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Hello and welcome to episode number 10 of Rent TV's Commercial Real Estate News and Views podcast with Steve Blum on August 24, 2020. I'm Steve Blum, your host and founder and CEO of RentTV.com, our news and media company for the commercial real estate industry, now in our 21st year providing daily news stories, market reports, and more for the commercial real estate industry on our website, RentTV.com, and our email newsletter, The Real Estate Insider, goes to over 60,000 commercial real estate professionals three times each week. We were also putting on conferences before the pandemic hit, and we have produced our share of videos over the years while also broadcasting videos from other commercial real estate companies on our website, RentTV.com. And thank you for tuning into our new episode of our weekly podcast, Rent TV's Commercial Real Estate News and Views, a brand new news program for our incredibly dynamic and ever changing industry. In the show streaming to you from the heart of Silicon Beach and Marina Del Rey, I will give you a review of national industry reports and trends, a discussion of real estate issues such as local and national legislation, followed by a review of major deal and development news from around the US, and in some shows we will have our tech drive segment where I tell you about tech news, services, and websites, and then I will discuss recent and upcoming podcasts, webinars, events, and recordings of interest to the commercial real estate industry in our power segment. Hopefully you will like what you hear, it is my goal to make these shows a profitable use of your time. And I am confident we will accomplish that today as we have put together a show packed full of industry information that we think could help you in your business. But before I start with the industry-wide markets reports segment, I want to give a huge thanks to our very first podcast sponsors, Capitol Rivers Commercial and Redwood Mortgage, who I will tell you about more later in the show. I also again want to thank all of those who sent the very positive feedback about our new podcast and to those who sent constructive comments, which I do listen to as we try to craft this podcast to best serve our audience of very busy real estate professionals. And in response to some of those, I will try to shorten these shows by alternating the tech drive segment and our legislative issue segment from different shows. So I'll alternate one week we'll do the tech drive, one week we'll do the legislative issues and hopefully we'll cut the show length down a little bit. So let's get into this next show, which I start with the economic and commercial real estate industry reports segment. And I will note I'm taping this show against the backdrop of national news, which includes the DNC convention this past week and the Republicans starting theirs tomorrow, yet still no deal from Congress on a stimulus bill, which would include some continuance of unemployment payments to replace the $600 per week people were getting as well as some eviction protection. So as of now, all we have at the national level for real estate assistance is the president's executive order providing $400 per week, but a hundred would come from the states. And so far only Arizona started sending those out. Of course, many real estate owners, especially in the multifamily sector focused on this issue. But even more importantly, perhaps long term is that there's no discussion about how to deal with the issues arising between borrowers and lenders, especially in the CMBS arena, which could have more destructive consequences for the economy if not dealt with. But there are bright spots in the economy, all things considered, such as the fact that weekly unemployment claims dropped below 1 million for the first time since March. In addition, in recent economic reports I get from Wells Fargo economics, they conclude that most likely the hits experienced in employment in the lower spectrum of income on its own should not spill upward too badly to the higher earning spectrum of employment, thereby limiting the length and duration of the downturn and getting those lower level earners back to work sooner. Of course, this assumes at some point in the foreseeable future that fears of the pandemic will ease and people will feel more comfortable patronizing restaurants, bars, theaters and offices again. Now for retail sales, Wells Fargo noted that underlying components actually did much better than expected, which came out on the heels of an upward revision that lifted June's gain in this category to 6%. And Wells Fargo's retail sales report offers the latest evidence of a V-shaped recovery in consumer goods spending. However, they say to keep in mind that for the overall economy, outlays on services are roughly twice as large as for goods and the recovery in the services sector has been slower. Now to information specific to the commercial real estate industry and of course everyone is trying to read the tea leaves to figure out what's happening in the various sector markets and what the dynamics will be going forward. And to shed light on the different main sectors, I will refer to several recent reports I received this week as well as some articles from the past week that I'm looking at on my desk, starting with one we highlighted on our website, renttv.com, from Transwestern and Devincore, which in their mid-year market sentiment survey, they tallied responses from brokers across 43 North American markets on conditions in the office, medical office and industrial sectors. They found that after a strong start in 2020, which we knew, the impacts of COVID on the commercial real estate industry became evident during the second quarter as the US office index averaged a very low 61.8 for the second half of 2020, signaling very weak market conditions falling well below the 100 neutral zone figure and the 106.9 registered a year in 2019 prior to the whole onset of the pandemic. Of course, we all know that the sector is threatened from work from home strategies that work better