News
NEWCASTLE TAPS ACQUISITIONS
September 7, 2011
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| Among CRE investors going back in the water: Newcastle Partners just bought Great America Place (above), a three-building, 225k SF office complex in Santa Clara, and 555 Clay St, a small office building in Downtown. Founder/CEO Dennis Higgs, with whom we chatted yesterday, says the former is 95% leased at below-market rents. The front building is a state-of-the-art, LEED-cert building, and this week Newcastle launches a renovation of the back two buildings that “ties the whole thing together” in a campus-type environment. |
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| Meanwhile, 555 Clay St will be renovated and marketed for sale or lease. Dennis tells us Newcastle “took it easy” during the recession, having sold 90% of its holdings in ’06-’07. Prescience or luck? He likes to think it was a little of both. Before Newcastle, Dennis was one of the founders of Meridian Industrial Trust, which was acquired by Prologis. He’s bullish about the Cali economy, especially Silicon Valley—the company’s chasing additional technology-based assets in NorCal—and is a supporter of the governor’s “California Jobs First” initiative. |
