A New York real estate firm has paid $21 million for the Implus Building, a 309,000-square-foot industrial property near Research Triangle Park in Durham.

Broadstone Real Estate of Rochester was the buyer.

The seller was The Keith Corporation, which built the property at 2001 T.W. Alexander Drive in 2009.

Chris Norvell, Rob Cochran and David Finger of Cassidy Turley represented Keith in the transaction.

The property is the headquarters and global distribution hub for Implus Footcare. The company's current lease runs through August 2024.

The McClatchy Co. has sold its waterfront property in downtown Miami for $236 million, as the newspaper publisher divests some real-estate assets to bolster its financial health.

McClatchy, which is the parent corporation of The News & Observer, will use most of the money to fund its pension plan. That will free up more future profits to continue repaying the company's massive debt.

Bond-rating agency Moody's raised its outlook on McClatchy's $1.75 billion of debt to positive from stable after the news.

And McClatchy's shares rose 19 cents to $2.95 today. The stock is still down 37 percent this year.

McClatchy sold the Miami property to Genting, a Malaysian-based developer of casinos and resorts.

Two Durham commercial real estate companies, Dilweg Companies and Pinpoint Properties, announced today that they are merging.

The combined company will operate as The Dilweg Companies, and will offer development, asset management, property management and leasing services.

Bruce Knott, head of Pinpoint, will become Dilweg's chief operating officer. Joni Barnes of Pinpoint will become a leasing specialist.

Pinpoint specializes in developing retail, medical and flex office buildings. Dilweg owns and operates properties throughout the Southeast.

The combined companies will oversee a portfolio valued at more than $300 million.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Kroger said today that it will close its North Raleigh store in the Wakefield Commons shopping center this summer because the location failed to meet sales expectations.

The announcement comes a week after Wakefield Commons was sold by Centro Properties Group, a debt-laden Australian mall owner that is in the process of selling all of its U.S. assets.

The center’s new owner is Westdale Real Estate Investment and Management, a private firm based in Dallas. Westdale said in a release that it acquired the property from a distressed owner for a “significant discount” and plans to improve the tenant mix to better server the affluent customers in the area.

Wakefield Commons includes 160,949 square feet of retail. In addition to Kroger, its other anchor tenant is a 12-screen Marquee Cinemas theater.

The Kroger store’s operating results do not justify keeping it open, said Jay Cummings, president of Kroger Mid-Atlantic, in a statement.

Kroger says the sale of Wakefield Commons had nothing to do with the decision to close the store on July 9.
 

Bronto Software is getting a bigger pad.

The email marketing company is adding another 8,000 square feet to its 13,000-square-foot headquarters in Durham's American Tobacco Campus by expanding into three adjacent offices.

Bronto employs about 90 people, but wants more room as its business increases. The company has about 20 open positions, said CEO and co-founder Joe Colopy.

"Things are going in the right direction," said Colopy, who co-founded the company in 2002 out of his Durham house. "We're having a good time."

Bronto sells marketing services to retailers and other businesses, including Party City, Timex, BatteriesPlus, Dean & Deluca, Samsonite and more. They hire Bronto to help connect with customers through email, social media and, increasingly, various mobile devices.

A Florida investor cast the high bid in this afternoon's auction of the Soleil Center property in Raleigh's Crabtree Valley.

RL Regi Financial, LLC bid $4.2 million for the 5-acre site, according to Wake County court records.

Other buyers have until May 23 to submit a rival bid that must be at least 5 percent higher.

RL Regi Financial's bid was $2 million less than the amount the developer, the Soleil Group of Cary, owed Regions Bank.

The Soleil Group planned to build a 43-story tower on the site that would have included a hotel, spa and condominiums.

The developer spent $20 million pouring a foundation that would support a 43-story building before the project stalled.

RL Regi Financial is based in Miami, according to corporate records on file with the N.C. Secretary of State's office.

Highwoods Properties reported first-quarter results late Monday that met Wall Street expectations.

The Raleigh real-estate investment trust’s 35-million-square-foot portfolio was 90.1 percent occupied at the end of March, up from 87.8 percent during the same period a year ago.

Highwoods reported funds from operations, a profitability measure for REITs, of 61 cents per share, equal to the 61 cents per share the company reported in the first quarter of 2010.

That also equaled the consensus of Wall Street analysts.

Highwoods leased 890,000 square feet of office space during the quarter at an average lease term of 5.1 years, CEO Ed Fritsch said in a release.

In the company’s top five markets, Highwoods occupancy levels outperformed the market by an average of 8 percent in the first quarter.
 

Milestone Asset Resolution Company, the California firm that took over the deed to much of the Amberly development in Cary last week, actually purchased the loans on the property last summer.

The assets were sold to Milestone on June 4, 2010 as part of a $1.4 billion loan sale between the Federal Deposit Insurance and Barclays, said Greg Hernandez, a spokesman for the FDIC in Washington.

Earlier this week, an official with Milestone declined to comment on the Amberly property's future.

The deed to much of the 1,100-acre community in northwest Cary was transferred to Milestone last week in a transaction valued at $19.2 million.

L.M. Sandler & Sons of Virginia Beach, Va., transferred the deed to avoid foreclosure, according to Wake County property records.

Sandler's lender on the portion of the project, Cleveland-based AmTrust Bank, collapsed in late 2009, and the assets were taken over by the FDIC.

Highwoods Properties said Tuesday that the Center for Disease Control has renewed its lease with the Raleigh real estate investment trust for 100,800 square feet in Atlanta.

Highwoods developed the property at 1825 Century Center for the CDC, which occupies a total 328,000 square feet.

The new lease begins when the CDC's existing lease expires in July of next year.

Highwoods shares closed at $35.93 on Tuesday.

The stock has risen 22 percent since mid-December, and is up 11 percent over the last year.

Highwoods will release its first quarter earnings after the market closes on Monday.

Biogen Idec is preparing to expand its Research Triangle Park campus, reinforcing the Massachusetts drug company's commitment to its operations in this region.

Officials plan to hold a ceremony on Thursday to begin construction of a 180,000-square-foot building. It will include a five-story administrative office wing and amenities such as cafeteria, auditorium and conference rooms.

The new space will give Biogen's nearly 850 existing employees more room, allow the company to exit some leased offices and could lead to additional hiring in the future.

"We're confident we will see job growth in RTP," although it's too soon to provide specific numbers, said spokesman Mike McBrierty.

That's one reason Biogen didn't seek state or local incentives to help pay for the project. Such awards typically are tied to job creation milestones.