than expected and offer cost saving alternatives to many tenants, increasing the possibility of space reductions in the future. Now in the second quarter, 2020 net absorption registered negative 14.2 million square feet. The first quarter and occupancy loss was recorded since the first three months of 2010 as most tenants paused decisions and that pushed the national office vacancy rate up 20 basis points to 10.1%. Construction activity also slowed and ground breakings are expected to be limited over the next 12 months due to elevated unemployment and continued uncertainty about the future use of office space. Now, sticking with the office sector, another report I got here by Moody's that we caught off a Globe Street article by Robert Sterace notes the world is figuring out how the new reality will play out in the office property sector, which already had been experiencing downward pressure on the usage intensity of office space even before COVID-19. But now the shift towards individuals working remote because of the pandemic is expected to hit the office property sector, particularly hard in the coming years. The Moody's report says effective rents will fall 10.4% nationally this year and as much as 21% in New York and other large markets. Victor Collinog, head of commercial real estate economics at Moody's said many companies continue to push back returning to the office with some already planning to telecommute into 2021. Whether the increased availability of remote working infrastructure will have long term effects on office demand remains to be seen. However, the long term nature of office leases means that it may take some time for vacancy rates to reflect the real trend. They forecast that US often see vacancy rate is expected to hit an historic high of 19.9% last year, surpassing the previous record high of 19.7% in 1991 and that is projected to hit 20% in 2022. Moody's forecast for commercial real estate rents and vacancies we should know covers eight property types and more than 3,000 sub markets across the country. I would say the office markets and I suppose multifamily markets too, which are the canaries in the coal mine for what may be coming are New York City and San Francisco with their high rental rates and myriad of underlying quality of life and tax issues. And Laura Waxman in an article for the San Francisco Business Times reported that these issues are coming to a head with the reversal of fortunes in San Francisco's office market in the wake of years of skyrocketing growth and that this is creating a new dynamic for the city's real estate industry. The office vacancy rate registered the fastest quarter over quarter increase among large downtowns nationwide, nearly doubling from 3.7% at year end 2019 to 6.6% in the second quarter this year, according to data from CBRE. The economic pause induced by the pandemic impacted many occupancy decisions, resulting in what the firm says will be a tenant favorable market during the remainder of the year. Now asking rents for space in downtown San Francisco that hit the market this month are dipping the new lows. She notes a report by brokerage firm Newmark Night Frank that 87 net new sub leases have become available since March 1st, totaling 2.5 million square feet in the city's total sublease inventory is now about 6.5 million square feet, overwhelmingly comprised of tech spaces, new direct spaces over 10,000 square feet that have hit the market since July 20th, total almost 200,000 square feet and overall rents for direct office leases in the city have dropped by 4.9% to an average of $84 per square foot in the second quarter with more significant drops being felt in non-premium spaces. Ms. Waxman provides several examples of new listings of B class space with asking rents in the 40 and 50s, numbers not seen in a long time in the city. She notes from her discussions with brokers that it's still too early to say what the market re-pricing may be, and also that high rise premium tier one space may not see much of a price correction, noting that some trophy leases are still transacting at $100 a square foot, though with rent concessions such as free initial rent or high TIs, resulting average asking rents are landing still at a lofty $96 per square foot. However, there is a lot of room to negotiate, so the real rents are probably going to be lower than that. It should also be no surprise that brokers told her that there are so few deals actually happening that they are still trying to figure out where the actual pricing should be going forward. Now expressing a more optimistic albeit contrarian view about the office sector is CBRE global chief economist Richard Barkham, who in a piece on Globe Street said he sees favorable signs for the office sector and the wider economy and that the trend towards remote work may be partially offset by decreased densification in offices. He says he's optimistic about the long run outlook for the office sector in spite of businesses rapid adoption of technology that facilitates remote meetings and while the near term prospects for the asset class are dim, he's confident that demand will bounce back since it's where people meet, it's where creativity happens, where clients get helped and where we train and bring in younger people into the workforce and all those things are going to need to reestablish themselves. However, Barkham does acknowledge that the flight away from full time office work for many is likely to be permanent while 63% of office employees travel to their workplace all the time before the virus. Scientists now pin that number at between 20 and 25% by 2030. We've had the wind behind us over the last 20 or 30 years, which is continual growth in the office sector, but Barkham said there is reason to hope that a readjustment in how space gets used could offset this trend towards reducing space as concerns about exposure to future pandemics result in the allocation of greater space to each employee. Shifting sectors, Barkham noted that the outlook for data centers and logistic facilities is particularly robust at the moment and the coronavirus forcing more