The Jessam will consist of twelve 3-story class-A garden-style rental buildings totaling 318 apartments and one luxury clubhouse. The project is a part of an 850 acre master plan development in the southern artery of Huntsville. Approximately 540 acres are currently (and shall remain) protected park land which include 8 miles of nature trails connecting the balance of land with the surrounding residential communities, schools, multifamily, mixed use and office developments as well as a new City Park.

The amenity package at The Jessam will offer residents direct access to the 8-mile nature trail, a modern fitness and yoga studio, resort-style pool and club house, game room, outdoor grills, entertainment greens, a dog park with a dog wash station, coworking spaces, package lockers, valet trash service, EV charging stations, and approximately 80 private garages.

Greystone Housing Impact Investors LP is an equity investor alongside Camden Securities Company and Union Bank & Trust has provided construction financing for the project. The architect for the project is NELSON Worldwide .

The Jessam is expected to welcome residents in the Fall of 2024!

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Set on an irregular site in North Hollywood, Calif., L+O is a 310,000-square-foot mixed-use building. In addition to a 27,000-square-foot Amazon Fresh grocery store, the building has 297 units, 25 of which are very low income.

The irregular, 2.04-acre site is made up of two distinct parcels in two different zones with no alley and connected by a 25-foot-wide hinge. The unique triangular parcel was a result of Lankershim Boulevard diagonally bisecting the typical Los Angeles grid, which offered a design opportunity to shape the iconic corner

The seven-story building’s scale was a major design concern, given the building runs 300 feet along Lankershim Blvd., and another 275 feet along Otsego Street. The diagonally bisected corner gave the architects the opportunity to create a series of stacked floors with every alternating floor inset, allowing the corner to interlock.

The main five-story mass is anchored by a two-story concrete frame. Every alternating floor is inset and clad with horizontally and vertically striated metal panels that interlock at the corner. Due to the horizontal layering, the stacked floors are bisected by projecting balconies and brightly colored frames clad in perforated metal.

“A challenge was integrating the market and maximizing exterior glazing at the corner for pedestrian orientation,” says Don E. Empakeris, AIA, NCARB, principal of DE Architects AIA, Santa Monica, Calif. “With no alley, the market feasibility depended on providing interior circulation through the ground floor parking for a 55-foot delivery truck to reach the loading area and exit.”

The project features 16,000 square feet of Verti-Line Series T16-E metal wall panels in Mistique Plus from Metal Sales Manufacturing Corp., Louisville, Ky. The 24-gauge aluminum-zinc, alloy-coated steel sheet with exposed fasteners has a two-coat Kynar 500 finish. The architects chose the metal panels for their square edge profile, which provided a crisp, finished look from the street. To provide material and labor cost savings, a perforated version of the panel is used on the interior balconies, which incorporated a full panel width.

“The stacked metal clad floors pay homage to the history predating the NOHO Arts District, when the area consisted primarily of metal-clad light industrial buildings,” notes Empakeris.

L+O has a 10,000-square-foot rooftop oasis with pool, residents’ lounge, and recreational and game rooms. There’s also a podium garden, 3,000-square-foot state-of-the-art indoor/outdoor fitness center, multipurpose yoga room, a lounge and business center. A three-level garage has parking for 564 cars.

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Canyon Partners Real Estate, the real estate direct investing arm of L.A. investment firm Canyon Partners, said it has given $32 million of equity to form a joint venture with Camden Securities Co. of White Plains, N.Y. and Woodland Hills developer, Hayes Capital Management, to build NoHo L&O.

The joint venture will soon begin construction on 297 apartments above a Whole Foods Market 365 on a 2-acre site at Lankershim Boulevard and Otsego Street. The 7-story NoHo L&O complex will consist 272 market-rate units and 25 affordable units with rooftop space featuring a pool, lounge and recreational and game rooms. Also included within the complex will be a courtyard, fitness center, lounge and other common rooms, as well as more than 550 parking spaces.

Previously at the site, and now demolished, was 38,500 square feet of older office and flex buildings at 5101 to 5107, 5125 and 5115 Lankershim Blvd. The joint venture now owns the property, which was owned previously by Camden Securities and Hayes Capital.

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The 165,000-square-foot Target store (160 W. Dekalb Pike), the largest Target in the East Coast, according to Upper Merion Township officials, opened its doors to the public at 8 a.m. Sunday.

It’s what Target calls a “general merchandise with expanded fresh food” layout.

Along with a grocery section that’s 40 percent larger than other Target stores, the King of Prussia location will also have a Starbucks, Target Optical and Target Pharmacy. It will also be elevated above the 800-space parking garage, half of which will be underground.

Also unique to this store format is the presence of iPads in the electronic department, where customers will be able to view and order Target products online. “Special team members” dressed in black will also “assist with mobile needs” in the electronics department, said Kristen Emmons, spokeswoman for Target.

