Ex-Pfister exec compares Milwaukee, Oklahoma City
- Dec, 01 2012
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John Williams
Rich Kirchen
Senior Reporter- The Business Journal
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John Williams has firsthand experience observing the trajectory of both downtown Milwaukee and downtown Oklahoma City.
His viewpoint: Downtown Milwaukee is holding steady while downtown Oklahoma City is on the rise.
Williams for six years ran downtown Milwaukee luxury hotel The Pfister, then transferred to Oklahoma City in 2006 to open one of downtown Oklahoma City’s signature redevelopment projects: the historic Skirvin Hotel. Both are owned by Milwaukee-based Marcus Hotels and Resorts.
I sought Williams’ perspective on the two cities in my research on Oklahoma City and how the city used a 1 cent sales tax to build and upgrade an NBA arena and $1.5 billion in other civic projects. My package of print edition stories and website coverage explores how Oklahoma City could be a model for Milwaukee as our city’s leaders determine whether to build a new NBA arena and, if so, how to pay for one.
Williams told me he loved Milwaukee and his time here. But after six-plus years in Oklahoma City, he loves that, too, and likes what he sees in the growing economy and cultural attractions.
I interviewed Williams in the impressive new 50-story Devon Energy Center, where he now runs restaurants, meeting rooms and the adjacent Colcord Hotel. From the top floor of the Devon tower, he pointed out where residential development is springing up downtown, the site of a planned convention center (he sits on the planning board) and the site of a planned 70-acre downtown park.
“It’s very different in one way in that Oklahoma City has a very unified business community and political community,” Williams told me. “At all levels are people who want to move things forward. And the voters are right on board.”
Rich Kirchen is The Business Journal’s senior reporter. He covers health care, insurance, politics, media and marketing/advertising.
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Former Kahala Kids space will reopen as two different stores
- Nov, 29 2012
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Stephanie Silverstein
Reporter- Pacific Business News
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The former Kahala Kids store location has been divided into two spaces at Kahala Mall.
One space will be occupied by Kahala Lifestyles, which will be operated by the owners of the former Kahala Kids store. The other space will be occupied by 33 Butterflies, a women’s fashion boutique that opened Thursday.
Kahala Kids owners Gaye and Brian Kaupiko closed the store in August and decided to reopen in December after it shifts the store’s focus from children’s and maternity to family apparel.
The stores’ owners could not be reached for comment, and a spokeswoman for the mall declined to give information about either store.
Stephanie Silverstein covers the hospitality industry and money for Pacific Business News.
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King Soopers parent may replace Walmart as 9th and Colorado anchor
- Nov, 27 2012
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Instead of a Walmart, Denver’s old University of Colorado Hospital site may get a King Soopers or other Kroger store instead.
The Denver Post’s Jeremy P. Meyer and John Mossman report that Kroger Co. — the Cincinnati-based parent of Colorado grocery chains King Soopers and City Market — is in talks to place a market at the East Ninth Avenue and Colorado Boulevard site where Wal-Mart Stores Inc. wanted to go.
The Post says the store could be a King Soopers or one of Kroger’s more upscale Fresh Fare outlets. It says a decision is expected by mid-December.
The plan for an urban-style Walmart at the old UCH site met with withering opposition from nearby residents, forcing developer Jeff Fuqua to try to find another tenant.
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Singapore investors pay $10.3M for Waukesha shopping center
- Nov, 25 2012
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The center is anchored by a Sentry grocery store with a long-term lease.
Sean Ryan
Reporter- The Business Journal
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A group of investors from the Asian island of Singapore bought the Meadowbrook Marketplace in Waukesha for $10.3 million from Bryce Styza Properties LLC.
Also this week, Hartford Healthcare Realty LLC is ready to move forward with its 106-bed skilled nursing facility project in Slinger after closing a land purchase.
The ocean-spanning Meadowbrook Marketplace deal started in January, when a representative of the Singapore investors reached out to Siegel-Gallagher Inc., Milwaukee to inquire about a property listing, said vice president of investment properties Matson Holbrook.
“We built a relationship over time, had some phone calls,” he said. “He had two trips over here since last January.”
That first deal didn’t work out, but Meadowbrook Marketplace caught the investors’ attention. The property is at the northeast corner of Meadowbrook Road and Summit Avenue in Waukesha’s west side.
Meadowbrook Road is planned to be widened in the West Waukesha bypass project that could start in 2015 or 2016. That bypass project and the traffic it will generated is a selling point for the marketplace, Holbrook said.
The property is 112,000 square feet and anchored by a 49,000-square-foot Sentry, said Patrick Gallagher, president and chief executive officer of Siegel-Gallagher. It has stand-alone McDonald’s and Walgreens buildings, and a strip center with national tenants such as Subway. The retail space is 92 percent leased, Gallagher said.
