News
SL GREEN TO BUY MORE
June 13, 2012
| NYC was the epicenter of REIT activity yesterday. We joined over 100 REITs, their execs, and 1,900 attendees to hear the latest at NAREIT’s annual REITWeek. |
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| SL Green's recent $135M buy of 304 Park Ave South starts what will be a pipeline of new purchases in the second half of ‘12, says SL Green CEO Marc Holliday, with prez Andrew Mathias. In the meantime, the REIT has been spending a “disproportionate” amount of time leasing up and repositioning its acquisitions from the past three years. We’re in a balanced market of 9% vacancy, which means landlords have to compete for tenants, yet tenants have to compete for good space, he says. (Everyone's s getting into the Olympic spirit.) Out of SL Green’s 1,100 tenants in Manhattan, most are doing well, although most deals are renewals or renewal-expansions. |
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| General Growth Properties (owner of the Staten Island Mall) continues to hone its focus on Class-A regional malls (which account for 80% of its income), disposing of $2.5B and over 30M SF of Class-B malls, strip centers, and office space in 2011, says CEO Sandeep Mathrani. Now it’s all about leasing—it has 86% permanent occupancy, with a stabilization goal of 92% by 2014. It’s also started $450M of redevelopment this year. All types of retailers are expanding footprints or number of stores, particularly international ones like Zara, Topshop, H&M, and Uniqlo. GGP will continue shedding office and strip space, and plans to let go of eight to 10 non-core malls while growing its Brazilian platform. More from the REITs further down. |