digital commerce going through our industrial and logistic sectors, which is very hot at the moment and looks likely to continue. Looking at the big picture, Barkham believes that in spite of the US's struggles in responding to the coronavirus crisis, he is confident a generally available vaccine will be coming and so he thinks the outlook for 2021 is much better than people expect. Let's hope so. Now taking a closer look at the industrial sector, I will go back to that Transwestern Devon Corps mid-year report where the US industrial average 104.4 for the second half 2020 slightly above 100, which is considered flat conditions. This is only slightly below the 116.2 registered at year end 2019 prior to the onset of the pandemic. Now, according to the most recent US industrial market report, the industrial sector fared much better since the onset of the pandemic. In the second quarter, the streak of occupancy gains continued into its 42nd quarter despite posting the lowest level in 10 years as industrial leasing activity recovered swiftly in May and June after dipping earlier in the year. Rent growth also continued for the 34th straight quarter, increasing 39% during that period. E-commerce, which accelerated during the pandemic, is primarily responsible, as we all know, for the strength of the industrial sector with online grocery purchases due to the economic shutdown, further fueling growth and manufacturing also contributing. While the vacancy rate for industrial is slightly higher in the second quarter to 5.4%, Matt Dolly, director of research at Transwestern, noted that this was mainly due to new product deliveries and some subly space, but the industrial property sector will continue to flourish. Following this evidence about industrial real estate, a report by Real Capital Analytics analyzed by Globe Street's Karen Sloan noted that many of us know as intuitively obvious, which is that online retail demand helped prop up second quarter industrial real estate sales. Although industrial real estate sales were down naturally in the second quarter 2020, that decline was smaller than those experienced by other real estate sectors. Demand for distribution warehouses were the pillar of industrial real estate deals, which totaled $11.1 billion in the second quarter, with a third of that deal volume comprised of distribution warehouses, a key part of online retail, which has flourished amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The report offered a sampling of distribution warehouse sales in which either Amazon or FedEx or the Sultenants, the largest was the June $176 million sale at $150 per square foot of Wisconsin's Kenosha Enterprise Park, $1.5 million square foot distribution center rented by Amazon, which was bought by KKR Real Estate, which was also the buyer of another Amazon deal in June, paying $84 million to Morgan Stanley for a $1 million square foot distribution center in North Carolina. Other distribution warehouses leased by Amazon that were sold in the second quarter include ones in Shakopee, Minnesota for nearly $119 million, North Las Vegas for $110 million, and Ocola, Florida for $58 million. The FedEx properties it sold were smaller than the Amazon ones, which is more typical with smaller industrial properties, commanded higher price per square foot, but all three warehouse deals reported with FedEx as a tenant sold for more than $170 per square foot, compared to the second quarter average of $97 per square foot for typical single tenant warehouses in the US. It noted a 270,000 square foot warehouse in Whitsitt, North Carolina, selling for nearly $48 million, or more than $176 per square foot, and an Ogden, Utah FedEx distribution center with the highest per square foot price at $185. Shifting to retail, nothing in the news lately really points to anything but challenges and tremendous change coming for the sector. And I will refer back to that Moody's analytics report that concluded retail property growth will fare worse than office, industrial, or multifamily properties, noting that effective rents for retail properties are expected to drop by 11.1% this year, given the wide scale store closures and the rising threat to the sector posed by e-commerce. Now in news from just the past few weeks demonstrating heightened retail challenges, as a result of the pandemic, we have the Wall Street Journal's August 12th story about Michelin-starred chef Thomas Keller shutting down his tack room restaurant in Hudson Yards, one of the highest profile closings to date due to the coronavirus pandemic. The dining spot is a marquee attraction of the $25 billion complex, which was developed by Related and Oxford Properties Group. This comes after Neiman Marcus announced it was closing its location there. Then we got the bankruptcy announcement from CBL and Associates Properties, one of the country's largest mall owners, which was founded in the 1970s and based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which announced as part of its BK filing coming in October, that it did reach a debt for equity deal with its bondholders. And in the category of desperate times call for desperate measures, Simon Property Group, another one of America's largest shopping mall landlords, is becoming one of its main tenants with deals underway to buy JCPenney's with Brooksfield, as well as on its own buying Brooks Brothers and Lucky Brands out of bankruptcy, and the company led by CEO David Simon is looking at leasing some of its empty department store space to Amazon of all companies for last mile fulfillment and drop off centers, along with perhaps some walk in retail. Hey, with the occupancy rate at Simon Properties at its lowest level in a decade, you got to get creative. And as Mr. Simon was quoted as saying, there's just nothing out there that says you can't make smart investments outside of your core business, end quote. Now especially if your core business is in the dumper. Moving to multifamily, where everyone is focused on those rent collection stats, especially with the end of many pandemic aid subsidies, and a report by property management software