Officials from Bryce Styza Properties, Waukesha, did not respond to calls for comment about the sale.
Gallagher and Holbrook represented the buyers in the deal, and Siegel-Gallagher will manage the mall for the new owner. They declined to provide details about the buyers, whose legal name is Meadowbrook Marketplace LLC.
Sean Ryan reports on real estate, construction and public transit in southeast Wisconsin
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Restaurateur, merchants want to revitalize Pioneer Square, one of Seattle’s oldest neighborhoods
- Nov, 23 2012
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Katherine Anderson of Marigold and Mint and Chef Matt Dillon of Sitka and Spruce are opening The London Plane in the old Bank of America branch on Occidental Avenue South.
Marc Stiles
Staff Writer- Puget Sound Business Journal
Chef Matt Dillon and two other merchants from Melrose Market on Seattle’s Capitol Hill are opening four businesses in the heart of Pioneer Square, and boosters of the beleaguered neighborhood say other entrepreneurs are not far behind.
You could argue that Dillon and the others are taking a big risk investing in Seattle’s first neighborhood, which is known for its Romanesque Revival buildings as well as its checkered past, when the term Skid Road was coined.
Unfortunately for Pioneer Square, its rough reputation rather than the architecture sticks in people’s minds. Merchants have come and gone, and in January the retail vacancy rate was 11 percent in the neighborhood core.
That made it tough to recruit businesses, said
Karen True, the Alliance for Pioneer Square’s business and community development manager.
When True first approached shopkeepers about opening stores in Pioneer Square, she said, “I was met with, ‘Yeah, right.’ Everybody else wanted someone else to go first.”
Dillon, owner of the acclaimed Sitka Spruce restaurant in Melrose Market and Corson Building restaurant in Georgetown, and other merchants from Melrose Market retail center, are willing to be those people.
With hundreds of market-rate apartments under construction and the new waterfront development, Dillon says the Pioneer Square neighborhood is experiencing a revival and his investment is not risky.
“(The revival) is hard to see, I think,” he said, adding more business owners are following. “Tons of chefs are looking down here.”
Dillon is opening Bar Sajor in December at the southwest corner of the brick- and tree-lined stretch of Occidental Avenue South between South Main and Jackson streets. And he and business partner
Marc Stiles covers commercial real estate and government for the Puget Sound Business Journal.
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Burnsley Hotel in Denver to close
- Nov, 21 2012
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Mark Harden
New Media Editor- Denver Business Journal
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Denver’s Burnsley All Suite Hotel, a Capitol Hill landmark for half a century, will close down next month and is to be converted into a residential complex, according to two sources familiar with the situation.
The hotel, at 1000 Grant St., is to shut down in mid-December, the sources said.
The 17-story, 80-room property has been sold and the new owner, a local company, plans to convert it into apartments or condominiums, the sources said.
Executives of the company the sources identified as the buyer could not be reached late Wednesday. An on-site manager at the Burnsley declined to comment on the matter.
The Burnsley was built in 1963 as an apartment house, and soon after was converted into a hotel that featured a popular jazz club, according to a hotel history.
At one point the hotel was owned by an investor group that included singer Ella Fitzgerald and actor Kirk Douglas.
The hotel — then known as the Hampshire House — was acquired in 1969 by Joy and Franklin Burns, who renamed it as the Burnsley. The property underwent an extensive renovation in 1983 and another one in 2000.
The hotel has been managed recently by RDA Hotel Management Co. of Akron, Ohio.
Mark Harden is print and digital content editor for the Denver Business Journal and writes for the “Broadway 17th” blog. Email: mharden@bizjournals.com. Phone: 303-803-9227.
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Kaneohe Ranch: Next upgrades for Kailua to happen on a smaller scale
- Nov, 19 2012
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Jenna Blakely
General Assignment Reporter- Pacific Business News
Kaneohe Ranch Management Ltd. plans to continue Kailua’s renovations on a smaller scale after bringing in national chains like Pier 1 Imports, Whole Foods Market and, soon, Target.
A decade ago, Kailua residents had to leave town to shop, but once Target (NYSE: TGT) moves in, Kaneohe Ranch President and CEO Mitchell D`Olier said residents can now find everything they need without having to leave the Windward Oahu town. Whole Foods Market (NYSE: WFM) opened its second Oahu store in Kailua in April.
But after Target opens, D`Olier isn’t planning on bringing in any more big chains.
“Whole Foods and Target are desirable to have and they enhance the community,” he said. “But for the future, we want it to be a place for smaller merchants and we’re always on the lookout for cool, new restaurants.”
Kimo Steinwascher, executive vice president and chief operating officer, said Kaneohe Ranch has at least a dozen leases that will come up within the next five years.
As more renovations occur, he anticipates that many of Kailua’s smaller merchants will upgrade to the newer locations, he said. Brokers regularly call for open space, he added, which allows the town’s major landlord to be selective in who moves in. For the past two years, they’ve had zero vacancy.
