An entity that owns two office buildings and land near the RBC Center in West Raleigh has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

Lichtin/Wade LLC, which is owned by Raleigh-based Lichtin Corp., owes BB&T Bank nearly $39 million, according to its bankruptcy filing. It also owes Wake County $290,870 in property taxes.

Lichtin owns two 100,000-square foot buildings, known as the Offices at Wade, that were built in 2008. It also owns adjacent land where three more buildings could be built.

Greenfire Development announced today that it plans to build an 88-unit apartment complex in downtown Durham on land the company owns at the corner of Jackson and Willard streets, adjacent to the N.C. Mutual building.

Greenfire's partner on the $10 million project is Armada Hoffler, a construction firm based in Virginia Beach.

The project will also include space for a local education institution and some market-rate housing.

Construction is expected to begin in July and be completed by May 2013, the company reported in its release.

Raleigh-based Highwoods Properties announced today that Lockton, an insurance brokerage firm, has renewed its lease for 171,000 square feet in a Highwoods building in Kansas City.

Lockton has also taken an addition 10,000 square feet in the Valencia Place Office Tower. Lockton's lease now runs through February 2030.

Highwoods, which reports fourth quarter earnings next week, had a $58 million build-to-suit project in Kansas City terminated last year after it ran into opposition.
 

New York-based Clarion Partners and The Residential Group of Atlanta announced plans today to develop a $37 million apartment complex in northwest Raleigh's Brier Creek area.

The project, called Crest at Brier Creek, will include 291 units and be located near ACC Boulevard and Glenwood Avenue.

It's one of several new apartment projects planned for the Brier Creek area.

Clarion said in a release that site work on the project began this month, with completion expected in June 2013.

In August, Clarion paid $15.7 million for Cary Park Town Center shopping center. The firm has more than $23 billion in assets under management.
 

The real estate arm of investment bank Goldman Sachs has bought a portfolio of six Triangle office properties for $43.95 million, according to Wake County property records.

The Archon Group, based in Irving, bought the buildings from Duke Realty, which listed the portfolio for sale in August.

The properties include 427,000 square feet spread across four buildings in West Raleigh, one in Cary and one in North Raleigh.

The buildings, all built between 1986 and 2000, were 83 percent leased at the time Duke put them on the market.

The sale is part of the Indianapolis-based real estate investment trust’s strategy of increasing its industrial and medical office portfolio while reducing the number of office assets it owns.
 

Yes, it's that time of the year again: Real estate forecasting season!

One of the biggest, and longest running events in the Triangle, took place this afternoon at the RBC Center in the form of the NAI Carolantic Triangle Commercial Real Estate Conference.

Now in its 27th year, it featured comments by Steve Stroud, NAI Carolantic's chairman, as well as presentations by Jimmy Barnes, the firm's president, and Peter Linneman, an NAI global economist and CEO of the American Land Fund.

NAI Carolantic's space survey showed nearly 32 million square feet of the Triangle's 240 million square feet of office, multipurpose and shopping center space remained vacant at the end of the year.

The firm predicts vacancy rates across all sectors will continue to come down and investment sales activity will increase 40 percent in 2012.
 

The Lenox at Patterson Place apartment complex in Durham has sold for $28.8 million, or $9.7 million more than the seller paid for the property just two years ago.

The Connor Group of Ohio bought the 292-unit complex in December 2009 for just over $19 million.

Lenox's new owner is Chicago-based Westdale Investment Partners.

The deal reflects the strong performance of the apartment sector in recent years, particularly newer properties in good locations. Lenox was built in 1999.

A number of firms that bought apartments in 2008 and 2009 are finding that those assets are now worth considerably more.

Analysts with RBC Capital Markets have upgraded Raleigh-based Highwoods Properties shares to outperform from perform.

RBC analysts said they expect Highwoods to benefit from acquisitions and built-to-suit development opportunities over the coming year.

"We expect the company could benefit from during 2012 from a modest softening in asset pricing as its still solid balance sheet provides sufficient flexibility for opportunistic pursuits as displayed in Pittsburgh during 2011," RBC said in its research note.

In September, Highwoods spent $300 million to buy seven buildings in Atlanta and Pittsburgh.

The buildings included about 2 million square feet of space. The Pittsburgh properties represent the first new market that Highwoods, one of the largest office landlords in the Southeast, has entered in more than a decade.
 

UNC Health Care has paid $14.2 million for a portfolio of seven Chapel Hill office buildings that Blue Cross Blue Shield of N.C. vacated last year as part of a cost-cutting effort.

The deal includes 47 acres and 152,000 square feet of space in the Eastowne Office Park. The property is across U.S. 15-501 from Blue Cross’ 40-acre campus headquarters.

UNC expects to develop a master plan this year to determine how best to use the property, but spokeswoman Jennifer James said it would likely end up being home to a mix of administrative and patient-care facilities.

UNC Health employs about 8,000 people on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, where there is limited parking available for employees. James said for much of the fall the system’s on-campus inventory of hospital beds were near capacity.