Beachwold Residential inked a $50.5 million first mortgage loan to refinance a 308-unit garden-style apartment community in Jacksonville, FL. The financing was led by Mesa West Capital’s Russell Frahm and Brad McCarthy. The loan was arranged by Taylor Williams of Walker and Dunlop. 

The five-year, non-recourse loan is secured by Gran Bay Apartments, a 308-unit, 2015-vintage garden-style community comprising 14 buildings on 15.5 acres. The property offers a mix of one, two, and three-bedroom units featuring stainless steel appliances, walk-in closets, private balconies, and in-unit washers and dryers. Amenities include a swimming pool, fitness center, business center, grilling areas, fire pits, dog park, and children’s play area. 

Gran Bay Apartments is located at 13444 Gran Bay Parkway in Duval County’s Southside submarket, providing immediate access to Interstate 95 and proximity to Flagler Center, a major employment corridor anchored by Baptist Medical Center and Citigroup’s regional operations campus.

Colliers arranged the 119,044-square-foot lease of Building 2 within Sanyo Logistics Center at 9350 Airway Rd. in San Diego’s Otay Mesa submarket. Reportedly it’s the largest new lease completed in size and deal value in the past 12 months in South County. The property is owned and operated by an affiliate of Badiee Development.

EVPs Mark Lewkowitz and Chris Holder and associate VP Will Holder, who have led the project’s marketing efforts since its completion in 2020, brokered the deal on behalf of Badlee. SVP Jeff Saywitz and Michael Mossmer of VOIT Real Estate Services represented the tenant, Brokerage & Logistics Solutions, Inc.

“Class A buildings such as this, within walking distance to the border and with superior dock counts, will always be highly valued to customs brokers and 3PLs,” said Lewkowitz. “We are so pleased with the successful outcome and thank the Badiee team for their continued trust and partnership.”

OC Lifetime Achievement Award: Johnson Capital Advisors’ Founder & CEO, now Principal Emeritus, Guy Johnson, will receive the Connect CRE Lifetime Achievement Award at Connect Orange County on Thursday, March 20th. Register to attend sit in on a very special Keynote Conversation between Guy and presenters from Matthews REIS, Red Oak Capital Holdings, and more, who have worked with Guy throughout his career. www.ConnectOC2025.com

Skanska has signed a contract with the Texas A&M University System to construct the new Meat Science and Technology Center on their campus. The contract is worth $91 million. 

The new building will be a 73,500 gross square-foot facility that will provide AgriLife, a research and educational agency within the Texas A&M University System, with modern, state-of-the-art processing capabilities. 

The facility will support the next generation of food safety and nutritional quality research in meat science. It will feature an auditorium, laboratories, training classrooms, seminar spaces, and offices designed for graduate students and faculty.

Work is slated to begin in December 2025 and is expected to reach completion in January 2028.

Cannon Commercial obtained $60 million in financing to acquire a 2 million-square-foot industrial portfolio comprising two buildings, one each in Jacksonville, Fla., and Hammond, La. The properties are both fully leased to regional grocery chain Winn-Dixie. JLL secured the 10-year, fixed-rate CMBS loan.

The Jacksonville location is 12 miles from Jacksonville International Airport in the Riverside submarket, while the Hammond site is between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La. Both assets are considered mission-critical distribution centers for Winn-Dixie, a subsidiary of Southeastern Grocers, which is owned by ALDI.

JLL’s Jeff Sause facilitated the deal along with Joshua Blank. Sause said Winn-Dixie’s long-term occupancy and the assets’ locations in growing Southeast markets made this deal attractive to lenders.

Cannon TTM is an arm of Cannon Commercial, a private real estate investor. The firm recently acquired Wilshire Rodeo Plaza in Beverly Hills, Calif., from Nuveen for $211 million.

Register Today to “Be in the Room” when Michael Brennan receives Connect CRE’s Lifetime Achievement Award and will participate in the Keynote Interview with Kevin Brennan, also of Brennan Investment Group. Join us at Connect Industrial Midwest 2025 on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 5, at Joe’s Live in Rosemont, IL, for this exclusive presentation! 

CBRE has arranged a $58 million senior loan and $9 million preferred equity investment to refinance The Blakely, a 420-unit multifamily community in Pendergrass, Georgia, 30 minutes northeast of Atlanta.