company, Rent Tech Direct, found that rent payments in August were down 29% year over year and 12% in the last five months, signaling that the expiration of federal aid to offset economic hardship due to the pandemic has a high cost. So far until now, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council, apartment rental payments are holding up fairly well, at least for now as their rent payment tracker reported that 79.3% of surveyed households made a full or partial payment by August 6. That's slightly better than last month's 77.4% and just shy of the August 2019 level of 81.2. As Scott Graham reported for Globe Street, the National Multifamily Housing Chair David Schwartz, who is also CEO of Chicago-based Waterman, said that this is due to the enhanced unemployment benefits enacted under the CARES Act and significant steps by apartment owners and operators to help their residents. These unemployment benefits that are proven so important to so many households have now lapsed, meaning greater financial distress for millions and the potential worsening of America's housing affordability crisis. The rent tracker covers 11.4 million units of professionally managed apartments across the country of varying size and rental prices. The article noted that most of the market's stress has been on the more upscale end of the apartment segment. For those renters who lost their jobs, even enhanced unemployment benefits aren't covering their income needs and those high rents. Many in some gateway international cities such as Manhattan, Chicago, San Francisco, LA and Miami have set several percentage points during the traditionally strong summer leasing season reflecting unparalleled stress in that segment. Highlighting that point, I'm looking at a Wall Street Journal article by Katherine Billy on August 15th describing how tech employees are now starting to flee San Francisco since many aren't working in their offices anymore and the cost and quality of life issues are completely out of whack there. She pointed to several examples of people leaving the city for far away places such as Houston, Wisconsin and North Carolina but also to closer markets such as SACDO and Oakland. Now for some info on how all this shakes out in the capital markets and according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, commercial and multifamily loan volumes are expected to decrease by 40% in 2020 compared to 2019 when originations topped $600 billion, the peak since the last global financial crisis. The group reports that lenders have mainly been focused on managing delinquencies and mitigating defaults of current loans. Nonetheless, for the most part, multifamily office and industrial loans are performing well and staying current as rent collections have remained strong in those sectors which so far has prevented a wave of delinquencies. And for those looking for deals, the association noted that in this low interest rate environment, there will be ample capital and competition for quality multifamily and industrial properties, more selective for office and certainly for retail and challenging for the hospitality sector until the market can find its footing. With healthy rent collections and apartment office and industrial assets, lenders are getting comfortable with new loan originations. In the first stage of the crisis, the CMBS market was completely frozen due to a lack of liquidity in the bond market, but conduit lenders have eased back into the market with new issuance and more efficient pricing. And it's no surprise that the stats show retail and hospitality properties are much more exposed to defaulting loans. The data clearly shows the stress has been in the retail and hospitality sectors as expected, though those assets only made up collectively 13% of total originations in 2019. Now after a sharp uptick in delinquencies in April and May in the hotel sector, delinquency rates leveled off in June as some leisure travel returned. Now CBRE's recently released lending momentum index corroborated MBAs reports, noting the temporary freeze in commercial real estate lending and transactions in March through early April led to fewer loan closings in the second quarter as their index, which tracks the pace of US commercial loan closings, fell 29.3% from its first quarter close and down over 20% from a year ago. It reported that loan credit stress quickly emerged in the retail and hotel sectors during the pandemic lockdown, pushing the overall CMBS delinquency rate up to 6.37% in June up from 1.24% in March. June delinquencies varied substantially by property type with hotel and retail, as we've noted faring the worst. However, the report did note that the market saw better liquidity later in the quarter and multifamily agency and certain industrial deals were bright spots, while other sectors suffered from selectivity and the withdrawal of commercial mortgage backed securities and alternative sources of capital. Now Brian Staufers, who serves as global president of debt and structured finance for capital markets at CBRE and is also the 2020 chairman for the Mortgage Bankers Association, said that while there has been a steady improvement in the number of loan applications over the past five weeks, he anticipates that commercial mortgage markets will remain muted over the near term, especially for retail and hospitality properties, as well as value added deals which face the greatest underwriting challenges. Speaking of underwriting, they report that loan underwriting measures have changed only modestly during the quarter. The average LTV ratio fell, while the average debt service coverage ratio and debt yield rose. The average amortization rate fell, reflecting a higher percentage of loans carrying either partial or full term interest only. Now in the near term, they say underwriting will likely remain conservative due to current economic conditions and environmental challenges due to the pandemic. That is for sure. And now we have a message from a sponsor of our show, Capital Rivers Commercial, led by Greg Aguirre, who want to make sure that in case you haven't heard, there's