BIOTRONIC SIGNS LEASE AT TWO TRANS AM PLAZA

November 8, 2011

As seen in Real Estate BISNOW 

Biotronic has signed a lease for 3,920 SF at Two Trans Am Plaza, a 118k SF multi-story office building in Oak Brook. Owner Broe Real Estate was repped by NAI Hiffman’s Michael VanZandt, Brian Edgerton, and Matt Novak. LaSalle Venture’s Marty Schatz repped Biotronic.

Posted by NAI Hiffman | Filed Under Office 

Oak Brook Promenade Adds Two New Office Tenants

November 6, 2011

As seen in GlobeSt

OAK BROOK, IL-The Oak Brook Promenade has recently added two new office tenants to its roster at the 185,000 square-foot, mixed-use property at Butterfield Road at Meyers Road here. DuPage Medical Group will occupy 4,362 square feet and GolfTEC Enterprises, LLC will occupy 2,279 square feet of the office space on the second floor of the east side of the center. DuPage Medical will be using their space for a Family Medicine Practice. GolfTEC provides individual, indoor golf lessons. The upscale, open-air center, situated just off Interstate 88, is home to a mix of retailers, restaurants, office and medical tenants. Michael Van Zandt, senior vice president, and Brian Edgerton, vice president, with NAI Hiffman’s office services group, represented the landlord, Oak Brook Promenade LLC. Tim Rose with Location Finders International Inc. represented DuPage Medical Group. Jason Gustaveson with Stone Real Estate represented GolfTEC. The property is managed by NAI Hiffman’s Asset Management Group.

Posted by NAI Hiffman | Filed Under Office 

Software firm signs Arlington Heights lease

November 4, 2011

As seen in Chicago Real Estate Daily

Software firm Intuit Inc. has signed a 10-year-lease at an Arlington Heights office building after acquiring PayCycle Inc., an online payroll service. The company will occupy 24,805 square feet at 95 W. Algonquin Road later this month, according to a report from NAI Hiffman. The lease boosts the 145,500-square-foot building’s occupancy to 80.6%, according to real estate data provider CoStar Group Inc. Intuit, which acquired Palo Alto-based PayCycle in 2009, is moving employees there from a former PayCycle office in a 15,000-square-feet space at 1014 E. Algonquin Road in Schaumburg, says Gregg Raus, executive vice-president at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., who represented Mountain View, Calif.-based Intuit. The new space will be a call center, Mr. Raus says.

 

Posted by NAI Hiffman | Filed Under Office 

Lender-owned suburban complex lands Lincoln Financial

November 3, 2011

As seen in Chicago Real Estate Daily

By: Dave Matthews November 03, 2011

(Crain’s) — A big, bank-owned office complex in Rolling Meadows got a shot in the arm after signing Lincoln Financial Group to a 47,364-square-foot lease amid a depressed suburban office market.

The Radnor, Pa.-based insurance company will occupy two floors at Continental Towers, a 917,632-square-foot property at 1701 W. Golf Road in the northwest suburb. The four-building complex went back to its lender last year after Chicago-based Prime Group Realty Trust defaulted on its $115-million mortgage.

The towers fell on hard times after a key tenant, subprime mortgage lender Ameriquest Mortgage Co., collapsed in 2007 and vacated its 232,078-square-foot space. Other tenants followed suit. Continental Towers was just 54% leased in July, according to a loan report compiled by Bloomberg L.P.

Jason Simon, a senior associate with Colliers International who represented the landlord, Needham-Mass.-based loan servicer CWCapital LLC, declined to comment. Calls to Lincoln Financial and CWCapital were not returned.

The lease is “a real positive for Continental Towers,” says NAI Hiffman Senior Vice-president Jack Reardon, a leasing agent for the property in the 1990s.

Continental Towers “has good potential in the long haul,” says Mr. Reardon, who was not involved in the Lincoln lease. “If they can get the population back up and fill up the amenities in the retail complex, it’s once again one of the top northwest suburban office buildings.”

But the property competes in the cutthroat northwest suburbs, “by far the weakest” suburban submarket, Mr. Reardon says. Its competitors include the Atrium Corporate Center at 3800 Golf Road, with about 188,000 square feet of vacant space; the Woodfield Corporate Center at 200 N. Martingale Road, with about 228,000 square feet of vacant space, and Windy Point II at 1600 McConnor Parkway, with more than 300,000 square feet available.

“Right now,” Mr. Reardon says, “it’s definitely a tenant’s market.”

Posted by NAI Hiffman | Filed Under Office 

NAI Hiffman brokers deal for Michigan-based firm in Oak Brook

November 1, 2011

As seen in RE Journals

Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Biotronic, a provider of neural monitoring services, has signed a lease for 3,920 square feet at Two Trans Am Plaza, a 117,717-square-foot multi-story office building in Oak Brook, Ill. in a transaction valued at just under $400,000.  Biotronic, who has the option to expand the space during their lease term, will use the location for administrative operations.

