All Viewpoints (911)

Grosvenor Fund Management (GFM) has appointed William P. Donohue, Jr. to serve as Managing Director and Head of Asset Management in the Philadelphia, PA office. He will be responsible for U.S. real estate assets managed by GFM, with a focus on GFM fund products.

Mr. Donohue has 22 years of experience in real estate acquisitions, asset management, property management, and complex restructurings. He has held positions with Building and Land Technology, Cheswold…

Despite the still-shaky economic recovery, two local entrepreneurs have fulfilled their dreams of opening their own small shops – a Fairfax, VA boutique and a Bethesda, MD juice bar – with the help of Streetsense, which provides integrated brokerage, design, branding, and development services for retail and real estate services.

Puree Artisan Juice Bar™, which opened in Bethesda just in time for locals to keep their new year’s resolutions, provided Streetsense with an opportunity…

Urban Investment Partners (UIP) won a “Plexy” award from Washington City Paper for a noteworthy achievement in the D.C. real estate scene during 2011 – specifically for “craziest buying spree.”

According to City Paper, “the recession sent a lot of D.C. apartment buildings into foreclosure, even though rental demand here is the strongest in the country. Steve Schwat, of Urban Investment Partners, has been capitalizing on that, picking up building after building cheaply and either…

This past April Raul Castro presided over the 6th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. Originally these planning events were scheduled to be held every five years, but the Castros either lost count or lost interest in engaging the Cuban people and a while ago fell several five year periods behind. Anyway…

The simple holding of this event was reported on by many media outlets as a sign of the Castros looking to reform what is a staggeringly bad economy.

But as I have often…

The architecture and design team at Bethesda, MD-based Streetsense has created an all-new interior design scheme for La Madeleine French Country Cafe, a national chain of French-themed fast casual restaurants. A 1,194 square foot restaurant using the new prototype design is now open at Northpark Center in Dallas, TX, while another is under construction in Tulsa, OK. La Madeleine also has engaged Streetsense to design two new stores planned for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region, one in…

Urban Investment Partners (UIP) has closed on its sixth acquisition of 2011 with the purchase of 1346 Park Road NW in Columbia Heights.  An entity controlled by Someck Development and Northridge Capital sold the property to UIP for $3.7 million.

MAC Realty Advisors' Andrew McAllister represented the seller of 1346 Park Road NW. "This transaction showcases UIP's continued momentum in the urban space," said McAllister, who represented this same seller in the sale of 1349 Kenyon Street,…

Read how recent discoveries of significant energy deposits within the US will transform the US economy @ http://www.fr.npsamember.com/gpage1.html

Grosvenor Americas has acquired 1520 Fourth Street in Calgary’s Beltline district through James Miller and Walsh Mannis of Avison Young Commercial Real Estate. This ten-storey, 106,000 square foot office building includes 24,000 SF of retail space and a 34,000 SF surface parking lot that can be developed in the future. This is Grosvenor Americas’ third acquisition in the last three months and its fourth for the year.

1520 Fourth Street was built in 1974 and was acquired in…

Six years after working with developer Foulger-Pratt of Rockville, MD to master-plan a new upscale mixed-use community in Potomac, MD, Streetsense of Bethesda, MD has successfully finalized the leasing of Park Potomac’s 110,000 square foot retail center with a 7,000 SF lease to Founding Farmers restaurant, which is now open.

Under the culinary leadership of Executive Chef Joe Goetze, Founding Farmers celebrates American cooking traditions with high-quality, natural…

Grosvenor Americas’ mixed-use building at 180 Post Street just off San Francisco’s Union Square will soon be home to Icebreaker, which will sell its exclusive line of merino wool adventure apparel, all made in New Zealand. Grosvenor Americas has leased a 1,500 square foot space to Icebreaker, which plans to open on November 21, 2011, just in time for the holidays. By March of 2012, Icebreaker will complete the store’s conversion to a “TouchLab” that enables customers to touch raw merino…

L’Internet est devenu clé pour la commercialisation de l’immobilier résidentiel et il le sera demain pour l’immobilier d’entreprise. C’est un domaine où les innovations sont nombreuses et il convient d’assurer une veille technologique si l’on ne veut pas se faire griller la politesse par ses concurrents.

Aux USA, le salon bi-annuel Real Estate Connect  d’Inman News, www.realestateconnect.com, est…

Streetsense of Bethesda, MD, the exclusive retail leasing broker for the new mixed-use Halstead Square development adjacent to the Dunn Loring Metro station in Merrifield, VA, has just inked the project’s first retail tenant, BlackFinn American Grille.

This popular restaurant, with numerous East Coast locations and more planned, will occupy the key 9,000 square foot corner location fronting on Gallows Road, and is scheduled to open in summer of 2012. Streetsense’s…

Link to Larry Speck blog

With more than 37,000 participants, EXPO REAL was in full swing from Oct. 4-6 in Munich, where CREOpoint released the first study about the fair’s online buzz.

American companies dominated the recent English-language Internet buzz, according to a just-released CREObuzz™ brand ranking. Among them were ARGUS Software, Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE, Jones Lang LaSalle, ProLogis and…

The $100 million Grosvenor Residential Investment Partners I, LP (GRIP), sponsored by Grosvenor Fund  Management (GFM) of Philadelphia, PA and KeyCorp Fund Management Group, an affiliate of KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY), is fully invested.

Since 2008, the fund has invested in 20 residential land and/or development projects in 13 states. Individual investments have ranged from about $3 million to just under $10 million. Over the next four years, these projects will deliver over 1,100…

Streetsense, a retail and real estate services platform integrating branding, design, architecture, development and brokerage, announced today it has acquired Burka Studios, SUMO Creative, and Tasty Concepts, expanding Streetsense’s specialized marketing capabilities for its growing client base.

“Retail and real estate today requires a different level of attention to detail and strategic thinking,” said Marc Ratner, Streetsense’s CEO. “Streetsense has never taken a traditional…

Grosvenor Investment Management US, Inc. (GIM) has formed an investment partnership with Kuwait Finance House (KFH), one of the world’s leading Islamic banks, to invest in up to $600 million of U.S. healthcare-related real estate. This is GIM’s second investment partnership with KFH. GIM is the North American subsidiary of London-based Grosvenor Fund Management (GFM).

Over the next seven years, the partnership will target the acquisition and development of private-pay senior…