a massive tax increase on the ballot in November targeted at owners and renters of commercial real estate. If that's you, then you need to be well aware of Proposition 15 and the team at Capital Rivers Commercial can tell you all about it. For most commercial properties in California, Prop 15 would end the highly priced taxpayer protections that have been afforded by Prop 13 for more than 40 years. You can look it up online, but if you want to really understand and prepare for it, you'll want to talk to an expert like Greg and his team of experts at Capital Rivers. If you'd like to see more, check out their Prop 15 landing page on their website at CapitalRivers.com. These are not your typical real estate brokers. Work with the best, work with Capital Rivers. In this segment of the show, I typically discuss real estate issues, such as things like legislation regionally or nationally, as well as executive moves. But in this show, I want to note the passing of industry icon Gerald D. Hines, founder and chairman of the preeminent real estate firm Hines, who passed away peacefully at his home on Sunday, August 23rd. In Gary, Indiana in 1925, he recently celebrated his 95th birthday. The news was announced today by his son, Jeffrey C. Hines, who has been running the firm as president and now assumes the role of chairman and CEO of the company. Mr. Hines was widely regarded and honored as a visionary in the industry. He transformed an entrepreneurial startup established in Houston in 1957 into an international powerhouse renowned for developing, owning and managing some of the world's most recognizable architectural landmarks. With more than 4,800 employees, Hines today is active in 225 cities and 25 countries. It has 165 developments currently underway and has redeveloped or acquired 1,426 properties, totaling over 472 million square feet. And its current property and asset management portfolio has 576 properties with over 246 million square feet. Mr. Hines was revered for his ability to enhance urban landscapes and add lasting value to communities through innovative design concepts and the highest possible standards of quality, which set the benchmark for excellence throughout the industry. He believed that memorable design by prominent architects could garner commercial success and he was a leader in the push for sustainability. Significant projects include 53rd and 3rd, the lipstick building in New York City, 101 California in San Fran, 191 Peach Tree in Atlanta, three first national plaza in Chicago and several in Houston, such as One Shell Plaza, the Galleria and Williams Tower. Mr. Hines graduated from Purdue University with a degree in mechanical engineering, later received honorary doctorates from Purdue and the University of Houston. Among his proudest accomplishments is the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston. He is survived by his wife Barbara, four children, 15 grandchildren and one great grandson. He will be laid to rest in a private family ceremony in Aspen, Colorado and a celebration of his life will be held at a future date when it is safe to get together. Rest in peace Mr. Hines. Now let me tell you about another sponsor of the show, Redwood Mortgage. Redwood Mortgage is a direct portfolio lender providing loans on commercial office, industrial, multi-family mixed use and residential investment properties in California. In business for over 42 years, Redwood Mortgage is established, trusted and well capitalized. A good place to go when the banks say no, call Redwood Mortgage at 800-659-6593 or redwoodmortgage.com. Now it's time to get into our real estate version of the Sports Highlight Reel with our very exciting rent TV round up of major deal and development news from around the U.S. And as I normally do, I'll start on the east coast and head west. Starting in Philly, where developer Parkway Corp. has obtained $187 million in financing for its 305,000 square foot class A office ground up development project at 2222 Market Street in the Center City neighborhood. As Holly Dutton reported for commercial property executive Parkway, which is based in Philly, got the construction and mezzanine financing for the 19 story office building through Meridian Capital Group who negotiated the financing on behalf of Parkway. The senior loan was provided by Balance Sheet lenders and the mezzanine loan and equity were provided by Acore. The tower, designed by architecture firm Gensler, is being constructed to achieve LEED, gold and fitwell certifications and global law firm Morgan Lewis Embakias has signed on as the anchor tenant at the property, which will feature tenant amenities, including a fitness center, underground parking garage, penthouse and rooftop terraces and high ceilings with floor to ceiling glass. Parkway is expected to begin development this fall. Miss Dutton noted that Parkway is one of several developers currently building office projects in Philly. These include tower investments, who is developing 400 North Broad Street, a 526,000 square foot office redevelopment project, also in Center City, that's expected to be completed in January 2021 and will transform the former Philadelphia Inquirer building into the new headquarters for the Philadelphia Police Department. And nearby in University City in that neighborhood, a joint venture between the University Science Center, Ventos and Wexford Science and Technology is developing one U City Square, a $280 million office and lab facility that broke out earlier this year and is scheduled to be completed in December 2021. The project is the latest phase of the U City Square knowledge community, a research medical and life sciences campus. Next, heading south to Delray Beach, Florida, Cortland Partners, LLC, an Atlanta based multifamily developer and investor, paid about $74 million or $260,000 per unit for a 284 unit complex that was built only three years ago. In the deal, which closed in July, Cortland bought the complex from Wood Real Estate Investors LLC, an LLC that is part of Wood Partners, the national Atlanta based multifamily developer and investor, which developed the