Building owner, Broe Real Estate was represented by Michael VanZandt, senior vice president, Brian Edgerton, vice president, and Matt Novak, associate, with NAI Hiffman office services group. Marty Schatz with LaSalle Ventures represented Biotronic.

Biotronic is one of the oldest, largest, and most respected providers of neurophysiological intraoperative monitoring services in the country. They work with more than 400 hospitals and over 850 physicians throughout the United States, and have over 175 neural monitoring technologists located around the country.

Posted by NAI Hiffman | Filed Under Office 

Mixed signals: Local commercial real estate market still shaky

October 24, 2011

As seen in the Daily Herald Business Ledger
By Erik Martin
Contributing Writer 

Ask experts to give their assessment of the state of the local commercial real estate market, and many will tell you that, while they see some positive signs, 2011 has felt like a continuation of 2010.

“The anemic job market means a limited demand for desk space for office workers, and unemployed and fearful workers are not big spenders at retail establishments,” said John Rutledge, president of Rutledge Company LLC in Wheaton.

“Financing is difficult for all but the well-leased properties with substantial equity. The trophy properties are always the exception, but most properties are smaller and represent the vast majority of leases and sales.”

Rutledge said that, while politicians are encouraging lending, regulators have their feet firmly on the brakes and their eyes on the rearview mirror. Banks are being told to improve their capitol ratios, which they can do by either seeking equity investors or reducing their assets by not making new loans and refusing to extend those that are maturing. Consequently, properties with positive cash flow and equity cannot get refinanced because the value may have declined to the point where the loan to value ratio is too high. In short, the regulatory environment is not hospitable to lending to commercial real estate players.

“Financing has killed countless projects in the past two years, as the banks are not lending or are making it extremely difficult to qualify for a loan,” said Gary Skoog, Director of Economic Development for the Village of Hoffman Estates. In addition, “village budgets universally have been cut due to reduced revenues.”

Despite these challenges, Hoffman Estates is a good example of a town that has seen some progress in year-over-year sales in the retail sector the past 18 months, with value retailers like TJ Maxx, Audi, and Savers being active. Additionally, Skoog has observed smaller stores, retrenching and remodeling activity, and new, diverse shopping center owners.

Like many municipalities, Hoffman Estates has experienced the ebb and flow of companies moving out and coming in. A few examples of the latter are Tate and Lyle choosing a 120,000-square-foot office in the village for its global research center, and the addition of DMG Mori Seiki, BIG Kaiser, and NSK America — three Japanese precision toolmakers — that moved to establish American headquarters in Hoffman Estates.

From her perspective, Aubrey Van Reken, an associate with NAI Hiffman, a real estate services firm in Oakbrook Terrace, said the suburban Chicago office market has shown signs of improvement over the past year, as evidenced by an increase in tenants actively touring the market, expanding their office spaces, and opening new locations.
“Twenty-four months ago, most tenants were focused on cutting costs and maximizing office space efficiency,” said Van Reken. “Some were able to find relief with early renewal negotiations where they agreed to extend length of term in exchange for a lower rental rate. Others downgraded from Class A and B buildings to Class C in order to cut costs.”

Additionally, tenants are seeking shorter-term deals (1-to 3-year terms versus 3- to 5-year terms common in previous years), and landlords are offering better concessions to new tenants, she said.

“I’m also seeing a trend where some landlords are offering prebuilt, fully furnished offices with move-in ready appeal,” added Van Reken. “One building that took this approach, located at 4355 Weaver Parkway in Warrenville, recently went from about 60 percent occupancy to 100 percent occupied in the past few months.”

In the north and northwest suburbs, on the other hand, vacancy levels for commercial buildings are as high as 30 percent, which Cassell attributed to a number of factors, including stiff competition from other leasing markets, an increase in telecommuting, greater corporate consolidation and mergers, and high corporate state taxes.
Indeed, the biggest impediments holding back commercial real estate activity are tax and wage rates that are higher than other states, said Cassell.

A big positive for the Chicagoland market, however, is the growth in the education sector, with both for-profit and nonprofit higher educational institutions expanding footprints outside of their main campuses, Cassell said. He cited Robert Morris College, Olivet Nazarene University and Corinthian Colleges as prime examples.
Cassell believes that the near future looks brighter for the region’s commercial real estate sector, primarily due to the high supply of office space available and improved job growth.

“But we won’t see a tremendous amount of new buildings being built due to low demand,” he said. “The O’Hare Airport area and I-88 corridor will continue to be healthy, but as you head further west and north, that’s where continued challenges lie.”

Rutledge said “it’s pretty hard to be optimistic when the unemployment numbers are stuck at over 9 percent. The bad news is that the market is weak. The good news is that we’re a year closer to recovery than we were a year ago.”

Posted by NAI Hiffman | Filed Under Office 

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