The Fairview Corporate Park in Elmsford and the Midland Business Park in Port Chester are part of a portfolio of properties that a division of The Baker Companies in Pleasantville has sold for $209 million, CB Richard Ellis said.

Baker Properties sold the portfolio of 25 buildings totaling 2 million square feet to Lighthouse Real Estate Ventures Inc. in West Hempstead, Long Island. In addition to the Westchester office buildings, the portfolio included property in New Jersey and Fairfield and New Haven counties in Connecticut.

The portfolio was 93 percent leased at the time of the sale. The Fairview Corporate Park includes six buildings on Fieldcrest Drive, Fairview Park Drive and Ridgewood Drive. The four Midland properties are on Midland Avenue and Slater Street.

Rockland Economic Development Corp., which has offices at 1 Blue Hill Plaza, is moving — but not very far.

Effective Monday, the agency’s new address will be 2 Blue Hill Plaza, 3rd Floor, P.O. Box 1575, Pearl River, NY 10965. The telephone number remains the same: 845-735-7040.

On the web, go to www.redc.org.

Verizon Communications Inc. has leased back space at two Westchester County office buildings that it sold last summer as part of a portfolio to GHP Office Realty in Harrison and GHP’s local partner, Benerofe Properties.

GHP said Verizon New York and Verizon Global Markets have leased 100,000 square feet at 10 County Center in Greenburgh, where 500 employees are involved in customer support, call center activities and staff training related to its new FiOS services.

Westchester County also leased 17,000 square feet at the building to move staff from its Social Services Department from a previous location on Grand Street in White Plains, GHP said. The real estate company said it is looking to fill 91,000 square feet of remaining space.

Verizon said it also is leasing back about 70,000 square feet of space at 500 Westchester Ave. in Harrison from GHP.

Plasan USA, a division of Plasan Sasa, has leased 3,600 square feet at 465 Columbus Ave. in Valhalla as headquarters for its U.S. operations, according to T Square Properties Inc. of White Plains.

Plasan Sasa is an Israeli defense contractor specializing in armor products

The law firm of Lustig & Brown LLP, which specializes in insurance issues, has signed a 10-year, 10,000-square-foot lease at 150 Grand St. in White Plains, according to Reckson, a subsidiary of SL Green Realty Corp.

The firm currently has offices in Manhattan, Buffalo, Stamford, Conn., and Newark, N.J.

Westchester County rents for commercial real estate are not growing as quickly as those in Fairfield County, Conn., and New York City, CB Richard Ellis said in its report on the 2007 market released yesterday. But the White Plains central business district saw a $5 per square foot increase over 2006, to an average of $32.58. And demand is growing for Class B office space, as affordability issues drive tenants away from Class A property. Just 7.8 percent of Class B space is available in the county, a level not seen since 2000, the brokerage said. Transactions of less than 10,000 square feet accounted for nearly 90 percent of the county’s overall leasing activity. Countywide average rent in the fourth quarter was $29.04 a square foot, up 6.76 percent from the comparable period a year earlier. The report said 15.52 percent of space was available last quarter, up from 14.68 percent a year earlier.

Santi Express Inc., a Rockland-based moving company, has moved to larger offices at 616 Corporate Way in Valley Cottage.

At 6,500 square feet, the new space is about twice as large as the company’s former Suffern offices, the company said.

Santi Express, founded 32 years ago by President Sheryl Santi-Luks, employs about a dozen workers and serves the eastern half of the United States.

A several-million-dollar makeover that’s been in the planning for four years is almost complete at the Rye Ridge Shopping Center. The popular Rye Brook plaza-style shopping center has new storefronts and awnings, lighting, landscaping and improvements to the parking area.

Erin Hinchey, leasing agent for Ridge Realty LLC, the owner of the shopping center, said the renovation is also attracting new tenants, including:

• The Look, a retailer of couture and special-occasion dresses and gowns;
• Landsberg Jewelers, a New York City-base retail fine jeweler;
• Salon PF, an upscale salon;
• Shelly Belly / My Lilly Pad, which sells maternity, layette and children’s clothes, accessories and gifts;
• JW Tumbles, a children’s gym franchise;
• Little Scoops, a 1950s theme ice cream parlor for children’s birthday parties;
• The Bar Method Pilates and Yoga, a method of combining the two exercises with a focus on the ballet bar.

Other new tenants include a sports memorabilia and ice cream store called Last Licks and an upscale women’s clothing boutique called Contact.

Hinchey said the center was built in 1960 and last updated 15 years ago. The goal of the redo is upgrading the center to make it appealing to upscale retailers. The new hair salon, for instance, offers cuts for $75 and the dress shop sells evening gowns. “We just kicked it up a notch,� Hinchey said.