property in 2017. As reported by Lydia Dinkova for Globe Street, the property was recently renamed as Cortland Delray Station and consists of seven buildings on 12 acres located northwest of Interstate 95 and Atlantic Avenue on Depot Avenue. And it was 95% occupied at the time of sale, according to CoStar Group, with rents ranging from about $13.89 a month for smaller one bedrooms up to $21.55 for the three bedrooms, according to the apartment website. Now, moving west to the Nashville area, to Lebanon, Tennessee, where Duke Realty, the large industrial developer, has refilled a recently vacated space at its Park 840 West 14-840 Logistics Building, bringing it to full occupancy by signing a new lease of approximately 208,000 square feet with Optoro, Inc., a temp company that creates software which helps retailers manage excess and return to inventory. As Scott Baltic, reporter for Commercial Property Executive, the tenant will use the class A location as its flagship returns processing and R&D facility. The building, which was built in 2006, contains a total of approximately 654,000 square feet and is located at 14840 Central Pike east of downtown Nashville and very close to the interchange of I-840 and Highway 109-265. Cushman and Wakefield was the property's listing broker and JLL rep the tenant. To give you some market info, the Metro Nashville warehouse distribution market remained strong despite the pandemic, according to a second-quarter report from JLL. Year-to-date net absorption was nearly 2.2 million square feet on an inventory of 155 million square feet and direct asking rents continued to climb, reaching $5.07 per square foot as of the second quarter. A little more than 4.2 million square feet of space was under construction, while total vacancy was only 3.2% and trending down. Heading north to Chicago, the big news there is that the JV, comprised of Schmo, SHVO, and Deutsche Finance America, has completed its $376 million acquisition of 333 South Wabash, a 45-story, 1.2 million square foot office skyscraper in the city which is known as Big Red, formerly CNA Center. AIG and Goldman Sachs provided financing for the purchase, which was first announced in January and divides out to about $313 per square foot. As Pavel Kazukou reported in Commercial Property Executive, the sellers were the John Buck Company and Morgan Stanley, which paid $108 million for the iconic tower in 2016. In 2018, Brookfield Asset Management provided the partnership with a $195 million loan, which financed major capital improvements on the building the following year. The property, located one block from Grant Park in the Loop, was completed in 1973 and amenities include childcare facilities, auditorium with 250 seats, tenant lounges, a food hall and fitness center. The high rise is home to a diverse mix of tenants, including the Chicago Housing Authority, Northern Trust, and the former namesake, CNA. Moving down to Dallas, Texas, VREIT and Ocean West Capital Partners LLC have acquired a 2.3 million square foot distribution and warehouse facility in Dallas for about $247 million or about $107 per square foot from North Point Development, which developed the asset and will be part of the joint venture. As Gao Kalinowski from Commercial Property Executive reported, the facility, located 9314 West Jefferson Boulevard, is fully leased by an investment-grade home improvement retailer. CBRE National Partners represented the parties in the disposition and the transaction. The acquisition is part of VREIT's industrial partnership with Korea Investment and Securities Company, which is advised by Ocean West. This partnership started in May 2019 and focuses on the acquisition of single-tenant industrial assets under long-term leases to industrial-grade tenants. This is the seventh property acquired for the portfolio, which now has approximately $654 million in assets. VREIT, which is a Phoenix-based full-service operating company, owns and manages one of the largest portfolios of single-tenant commercial properties in the U.S., now valued at $14.7 billion with 3,800 properties and 88.9 million square feet of space. Heading out to the West Coast, to the great little city of Culver City, which is surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, Northwood investors paid $120 million or $417 per square foot to Norton LifeLock for the 288,000-square-foot office building in 900-corporate point with a seller-occupied space, and actually the seller was the developer of the building when the company was called Symantec prior to its name change to Norton LifeLock after Broadcom acquired part of Symantec's software business. The company will stay in two floors of the five-story building under a seven-year lease. Bushman and Wakefield brokered the sale transaction. Northwood is an active investor on the west side of L.A., owning three of the properties in the area, West L.A.'s Triton Center Office Campus, the London West Hollywood Hotel, and about 19 acres of undeveloped land in Playa Vista. Moving down to the Orange County city of Irvine, Panasonic Avionics, the maker of in-flight entertainment systems for airlines, plans to relocate its corporate headquarters from its long-time base in Lake Forest to Irvine after inking the largest office lease reported in Orange County this year, signing a nearly 260,000-square-foot headquarters lease at LBA Realty's Park Place in Irvine. The consolidation deal covers multiple buildings at the 2.2 million-square-foot office campus at Michelson Drive and Jamboree Road, right along the San Diego 405 freeway, where Panasonic Avionics will house corporate engineering production and administrative operations. Brokers from Seville represented the tenant, while a team of brokers from CBRE and Cushman and Wakefield repped LBA, the OC-based owner of office and industrial properties led by Phil Belling and Steve Layton. Our next and last stop on our deal roundup takes us to the beautiful Torrey Pines area along the coast in San Diego County near La Jolla, where Alexandria Real Estate Equities, the major owner of biotech office and lab properties, paid $97.5 million to