But, D’Olier pointed out that they are moving forward with caution and don’t want to put any one out of business by adding too much of the same thing.
“We have a loyalty to our merchants,” he said. “I want it to be a retail place where everyone can be successful.”
D’Olier added that when Whole Foods moved in, some local businesses were worried about lunch business being taken away. While that may have occurred in the beginning, he said it has calmed down and business has returned to normal.
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Nuggets, Avalanche owner Kroenke ‘the most powerful man in sports,’ says Sports Ilustrated
- Nov, 17 2012
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Stan Kroenke
Greta Weiderman
Web Editor- St. Louis Business Journal
Literally and figuratively, Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche owner Stan Kroenke is powerful.
The 65-year-old can bench press 225 pounds 12 times. And that’s just one of the fun facts in Sports Illustrated’s feature on Kroenke in its more recent issue.
“Sports’ ultimate kingpin is a humble real estate tycoon from central Missouri whose properties, from the NFL’s [St. Louis] Rams to the [British soccer] Premier League’s Arsenal, are worth some $4 billion,” the article says.
Kroenke also owns the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer and the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League.
This report continues at the St. Louis Business Journal website. Click here for more.
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Companies Mentioned
- St. Louis Rams
- Denver Nuggets
- Colorado Avalanche Hockey Club
- National Lacrosse League, Inc
- Colorado Rapids
- NHL Hockey Archive
- Major League Soccer LLC
Davis Cos. raises $414M for private equity real estate investment fund
- Nov, 15 2012
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Jonathan Davis has raised $414 million in private equity for its second fund from institutional and high net worth investors.
Thomas Grillo
Real Estate Editor- Boston Business Journal
Boston-based Davis Cos. has raised $414 million in a private equity from institutional and high net worth investors.
“The money will be used to buy distressed properties or the mortgages on properties that were acquired or financed in the boom times from 2005 and 2007, which in many cases, were over-financed and are now underwater,” said Jonathan Davis, the company’s founder and CEO.
Davis said he raised the cash from university endowments, corporate retirement plans and wealthy families with individual investments ranging from $500,000 and to $35 million. Davis Investment Ventures Fund II allows joint ventures with outside capital sources, as well as with other operators seeking capital or additional operating expertise and to provide recapitalization and bridge financing. The fund has the potential to invest in $1.2 billion of real estate, Davis said.
As an example of the strategy, Davis pointed to his September sale of One and Three Burlington Woods to an institutional investment fund for $54 million. Davis paid $32.3 million for the pair of office properties in 2010 at foreclosure auction from GE Capital. At the time, the buildings had a vacancy rate of 36 percent and needed improvements. Davis said he spent $3 million to restore the buildings to their former class A quality and completed lease deals totaling 113,000 square feet.
Founded in 1976, Davis Cos. has invested in 120 properties representing over $2 billion in asset value, and has acquired $550 million of commercial loans and real estate securities. Today, the firm with its affiliates, owns and manages a 6-million-square-foot portfolio.
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General Growth Properties to start Ala Moana Center redevelopment early next year
- Nov, 13 2012
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A spokesman for Sears Holding Corp. said the Sears store at Ala Moana Center in Honolulu, seen in this file photo, will remain open in 2013. Mall owner General Growth Properties plans to start the first portion of a $500 million redevelopment of the property in January.
Janis L. Magin
Managing Editor of Digital Content- Pacific Business News
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General Growth Properties Inc. expects to start a $543 million redevelopment at Ala Moana Center in Honolulu early next year, which will add some 300,000 square feet of retail space at Hawaii’s largest shopping mall.
General Growth (NYSE: GGP) is paying a reported $250 million to buy out the lease of the 340,000-square-foot Sears anchor store at the mall, which is expected to remain open in 2013.
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday highlighting the Ala Moana Center project, General Growth said the project, which would add new anchor pads as well as additional retail space, would commence “in early 2013” with a targeted completion in late 2015.
Ala Moana Center is one of the more lucrative properties in General Growth’s portfolio. The mall owner noted that tenant sales at Ala Moana are more than $1,300 per square foot, compared to sales at the other redevelopment project highlighted in the filing — a $115 million renovation of the Glendale Galleria in California — of more than $675 per square foot.
The timing for the Sears closing and the start of construction on the expansion has not been set yet, General Growth spokesman David Keating told PBN in an email.
The first portion of the multiphase, multiyear redevelopment, which will start in January, will be the “reconfiguration of the mauka to makai street-level connection at the center,” Keating said.
Sears expects to keep the store at Ala Moana open next year, according to Chris Brathwaite, a spokesman for Sears Holding Corp. (NYSE: SHLD).
“Until we’re notified differently, we plan to be in that location in 2013,” he said.
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