The Minneapolis office of commercial real estate firm Transwestern is moving to take on 6,000 square feet of office space in Baker Center, according to Finance and Commerce.
The new street-level space is overlooking Seventh Street South which is only an elevator ride away from their current office in the US Trust Building. Transwestern leases and manages Baker Center for owner St. Paul Properties Inc., an entity of New York -based insurance giant Travelers Companies. Baker Street is actually made up of 4 buildings – the Baker Building, US Trust Building, Investors Building and the Roanoake building. (more…)
Office vacancy rates in Canada increased in the fourth quarter but leasing confidence is now on the up, according to the latest report by CB Richard Ellis.
CBRE’s fourth quarter report shows the overall year on year vacancy for both downtown and suburban office space climbed to 9.8%, up from 6.7%. Calgary, Alberta, was the hardest hit with vacancies more than doubling to 15.6%, from 6.3%. In Toronto, the vacancy rate rose to 9.4%, from 6.8%, while year over year space under construction shrank by more than half to 2.49 million square feet in Q4. (more…)
Clash-Media have doubled the amount of office space it has in the Empire State Building to accommodate its rapid growth.
The Global Lead Generation specialist has seen its client base increase by almost 30% in the past 12 years and now has over 1.5 million B2C marketing and sales leads every month for clients across the US and globally. Customers include major international companies such as Samsung, Toyota and Cheapflights. Clash-Media currently has offices in London, New York, Copenhagen, Munich and Paris and plans to extend into Spain, Italy and Asia-Pacific in the coming years. (more…)
Wells Fargo has announced plans to consolidate its Charlotte office space in early 2010.
The move will affect 2,700 employees and will cut the bank’s office space by 300,000 square feet as it consolidates into 4 key buildings. Workers will move into One Wachovia Center, Two Wachovia Center, Three Wachovia Center or the Duke Energy Center at the new cultural complex at Tyron and Stonewall streets. Once the move is complete, the bank will occupy about 5 million square feet in the Charlotte area. (more…)
The headquarters of D.C Public Schools and the D.C Department of Education will move headquarters as part of 
Washington‘s cost-saving plans to cut the number of leased properties it has, according to the Washington Business Journal.
The two agencies will move to 1200 First Street, NE in February 2010. They will occupy 200,000 square feet of office space in the NoMa building, which will cut the amount of space the agencies occupy by at least 20%. Under the new relocation, DCPS will lease 121,000 square feet, while DOE will lease 79,000 square feet. (more…)
Accessing finance is the number 1 challenge for SMB’s going into 2010.
Many buyers have looked into buying their businesses out right but simply can’t afford it. This has meant that in the past they’ve had to rely on a variety of sources to finance any purchase. Now the reality is banks can’t afford to give loans backed by the US Small Business Administration’s 7(a) loan program to many people anymore. According to figures released for the SBA’s 2009 fiscal year, the 7(a) program made 36 percent fewer loans than it did in 2008, backing only 44,221 loans from banks. But there are alternative funding sources SMB’s should consider. (more…)
CIT Group Inc. have announced they are going to waive fees on all approved Small Business Administration Loan applications.
It will waive the $1,000 packaging fee on these loan applications and the group have also vowed to commit $500 million to support small business lending in 2010. The $500 million will be originated from CIT’s small business lending group to fund government guaranteed loans as part of two small-business lending programs, the SBA 7(a) and 504 programs. CIT is one of the nation’s largest lenders to small and medium-sized businesses and only recently came out of bankruptcy protection.
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Samsung America Inc, a subsidiary of Samsung, have announced plans to move from their current Ridgefield Park offices next year.
But the company won’t have to spend lots on relocation costs. A few weeks ago the firm signed a lease for nearly the entire office building at 85 Challenger Road – just a few doors down from its current building at 105 Challenger Road. This deal marks the largest new office square footage lease in Bergen County this year, according to Cushman & Wakefield. The building is owned by KABR who bought it in June for $10.3 million. (more…)
Retailer Nordstrom have announced they are to take on office space at the former WaMu Center in Seattle, according to the Seattle Times.
It is to take on 265,000 square feet of office space in the building formerly occupied by Washington Mutual. Of that, 182,000 square feet will be leased from the Seattle Art Museum and around 83,000 square feet from Russell Investments Center. Currently Nordstrom employs about 3,400 employees downtown and it’s not yet known which will be transferred to the new building. A lease is expected to be signed early next year and Nordstrom said it should start the move to the Second Avenue building later in the year. (more…)
US commercial property values sunk to a 7 year low in October as the country struggled to recover from the economic downturn.
The Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices fell 1.5% from September to October – the lowest since August 2002. Moody’s Investors Service Inc. said that prices were down 36% from a year earlier and 44% below the peak in October 2007. Commercial property brokers, such as Jones Lang LaSalle and Grubb & Ellis Co., have warned that office vacancy rates could soar to 20% in 2010 as many companies hold off hiring. (more…)