Blake Cohen and Charlie Clark with CBRE Capital Markets’ Debt & Structured Finance in Atlanta represented the borrower, ARC Multifamily Group, in the deals. Fannie Mae provided the five-year fixed rate and senior loan, and Pensam Capital is the preferred equity investor.

Located at 542 Glenn Gee Road, the community was built on a 40-acre site in four phases beginning in 2022 and completing in July 2023. It comprises 10 residential buildings with one, two, and three-bedroom floorplans averaging 1,059 square feet. Community amenities include a clubhouse, two resort-style pools, a gaming room, a fitness center, a barn park and spa, and EV charging. 

Situated between I-85 and I-985 in Jackson County, the property benefits from the Atlanta Metro’s recent expansion.

Hines, Affinius Capital and Columbia Development have secured a $191 million senior mortgage for Fenton, a 92-acre mixed-use district in the Cary submarket of Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina. Fenton is Cary’s first vertically integrated, mixed-use destination.

Fenton, created in 2021, includes 246,000 square feet of retail space, 357 multifamily units as part of The Allison and 183,000 square feet of office space.

JLL Capital Markets worked on behalf of the borrowers to arrange the loan from New York Life Real Estate Investors. JLL’S Chip Sykes and Kelsey Bawcombe led JLL’s debt advisory team.

Commercial Search reports, near Cary Town Boulevard, Fenton provides easy access to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area and I-40. It is 15 minutes from downtown Raleigh and has robust employment hubs, such as the Research Triangle Park. The region has a population of 2 million.

Center for Elders’ Independence (CEI) has signed a lease for approximately 23,000 square feet at Meridian’s recent medical office conversion, Broadway Medical Plaza in the Pill Hill area of Oakland. Sid P. Ewing of Colliers represented Meridian in the lease transaction, and Douglas Hubert and Steve Polito of Sabre Real Estate Group represented CEI for its sixth Bay Area location.

Located at 3901 Broadway, Broadway Medical Plaza was a former assembly hall within blocks of the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, Sutter Health, and Kaiser medical campuses. Meridian acquired the 1.25-acre site and building in 2022 to convert it into a 60,000-square-foot medical facility along with a new parking structure.

“As soon as we toured this building, we knew it had the bones to repurpose for medical space,” said Meridian CEO Mike Conn. “It had great zoning and infrastructure, including the ability to house an ambulatory surgery center as well as the footprint to construct a 220-stall parking garage. We recently wrapped up construction of the shell and are eager to complete the CEI buildout.”

Areté Collective and the Wasatch Group closed on a $106 million financing for Thomas Ranch, a residential community in Spicewood, Texas. The non-recourse, tax-exempt bond, underwritten by D.A. Davidson’s Development Finance Group, will provide the developer with proceeds to implement its 2,200-acre master plan in the Texas Hill Country. 

The financing’s primary purpose will be to complete the necessary public infrastructure. It will also support the first phases of residential development, including a new apartment complex.  

Upon full build-out, Thomas Ranch will include 3,500 units across all price points and types in distinct neighborhoods, with a downtown offering more than 465,000 square feet of commercial real estate for retail, a hotel, restaurants, service, and office space.

Thomas Ranch is located 30 miles north of Austin, Texas, along the Pedernales River and Lake Travis.

CBRE arranged a $171.4 million loan to refinance the “Southeast Grocery-Anchored Portfolio” (Portfolio), which includes eight properties located throughout Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and Florida. The portfolio totals nearly 1.2 million square feet of retail space and was 96.6% leased at the time of the transaction.

The CBRE team, consisting of Richard Henry, Mike Ryan, Brian Linnihan, and Taylor Crowder, represented Branch Properties and Corebridge Real Estate Investors, the owners of the Portfolio. PGIM provided the loan.

The Southeast Grocery-Anchored Portfolio is a highly diversified portfolio totaling eight properties and 194 tenants, with grocery anchors including Publix, Kroger and Whole Foods, across high-growth southeastern markets, including Bradenton, FL; Sarasota, FL; Melbourne, FL; Palm Coast, FL; Atlanta, GA; Gainesville, GA; Lexington, KY; Memphis, TN; and Knoxville, TN.