Net Lease Market Continued to Gain Momentum

The U.S. retail investment sales market staged a strong performance last year as property sales rose 32 percent from 2010 to nearly $61 billion. Prices for power centers and neighborhood centers increased 9.1 and 7.2 percent, to $148 and $135 per square foot, respectively. While the highly coveted single-tenant net-lease investment sector continued to gain momentum, shopping centers and other multi-tenant properties captured nearly 68 percent of total sales, for which cap rates compressed by 40 basis points. Gateway investment markets New York, Northern New Jersey, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., South Florida and Boston dominated this investment activity. New York City.

Property Group is Planning to Develop 2.2 million sf of Mixed-Use Space

Property Group is planning to develop 2.2 million square feet of mixed-use space

After years of battles, Washington may finally realize a decades-old desire to rejoin two downtown neighborhoods with a $1.3 billion project on a platform over a stretch of Interstate 395.

City officials say they hope to close in the next 60 days on the sale of six embattled acres of land and air rights to Property Group Partners, a developer that owns or manages about three million square feet of office buildings, mostly in Washington. Property Group is planning to develop 2.2 million square feet of mixed-use space, mostly office with some retail and housing.


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Investors Have Been Moving Into Secondary Markets

Investors have been moving into secondary markets such as Dallas and Minneapolis amid growing confidence in the recovery and soaring prices that drove down yields on office buildings, shopping malls and apartments in prime cities including New York, San Francisco and Washington.

The trend may be cut short. Turmoil in financial markets over the past three weeks -- triggered by concern that Spain and Italy will struggle to pay off their debts, signs that the U.S. will remain mired in sluggish growth through next year and Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating -- may send buyers back to prime cities and push prices even higher, as long as the economy doesn’t deteriorate so much that trophy properties suffer.