Thursday, February 07, 2008
Best Real Estate Deals of 2007
Commercial real estate slowed in the final months of 2007, but that doesn't mean there weren't some monster deals being done.
Consider: Suburban Land Reserve paid an eye-popping $102 million to Grosse Pointe Development Co. for 2,000 acres in southeast Orange County.
And Orlando-based Eola Capital paid a record per-square-foot price for an existing Class A office building.
All told, 2007 was a solid year as noted by the quality nominations submitted for Orlando Business Journal's Best Real Estate Deals of 2007.
Readers and community members nominated their favorite deals in several categories, ranging from overall Best Real Estate Deal of 2007 to Best Project Sale. The most important criteria for choosing the best deal was its significance within the Central Florida community.
Certainly that was the case for the Overall Best Real Estate Deal of 2007.
Dollar-wise, it's not the biggest new development in Central Florida. But the October groundbreaking for Burnham Institute for Medical Research at Lake Nona's $55 million, 175,000-square-foot facility may have the largest, most long-term effect.
When combined with the construction of the $68 million, 173,000-square-foot University of Central Florida School of Medicine, which also began in October, and the construction of the $99 million, 195,000-square-foot UCF Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, which began last May, Central Floridians began to see the first tangible signs of the "medical city" Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer say is needed to attract other biomedical research companies and to diversify Central Florida's economy.
So, how big is this deal? A study done in early 2006 by Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics and the Milken Institute projects the medical school alone could generate $1.4 billion in economic activity and add more than 6,400 jobs in the region. If Lake Nona blossoms into a true bio-medical cluster, the study says the economic impact could be $6.4 billion and 26,000 more jobs.
Burnham plans to build a 300-employee operation in Orlando that will expand its capabilities in chemistry, pharmacology and functional genomics. These will help Burnham research cures for cancer, degenerative diseases and infectious diseases, as well as diabetes and obesity. The Tavistock Group facilitated the construction of the "medical city" by donating 50 acres to UCF and 50 acres to Burnham.
In addition to being the overall winner, the Burnham/UCF projects win honors as the 2007 Best Community Impact Deal, Best Medical Project Deal and Best New Development Office Deal.
