Chicago
Mega mall owner General Growth Properties closed on a $166 million purchase of a 126,000-square-foot building on Chicago’s famed Magnificent Mile in late October. The deal for the six-story retail building — which is located at 830 North Michigan Avenue and is anchored by apparel companies Topshop and Columbia Sportswear — was first reported by Crain’s Chicago Business. The building has about 60,000 square feet of empty, upper-floor space, a fact that GGP CEO Sandeep Mathrani said on a recent conference call was a “significant value-creation” opportunity, according to Chicago Real Estate Daily. The $166 million sale is the priciest for a retail building in Chicago since January 2008, according to Real Capital Analytics. However, Thor Equities also closed on a purchase of the pricey Barney’s building around the corner last month for $154.5 million, according to Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. Scott Brody, of the London-based investment firm Grosvenor Group, which sold to General Growth, said: “This property was not for sale, but [General Growth] came to us with a compelling offer.”
San Francisco
Internet giant Google, which recently saw its stock price soar to a stunning $1,000 a share, is in real estate expansion mode. The company upped its office space in San Francisco’s Hill Plaza building by 350,000 square feet, according to Bloomberg News. That’s in addition to a slew of deals it made this year for more office space in other markets, including for 901,000 square feet in Silicon Valley near its Mountain View headquarters, for 232,000 square feet in Chicago, and a doubling of its space in Seattle, officials from Cushman & Wakefield told Bloomberg. The company, which bought 111 Eighth Avenue for $1.9 billion in 2010, is also reportedly taking 360,000 square feet at the Related Companies’ 85 10th Avenue. Insiders said Google’s expansion is boosting the office market nationally because it’s prompting more growth in the tech sector. One analyst from Green Street Advisors told Bloomberg that the company’s expansions in San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Seattle are a “key driver of strength” of those markets.
Portland
The micro-apartment craze that’s generated headlines in New York has made its way to the West Coast. Developer Footprint Investments has started construction on a four-story, 56-unit micro-apartment building in Portland, Oregon, with plans to build a second one across town, according to The Oregonian newspaper. The demand for these tiny apartments (they come in sizes as small as 200 square feet) is, not surprisingly, being driven by rising rents in Portland. The newspaper cited data from Multifamily NW, a rental-industry association, which found that rents in the Portland area have jumped 6 to 7 percent a year since 2010. Footprint founder Jim Potter told The Oregonian that his apartments will rent for about 60 percent of what new apartments in the area rent for. “We’re at a price point that no one else is delivering,” said Potter, who has also built micro-units in Seattle.
Detroit
The city of Detroit — which made national news in July for the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history — is not exactly associated with a strong real estate market these days. But Detroit is actually seeing a housing rebound. The residential market posted a 44 percent year-over-year median price gain and saw a 24 percent drop in residential inventory, according to a Realtor.com report cited by the Detroit Metro Times. Those statistics, however, need to be taken with a grain of salt, given that the median price for a home in metro Detroit in September was only $13,000. In addition, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index found that the area’s home prices are still 27 percent lower than they were during the market’s peak. The Detroit region was also the only metro area in the country tracked by the index where prices have yet to surpass January 2000 levels. And local real estate players say the tonier parts of the Detroit metro area are driving the overall gains. Other areas are “still pretty bleak despite an uptick,” one broker told the Metro Times.
Beverly Hills
Madonna has unloaded her Beverly Hills home. The “Material Girl” has sold her 1.25-acre compound for $19.5 million, the Los Angeles Times reported. The property includes a nine-bedroom house, two guesthouses, a resort-size swimming pool and a tennis court. The singer purchased the property in 2003 for $12 million.
Santa Barbara
Actress Drew Barrymore and her husband, Will Kopelman, have sold their California home for $6.35 million, the Los Angeles Times reported. The couple was married at the 6,258-square-foot Montecito home about a year and a half ago, and first listed it in May for $7.5 million. Barrymore bought it in 2010 for $5.7 million.
Las Vegas
The former 36-acre Las Vegas estate of entertainer Wayne Newton has been price-chopped. The home — which was bought by a development firm after Newton declared bankruptcy in 2010 — was listed for $70 million in September. But the price of the home, known as Casa de Shenandoah, was cut to $48 million, according to Curbed. The property has eight homes, a “car museum,” 37 horse stables, an “equestrian pool,” and a “jumbo jet and terminal.”