Staff and Wire Reports

Phase II of the 282,000 sq. ft. MetLife Plaza in Queens, N.Y., is under way. New York-based owner Brause Realty Inc. broke ground on the 12-story project, which will house Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. as the single...

GE Asset Management has purchased Boston’s 334,949 sq. ft. Independence Wharf from Modern Continental Enterprises. The price was not disclosed. The landmark building is located at 470 Atlantic Avenue on the waterfront...

AT&T has sold its Basking Ridge, N.J. headquarters to Peapack, N.J.-based Pharmacia Corp. for $200 million. The campus, featuring 1.3 million sq. ft. of office space, is located on 140 acres of property...

Chicago-based Jupiter Realty Corp. has broken ground for a 155,500 sq. ft. office building at 1747 West Roosevelt Road in Chicago. The four-acre site is within the Illinois Medical District (IMD), a not-for-profit...

Wal-Mart is celebrating its 40th birthday at the store where it all began. On July 2, 1962, the first Wal-Mart opened its doors in Rogers, Ark., at the Shelby Lane Mall. The 35,000-sq.-ft. store employed 25 sales...

Nashville’s Opry Mills is now wholly owned by Arlington, Va.-based The Mills Corp. The self-managed REIT purchased the remaining 33% of Opry Mills that it did not own for $87 million from joint venture partner...

Konover Property Trust’s preferred shareholders are up in arms. Holders of the Cary, N.C.-based REIT’s series A convertible preferred stock are speaking out against the proposed absorption of Konover into a Kimco...

Michael Kojaian, the recently elected new chairman of the board at New York-based Grubb & Ellis, has strong incentive to push the real estate services company to higher levels of profitability and efficiency...