CARMEL, IND. -- Leo Brown Group has opened two senior living communities in the Indianapolis area and began construction on two new senior living communities in Ohio and Kentucky. The four projects combined total $66 million in new investment by the Carmel-based developer, owner, and operator of healthcare properties. 

The newly open properties include Traditions at Solana, a 105-unit senior community within the new Solana at the Crossing residential development; and Traditions at Reagan Park, an 82-unit assisted living and memory care community. The $16.7 million Traditions at Solana project is located at 78th Street and Keystone Avenue. 

The $11.5 million Traditions at Reagan Park is located in Avon just west of the Indiana University Health West hospital campus. The new facility is part of the larger Reagan Park senior living campus developed by Leo Brown Group. Both projects opened in June. Through its management company affiliate, Traditions Management, Leo Brown Group will run day-to-day operations at both communities.  

Leo Brown Group broke ground on Middleton of Granville in Ohio and plans to break ground on Traditions at Beaumont in Kentucky. Middleton of Granville is a joint venture between Leo Brown Group and Columbus, Ohio-based Continental Real Estate Cos.  

The $18.3 million community consists of 94 assisted living and memory care units. Leo Brown Group will begin construction on Traditions at Beaumont this month. The property is located in the southeastern Louisville suburb of Fern Creek. 

The $19.5 million community will consist of 130 independent living, assisted living and memory care units. The Traditions at Beaumont facility is part of a larger Beaumont residential development. 

Traditions Management will manage the four new projects. They will all include a 24-hour nursing staff, emergency response systems, scheduled transportation, restaurant-style fine dining, casual dining, a theatre room, fitness center, beauty salon/barber, library, chapel, walking paths and outdoor gathering areas, as well as daily recreational activities and events. 

LISLE, ILL. -- NorthMarq Capital has arranged a $60 million loan to refinance Arboretum Lakes, a 734,000-square-foot, Class A office park in Lisle located within Chicago's East-West corridor. Jeff Cherner of NorthMarq Capital's Chicago regional office structured the 10-year loan with a 25-year amortization schedule. NorthMarq provided financing for the borrower through its correspondent relationship with a life company. 

EDWARDSVILLE, ILL. -- IMPACT Strategies has completed construction on Cedarhurst of Edwardsville, an $8 million memory care facility in Edwardsville, approximately 23 miles northeast of St. Louis. 

The property is located at 7108 Marine Road and is near I-55. Cedarhurst of Edwardsville is a 32,987-square-foot, single-story building with 54 memory care apartments. 

The building is divided into four neighborhoods to foster care for its residents all with access to the interior outdoor courtyard. Oregon-based Lenity Group LLC designed the memory care facility. 

Dover Capital LLC, which also has Cedarhurst facilities in Collinsville and Shiloh, developed and will manage the property. Construction management firm IMPACT also built the Shiloh assisted living property in 2010 and recently completed an expansion to the property. 

INDIANAPOLIS -- Steadfast Apartment REIT has acquired a 307-unit apartment complex in Indianapolis for $27.9 million. Harrison Place is located at 5821 Beatle Drive. Constructed in 2001 on nearly 22 acres, the apartment community features one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, and two- and three-bedroom cottages. 

The property was 95 percent occupied at the time of sale. Average in-place rents are $828. Amenities at the complex include a clubhouse/leasing office, fitness center, business center, laundry facility, swimming pool and a tenant lounge. The units also include refrigerators, microwaves, washer/dryer hook-ups and private patios or balconies. 

Steadfast plans to make interior improvements that will include upgrading the appliances and adding vinyl plank wood flooring. The acquisition of Harrison Place is the REIT's second acquisition this year. In May, the REIT acquired the 176-unit Villages at Spring Hill in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

BRIDGEVIEW, ILL. -- Peak Construction Corp. has completed the renovation of a 121,900-square-foot manufacturing facility for Pactiv in Bridgeview approximately 13 miles southwest of Chicago's Loop. Peak completed the renovation on behalf of Darwin Realty & Development Corp., the developer for the project. 

Renovation of the 50-year-old building included the demolition of the existing boiler and fire protection system, the installation of new energy efficient heating units with a new ESFR fire protection system and new dock equipment, a new 5,500-square-foot link connecting their buildings and new pavement and landscaping. 

Pactiv is a manufacturer of products for the foodservice industry. The facility will house a dry offset printing process.

MIDDLETON, WISC. -- ALTUS Commercial Real Estate Inc. has brokered the $525,000 sale of a town home apartment community in Middleton, approximately six miles west of Madison. A private investor purchased the property located at 2162-2168 Parmenter St. Chuck Polenz and Dan Roseliep of ALTUS represented the undisclosed seller.

LOMBARD, ILL. -- NAI Hiffman has arranged the lease of 5,620 square feet of office space for DuPage Senior Citizens Council in Lombard, a suburb approximately 20 miles east of Chicago. The nonprofit firm will relocate from 1919 S. Highland Ave. in Lombard to the new space in the Oak Creek Center, a single-story office building located at 1990 Springer Drive. Aubrey Van Reken of NAI Hiffman represented DuPage Senior Citizens Council in the transaction.

CLAYTON, MO. -- The newly renovated Clayton Police Headquarters and Municipal Building in Clayton, a suburb of St. Louis, has earned Platinum LEED Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The six-story Colonial Williamsburg-style structure, built in 1959, becomes the first LEED-Platinum Certified law enforcement facility in Missouri. The property is located at 10 S. Brentwood Blvd. 

Pinnacle Contracting Inc. served as general works contractor on the project, which introduced 21st century technology and energy-wise features to approximately 83,000 square feet.  Pinnacle helped achieve LEED Platinum status by developing construction waste management and indoor air quality plans followed by its sub-contractors. 

Other LEED features at the building include on-site energy generation (via the largest single-site solar array in Missouri); the installation of high-efficiency HVAC, lighting and water systems; and a facility-wide commitment to optimal indoor air quality plus thermal and lighting controls for all building users. 

The facility hosts a state-of-the-art police headquarters with a new sally port and detention suite; forensic laboratories; a municipal court and offices; a back-up data center for the City of Clayton; and parking spaces for more than 150 vehicles in an adjacent structure.  St. Louis-based The Lawrence Group served as architect for the project. Pinnacle's work at the facility exceeded $5 million.

Private sector employees in June added 262,000 jobs and government agencies added 26,000 positions, for a net gain of 288,000 new jobs that will potentially have a substantial impact on commercial real estate, according to a Marcus & Millichap report. 

During June, the unemployment rate fell to 6.1 percent from 6.3 percent in May, reaching its lowest level since September 2008. According to the commercial real estate services provider, these new jobs will create demand for rental housing, strengthening the 20 basis-point rise expected this year that will bring the national vacancy rate to 5.2 percent. 

Marcus & Millichap predicts that growth in degreed professional and business service fields, as well as those in financial services, will fill vacant office space and generate demand in the remaining quarters of this year. An increase in office property operations will result in a 120 basis-point drop in U.S. vacancy to 14.8 percent this year. 

Robert Bach, director of research for the Americas with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, says the growth was "robust." He also believes the increase in jobs in the sectors most important to commercial real estate will support net operating incomes as space is filled and rents move higher. This will, in turn, he says, support investment activity.

During the second quarter of 2014, an average of 272,000 total positions were added monthly, surpassing the average monthly gain of 190,000 new jobs in the first quarter. 

The office-using sectors, comprising information, financial activities and professional and business services, added a combined 93,000 jobs in June, well above the previous six-month average of 51,900.  

                                                                                             -- Scott Reid

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