlier this year. During the summer, Tesoro officially moved into their newly built 618,000-square-foot headquarters which left more than 100,000 square feet vacant in the competitive leasing market. Tesoro’s relocation to the owner-built Ridgewood Park would have caused further waves in the marketplace without the recent relocation by Whataburger, the report stated. Fortunately, Whataburger purchased 200 Concord – which was previously the home of Tesoro – in their headquarters relocation from Corpus Christi.

According to the report, despite all the positive quarterly activity, the San Antonio office leasing market has not climbed out of the trough yet. Looking forward, there is only one significant remaining lease in place by Concorde Career College which will occupy 39,855-square feet at Corporate Square Garden by year-end. Since deals of this magnitude are few and far between and there is still 280,115 square feet of negative absorption for the year, San Antonio is expected to close out 2009 with its largest annual occupancy loss since 2002.