the National University System for the point at Torrey Pines, consisting of two office buildings that the seller occupies, totaling 139,000 square feet, located at 11255 and 11355 North Torrey Pines Road, on an 11-acre site that's roughly midway between the Pacific Ocean and the I-5 Freeway. The property is occupied by the National University System and National University's two building headquarters and is located in San Diego's top biotech and life sciences sub-market. The property, the beautiful property, provides unobstructed panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean and Torrey Pines Reserve, and it's just across the street from the prestigious Torrey Pines Golf Course and just a few miles from the University Town Center area with such prestigious research institutes as Scripps Research, Sanford Consortium, Salk Institute and UC San Diego. A team from CBRE represented the seller National University System, which is a veteran-founded non-profit university with over 28 campuses around the world. And that's it for our deal roundup. Now it's time to zip along the tech drive, where we discuss the various combinations of real estate and technology, such as new websites and services, and now as a result of the COVID pandemic, new tools to help with that. And the subject of this segment, financial tech startup Till, certainly can play a role in that since it is a platform to help property managers and owners manage unusual arrangements, such as tenants paying partial rent, a common scenario now, and the company received $8 million in seed funding, wow, I'm so jealous, and they got that from VC firms Route 66 Ventures, Metaprop and NextGen Venture Partners. The company Exact said it will use the money to continue its growth and to attract new landlords and renters as users. The company's flexible rent platform lets renters set up a customized payment schedule that better lines up with their individual cashflow situations. And the goal is to help them to become more consistent on-time payers, avoid late fees and certainly evictions. Now more renters are making partial payments, as I said, and tech like this could make it easier for property managers to manage unusual arrangements. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the country, mass unemployment and other economic fallout is threatening to push those numbers even higher, said Till founder and CEO David Sullivan. The company is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and the service is available in 170 properties in 14 U.S. states comprising 30,000 units, and they have partnerships with several major real estate owners and property management companies. The PR that went out quoted Les Menkes, managing partner of Acre, one of Till's clients who said that the service has completely altered the way they approach rent collection and more importantly, improve their fundamental relationship with residents. By taking a more personalized approach with each of their units, they've been able to significantly reduce turnover at their buildings and get a more comprehensive, accurate view of their revenue stream. They've also been able to avoid imposing penalties on their renters, putting them in better financial health and ensuring better long-term stability to their business. For our next stop on the tech drive, I will report about the recent podcast from real estate tech VC firm Fifth Wall, thereby making this news piece a crossover with our next power segment about podcasts and webinars. Fifth Wall led by the dashing and debonair Brendan Wallace, located not too far from me in the marina, produces a series of podcasts I've mentioned here before called Fly on the Wall, where Mr. Wallace and sometimes other partners in the firm have very compelling conversations with leaders in the real estate and real estate tech industries. You can find these on their website, and in their last two episodes, both dropped in the past two weeks, Brandon interviews Jeremy Waxman, president of Zillow, about recent macro trends in the housing capital markets, both pandemic related and otherwise. They cover the digitization of the home buying and selling process, predictions for the future of iBuying and Zillow's vision for an always-on tech-enabled real estate market. Another episode features Fifth Wall partner Vic Challa interviewing Lucas Haldeman, CEO and founder of Fifth Wall portfolio company SmartRent, to discuss the future of home automation. Lucas explains how the work-from-home era has catalyzed a shift in the digitization of homes and rental properties. Very interesting podcast there. Another crossover for our tech drive and power segments is provided by RealCom, the real estate tech news and conference company, which is having its RealCom slash IBcon 2020 event on October 28th through October 30th, and it will hopefully combine on-site and online components. Part of the event is scheduled to be held at the Marriott Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Aurora, Colorado, just outside Denver. The newly built world-class resort will provide a state-of-the-art environment for a safe and productive event. In addition to the on-site event, RealCom IBcon will be introducing an engaging and highly interactive virtual conference component. RealCom, led by Jim Young, is a leader in this space, so we expect it will be a valuable conference either online or in person. Find out more and register at realcom.com. And now let's fully dive into our power segment, where I tell you about podcasts, webinars, events and recordings for the industry. Edit Power, and I will start by telling you about new episodes of some real estate podcasts I'm a fan of, starting with one called Teague Talks, T-E-A-G-U-E, where Hunter Hotel Advisor CEO Teague Hunter, based out of Atlanta, conducts very interesting informative conversations with various leaders in the hotel sector. And in his latest episode, he talks with Navin Diamond, chairman and CEO of Stone Bridge Companies, about how Mr. Diamond became an accidental hotelier and what he learned from previous recessions that will help in the current environment. Another