The Rye Ridge Shopping Center, which has 220,000 square feet, is home to such retailers as D’Agostino’s supermarket, Starbucks, Cerbones Bakery and the Rye Ridge Deli. There are 36 tenants in the main plaza area and another nine in an annex, which has a Blockbuster and a CVS.

One casualty will be the movie theater, Rye Ridge Cinema, which will close at the end of the year, Hinchey said. The owners would love to replace the Clearview theater with an “art house� style movie theater, but it’s hard to find such a tenant, Hinchey said. Several retailers have already expressed an interest in the cinema’s slot.

Maxx Properties, an apartment owner and manager, has sold its office building in Mamaroneck and moved to new offices in Harrison. Maxx Properties sold its 32,000-square-foot office building at 875 Mamaroneck Ave. to KOSL Building Corp. The company has leased the fifth floor at 600 Mamaroneck Ave. in Harrison. It occupies 24,000 square feet at the Saxon Woods Corporate Park. Eric S. Goldschmidt, a partner at Scarsdale-based Goldschmidt & Associates, who helped Maxx sell their building and find new space, said the company consolidated from two floors into a single floor to more efficiently operate its corporate headquarters. Maxx Properties specializes in garden apartment complexes.

Commercial office brokerage CB Richard Ellis Inc. said Tim Donohue of White Plains, formerly an associate at Jones Lang LaSalle, has joined the company as a senior associate. Donohue will be based in the Stamford, Conn. office and work with clients in Westchester and Fairfield counties. He is a board member of The Rotary Club of White Plains and a member of the Business Council of Westchester.

RREEF, a global investment company based in San Francisco, announced yesterday that it has acquired Mount Kisco Medical Center. The 38,800 square-foot building is adjacent to Northern Westchester Hospital. It was previously owned by Tolchin Property Group. The price was not disclosed.

Michael Berne of Cushman & Wakefield, the broker for the seller, said there were more than 15 bids for the property, which closed after it had been on the market for about 90 days.

“It’s a trophy property in the sense that it’s right across the street from Northern Westchester Hospital,� said Berne, who heads the Senior Housing Healthcare Group at Cushman & Wakefield. “All the tenants are triple-A, and the building was completely redone in 2001 and 2002.�
He said the building is fully occupied.

RREEF Real Estate is part of RREEF, which is part of Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management Division. RREEF also invests in infrastructure, private equity and hedge funds.

New office space availability in northern Westchester, the White Plains area, and a belt of cities in the south helped push overall vacancies higher in the county in the second quarter, broker CB Richard Ellis said.

Of the 32.5 million square feet of total space, 15.2 percent was vacant or available for sublet at quarter’s end, up from 14.6 percent a year earlier, the broker’s latest market report said. Average rents rose from $26.47 a square foot to $28.40 in that period.

The northern end of the county saw the greatest absolute increase in available space, about 258,000 square feet, for total availability of 12 percent. Nicole Steel, a manager at CB Richard Ellis, said 270,000 square feet of space at the Reader’s Digest campus in Chappaqua is back on the market for office use after a residential development proposal was tabled.

On the positive side, Weekly Readers signed a lease for 80,000 square feet at 480 Bedford Road in Chappaqua.

The White Plains central business district added 43,000 square feet of available space to the market last quarter, while the area outside White Plains’ central district added about 156,000 square feet.

Part of the increase represents added space from the closing of the Argent Mortgage offices at 44 S. Broadway. But important deals also were signed, including Disney Publishing Worldwide’s 61,000-square-foot lease at 44 S. Broadway, and Greenberg Taurig, LLP’s 53,000-square-foot lease at 445 Hamilton Ave., CB Richard Ellis said.

Average rent for so-called Class A space in the city’s CBD rose from $29.43 per square foot to $35.19, representing greater demand for high-quality space in that area. About 14 percent of office space in the central business district was available for rent, an increase year over year of 1 percentage point.

The southern end of the county, representing Yonkers, New Rochelle, Mount Vernon and some surrounding communities, also saw more office space available for rent. The region added 182,000 square feet for a total availability rate of 17.5 percent.

CBLPath Inc., a pathology services provider, has leased the entire third floor of a Rye Brook building for 10 years, expanding its presence at 760 Westchester Ave. by 55 percent. CBLPath now occupies the entire 65,000-square-foot building, said Marisa Manley, president of Commercial Tenant Real Estate Representation Ltd. (CTRR), who brokered the transaction. 

CBLPath expanded because of rapid growth in its nationwide anatomic pathology diagnostic testing services business, she said in a written statement.