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The annual International Council of Shopping Centers conference, typically an orgy of deal making between landlords and retail tenants, was in town. But on Dec. 8, 2008, the mood was
somber. Chrysler and GM were running out of cash, Circuit City had gone bankrupt, unemployment was about to surge. Few retailers were looking for leases.

Niggeman settled into a seat at Bice for lunch with longtime Valley Forge Shopping Center owner Andrew Heine, his son Adam, and a few others. For 15 years, Niggeman had handled leasing at the family-owned shopping center at Route 202 and Henderson Road, dutifully signing new tenants into age-old slots while redevelopment blossomed across the lucrative Philadelphia suburb of Upper Merion.

The Heines had acquired the shopping center well before the King of Prussia mall, just down the road, became the East Coast’s largest. And they had played it safe, reinvesting conservatively – for example, turning the onetime King and Queen movie theaters into retail and recreation space. By late 2008, though, anchors CompUSA and Fortunoff had gone bankrupt, and Marshall’s would soon leave, too.

“It was like the perfect storm. Everybody wanted out,” Niggeman said. Yet he proposed that the Heines tear down and rebuild half the shopping center and anchor it with a stellar new tenant – Target.

It would be a pricey path forward – lost rents, high construction costs, and untold other challenges for a landlord content with reliable returns. But the result, Niggeman argued, would be a Class A shopping center in a place where the best retailers beg for leases.

“They were kind of looking at me like I was nuts,” he recalled.

Five years later, Niggeman is looking like a very smart man.

Today, a huge portion of the sprawling shopping center that slopes sharply down toward Henderson Road is an excavation site. Backhoes and front-end loaders chomp through old stores, leaving mountains of rubble as they clear the way for a Target to be built on stilts atop a giant parking garage.

An off-ramp from I-76 at Henderson opened in November 2011, siphoning motorists right to the shopping center. And the project that took off during a foreboding economic time is poised to pay off.

Why and how? For starters, the long-held asset had little debt and tons of accrued value in 2008, thanks to its location and family stewardship.

Tenants were willing to vacate their stores and relocate, hoping the reconstruction would pay dividends down the road.

And it was in a great location.

“The complexities of this asset, in order to do that major deal at that moment in time, were very significant,” said Adam Heine, president of Camden Securities Co.

Heine would not disclose how many millions were committed to transform the property his Camden-born grandfather bought in 1971 and ran locally for years. But he said the family, now based in New York, and Target were partners in a joint venture.

“When you have the opportunity to redevelop a shopping center that my grandfather bought and worked at, my uncle worked at and managed, my father managed, during a time of tremendous stress in the global economy, and make it a potentially premier asset in one of the best trade areas in the country for the next generation,” Heine said, “there’s absolutely a sense of pride.”

Once the overhaul is finished in 2014, the shopping center will boast 345,000 square feet of gross leasable area.

The Target will be unique with its stilt-based structure and garage, a departure from the typical big-box design the Minnesota retailer prefers, said Niggeman, principal of Metro Commercial Real Estate Inc.

“It’s very expensive to build these stores,” he said.

Target declined to comment. But securing the lease was helped by the fact that Niggeman is Target’s longtime exclusive broker in the region. He knew how hard Target had tried to find a suitable location in King of Prussia.

According to Adam Heine, the biggest obstacle was not economics, but logistics. About five tenants would have to be moved, the landlord would need to gain control of one tenant’s ground lease, and a minefield of lease restrictions would need to be honored. There also would be a lengthy development-approvals process with local authorities.

The Italian eatery Sicilian Delight is adjusting to its recent relocation. Owned by immigrant Tony Cracchiolo, the business was only seven years old when it had to move out of its 1,200-squarefoot location near the old Marshall’s.

Now in an 1,800-square-foot shop at the far end of the shopping center, the mom-and-pop is toiling to rebuild its customer base with new ovens and other equipment financed partly by the landlord, manager Salvatore Cracchiolo said.

He said the Heine family had been sensitive, rather than dispassionate like a corporate overlord.

We chose to stay here and not go somewhere else,” Cracchiolo said, “because they helped us out.”

Dairy Queen franchise owner Dan Laskey had just paid off the reconstruction loans on his store, which he acquired in 2005, when he, too, learned he had to relocate.

But, Laskey noted of the landlords, “they took care of me. They want to see me succeed.”

The Heines’ approach seems rooted, at least partly, in some humility. They are unlocking value from land their grandfather bought long before King of Prussia became synonymous with shopping.

“He saw it as a hub corner and a good investment at the time,” Adam Heine said. “To be honest, we are probably lucky that the mall got built thereafter, and it turned into a fantastic location and a great asset.”

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