series of podcasts I've started tuning into is by DLC Management Company, a retail investment and management company out of Elmsford, New York, that has a series called Retail Retold, where they talk mainly with the real estate decision makers of major retail tenants to tell the story of and explore the ins and outs of retail deal making. They have done like 40 of these podcasts and they're good. The latest is with Adam Williams, partner at Legacy Real Estate Advisors and host of his own show called Retail Redevelop Podcast, and he talks with host Chris Reza about his very first deal and how getting just one deal under your belt can make all the difference when it comes to opening doors and getting unexpected opportunities that can accelerate your career. That's a great story for anyone struggling to make a deal happen or who's thinking about leaving the commercial real estate business. The next podcast video I recommend watching, and I always recommend these, is the latest installment of Walker Dunlop CEO Willie Walker's weekly Walker Wednesday discussion where Mr. Walker first spends a few must-see minutes discussing the latest in the real estate and financing industry, as well as legislation that's pending, and then has a very high level interview, generally with high level folks in the real estate industry. So it's usually related to real estate, but his latest episode, while still very interesting, is more about politics, as his guest was David Ignatius, associate editor and foreign affairs columnist for the Washington Post, who has the pulse of all the major moves being made within the international affairs community. Next, as for upcoming webinars and events, on September 14th through September 25th will be Marcus and Millichap's Northern California multifamily forum where they answer the question, which way is up, discussing the challenges and obstacles to the California apartment industry, which have never been greater, but that also means there is hidden opportunity for smart players. The reimagined all-digital online conference format they put on in conjunction with Green Pearl spans 10 weekdays from September 14th to the 25th, and it's been organized in brief, easy to consume portions to minimize disruption to your work and personal life with six panels held on separate days. So join live to interact directly with the speakers, and they have a ton of speakers through the Q&A feature or view the recordings on your own time. Either way, don't miss the limited group networking opportunities that will allow you to connect with your peers directly, forging new connections or re-establishing existing ones. The cost is $99 for the live online ticket, but there is a discount code, which is Green Pearl, which will get you a 50% discount. The next online event to inform you of is the IMN Distress Hotel virtual forum, taking place on September 15th. This full-fledged virtual event will be complete with multiple panel sessions, exhibits, networking, online chatting, meeting rooms, and more. Interest has been strong, given the timely nature of this topic, and their recent Distress Hotel webcast had over 1200 registrants. There are limited amount of complimented registrations available for this virtual event. For more info, go to www.imn.org slash real estate. And to update you on a few events that were planned for in-person, given the continued issues with the virus, they are now going all virtual, starting with Globe Streets or RealShares, NetLease conference, which was going to take place at the Marriott Marquee and Times Square. But now it is just online on September 17th and October 1st, but the virtual conference will continue to capture face-to-face interactions and superior networking, as well as executive level discussions with the very best in the NetLease sector. It will feature live keynote presentations, exclusive access to their speaking faculty, dedicated video networking with their sponsors and deal-makings, access to a library of pre-recorded content, and a lot more. They say that nobody is offering a way to connect, like this year's Globe Street, attend for only $99 and register at globestreet.com. Also making the decision to cancel the in-person event and go only digital was crittenden, whose Real Estate Finance conference is now being combined with their multifamily conference, and it was scheduled for September 16th through the 18th at the Mandarin Oriental Miami, but now they are both all virtual and the date is moved to October 5th through October 7th. Note the date change and the fact it's combined with the multifamily conference. Attendees will have access to panel presentations, have opportunities to network online from now their home or office. The website for further updates is crittendenrealestatefinance.com. And lastly, still holding out hopes for an in-person event this year is Globe Street's 30th annual apartments conference, scheduled for October 27th to 28th at its usual spot, the Western Bonaventure in downtown LA. Hopefully it'll be live, and by then, hopefully they'll have their annual gathering with more than a thousand senior level deal-makers through a combination of in-person experiences and virtual touch points. Amidst the global health crisis, Globe Street Apartments will present a comprehensive program featuring leading developers, property owners, and operators, and institutional investors. And to help celebrate 30 years, 2020 will feature their inaugural Globe Street Apartments award dinner, now scheduled October 28th, which will bring together the nation's top multifamily influencers for an evening of celebration. Stay tuned for news if that has to go virtual as well. And that is it for our show today. We hope you enjoyed it, and we appreciate any feedback on any of the products or services or anything else you heard in the show. Please email me those comments at sbloom at renttv.com. Let me again thank our sponsors, Capitol Rivers Commercial and Redwood Mortgage for their support. And until our next podcast, this is Steve Blum from Rent TV, wishing you, your clients and properties strong profits and prosperity.