Northeast Community Bancorp Inc., the White Plains-based banking company, has sold a branch office building at 1353-1355 First Ave. in New York and signed a 99-year agreement lease so that it can retain an office there.

The company expects to record a pre-tax gain of $18.8 million, not including transaction expenses, in connection with the sale of the building.

GHP Office Purchasing LLC, which is affiliated with White Plains—based real estate investment company Houlihan-Parnes/iCap Realty Advisors, bought two buildings along Harrison’s Platinum Mile as part of a portfolio of 25 office and industrial properties in 10 states.

The company said the local buildings are 400 Westchester Ave., which is 65,000 square feet, and 500 Westchester Ave., which is 120,000 square feet.

Houlihan-Parnes said it arranged for the $153 million of acquisition financing for the properties, which total 2.4 million square feet. The loan for the properties was placed with Dillon Read Capital Management.

The deal allows for the redevelopment or sale of the buildings on an individual basis.
GHP Office Purchasing LLC bought the Harrison buildings from Verizon Communications Inc. The phone company once occupied both buildings but 400 Westchester Ave., which is toward the rear of the lot was purchased unoccupied. The building at 500 Westchester Ave., which is visible from Interstate 287, is occupied by Verizon.

Stark Business Solutions, which offers office space in White Plains and Mount Kisco to small businesses, plans to open a site in Harrison. Stark, which already has 17,000 square feet at 445 Hamilton Ave. in White Plains and 15,000 square feet at 100 S. Bedford Road in Mount Kisco, said the SBS Suites of Harrison will occupy 11,575 square feet at 500 Mamaroneck Ave. The space will be ready for tenants by September, the company said. The building is owned W&M Properties and was named office building of the year by the Building Owners and Managers Association.

An office building to house health-care practices is being constructed at 115 Main St. in downtown Tuckahoe. The three-level, 36,000-square-foot facility with 120 parking spaces is expected to be completed in December, according to the developer, RLMW LLC of Tuckahoe. RLMW is currently in negotiations with several potential tenants, a company representative said. (The computer-generated renderings at right are courtesy of RLMW LLC.) This project is being built on a lot that has been vacant for several years. It’s being financed with a $7.4 million loan from Sterling National Bank, based in New York. For more information, visit the project’s Web site: www.115mainstreet.com.

The Westchester County Industrial Development Agency has tentatively approved $43,000 in sales tax exemptions for Time Link International Corp. of Larchmont, a work force management business. Time Link wants to open a new office in Harrison and expand its staff by 14, to a total of 40. The tax breaks would reduce the cost of equipment for 8,000 square feet of office space.

Good weather has given the new owners of Westchester County’s Platinum Mile a jump on $18 million to $20 million in renovations to the group of 14 office buildings along the Interstate 287 corridor.

Joseph Caruso, senior vice president of leasing for RexCorp Realty, said the project is about half completed and will continue into 2008.

Reckson Associates Realty Corp. had bought the properties in 2005 and announced the renovations several months later. The buildings changed hands once more when Reckson was acquired by SL Green Realty Corp. of Manhattan in a $6 billion deal that closed in January.

As part of the deal, a management group led by then-Reckson Chief Executive Officer Scott Rechler bought the Platinum Mile properties, in White Plains, Harrison and Purchase, from SL Green for about $2 billion, and formed RexCorp.

The office buildings date back to the 1970s and were due for rehab. RexCorp is upgrading the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, sprinklers and other building code-related items, and refurbishing the lobbies and elevators.

A new conference center at 707 Westchester Ave. can accommodate 35 people. The cafeteria was overhauled. Among other improvements: wireless Internet access.

In January, warm weather allowed the construction of canopies and light poles throughout the White Plains Corporate Park of five buildings that include 707 Westchester Ave. Some preliminary landscaping work also was done that will resume when warmer weather returns.

About 68 percent at the space in the office buildings was leased at the time of the acquisition, a figure that now has risen to 73-74 percent, Caruso said.

RexCorp plans presentations in the weeks to come to area brokerages as it aims to attract more tenants in the market. Caruso said the company isn’t interested in a quick facelift before trying to sell the buildings.
“We’re here for the long haul. We want to make the renovations not just pretty but substantial,� he said. “We’re holders of real estate.�

Henry Schein Inc., the Long Island-based distributor of health care products and services, will move its regional sales office from Pelham Manor to larger quarters at 2500 Westchester Ave. in Purchase by early March, its new landlord announced. Schein will lease 20,000 square feet, an increase of about 25-30 percent, said Rexcorp Senior Vice President of Leasing Joseph Caruso. The asking rent was $28.50 per square foot, Caruso said. With the Schein deal, the building is about 65 percent leased, he said.