Wyndham Hotel Group Announces First Two Resorts in Cayman Islands

PARSIPPANY, NJ – Wyndham Hotel Group, one of the world’s largest hotel companies, announces its entrance into the Cayman Islands with the addition of two resorts on Grand Cayman island:

The 130-room Wyndham Grand Bay Waterford – Cayman Islands (middle right photo) and the 170-room Ramada Grand Caymanian Beach Club and Resort. (top left photo)

Both resorts are owned and managed by the Grand Cayman-based GFK Group, a property development and management firm with more than 25 years of experience developing in the Cayman Islands.

The Wyndham Grand Bay Waterford – Cayman Islands, the newest addition to The Wyndham Grand Collection, recently began construction and is expected to be complete in the third quarter of 2011.

The five star luxury property will feature rooms with a British Colonial décor that offer sweeping ocean views from North Sound to Rum Point. The resort will offer a 5,000 square foot spa, pre-arrival grocery service, luxury car service, an on-site restaurant and cigar room and 24 hour room and concierge service.

The recently renovated Ramada Grand Caymanian Beach Club and Resort is located adjacent to The North Sounds Club championship golf course on the shores of Grand Cayman’s North Sound Lagoon.

Guests can choose from studio, one and two bedroom suite accommodations with high speed wireless Internet access, flat screen televisions, DVD player, personal washer and dryer and full kitchen.

The resort also features a business center, on-site restaurant, lighted tennis court, beach volleyball court, freshwater pool, multiple hot tubs, a kids club and a variety of water activities including scuba diving, snorkeling and deep sea fishing.

In addition to the completed renovations, the resort will also be adding an additional 44-unit condo hotel and free form swimming pool with beach access later this year.

“Year after year, the Cayman Islands continue to be a popular tourist destination, attracting nearly 1.7 million visitors annually,” said Doug Smith, Wyndham Hotel Group vice president of development. “By adding not one, but two properties in the Caymans, Wyndham Hotel Group is well poised to take advantage of the tourism opportunities that exist there.”

Theresa Foster, GFK Group managing director, said, “We knew that Wyndham Hotel Group was the company we wanted to do business with right from the start.

"We want to be backed by a company with strong brands and with significant breadth and scale, and we found a match in Wyndham.”

Wyndham Hotel Group, one of three principal components of Wyndham Worldwide Corporation (NYSE: WYN), encompasses nearly 7,000 hotels representing approximately 583,000 rooms in 67 countries on six continents.

The brands are the Wyndham®, Ramada®, Days Inn®, Super 8®, Wingate® by Wyndham, Baymont Inn & Suites®, Microtel Inns and Suites®, Hawthorn Suites®, Howard Johnson®, Travelodge®, Knights Inn® and AmeriHost Inn®.

All hotels are owned individually and operated independently or by Wyndham Hotel Management. Wyndham Hotel Group is based in Parsippany, N.J. For additional information or to make a reservation visit http://www.wyndhamworldwide.com/.

CONTACT:
Christine Da Silva, Director, Media Relations, Wyndham Hotel Group, 1 Sylvan Way, Parsippany NJ 07054. (973) 753-6590. Christine.Dasilva@wyndhamworldwide.com

Apartment Realty Advisors Brokers Sale of Remaining Units in LaVia Condominium

PEMBROKE PINES, FL — Atlanta-headquartered Apartment Realty Advisors (ARA), the largest privately held, full-service investment advisory brokerage firm in the nation focusing exclusively on the multihousing industry, announceS that ARA’s Florida division arranged the sale of the 26 remaining units at La Via Condominium (top right photo) community located in Pembroke Pines, FL.

The transaction was arranged by ARA Florida’s Boca Raton-based Avery Klann. (top left photo)

Shaoul Mishal, President of Israel-based Gamla-Cedron Group purchased the remaining units for $1,430,000 or $55,000 per unit in January 2009.

The 250-unit property was converted to condominiums in 2005 and a total of 224 units were sold over the past three years. After paying off the senior debt and achieving strong profits, the owner decided to bulk sale the remaining inventory in the La Via Condominium. The seller desired a fast closing with a strong all-cash buyer.

š“We worked under a very tight timeframe to identify a buyer who could close as quickly and efficiently as possible,” said Avery Klann, of ARA’s Boca Raton office, who brokered the deal.š “We expect to see several more fractured condo sales in Florida in 2009.”

Klann is a member of ARA’s Distressed Assets Solutions Group which provides responsive, professional and knowledgeable brokerage solutions to servicers and lenders of distressed conventional multifamily, land, student and seniors housing assets.

Marc deBaptiste,(bottom right photo) one of ARA Florida’s founding partners said, “This is one of several transactions where we have recently sourced unique, foreign-based buyers that are now capitalizing on the tremendous buying opportunities in multifamily product throughout Florida.”

To schedule an interview with an ARA executive regarding this transaction or for more information about Apartment Realty Advisors, please contact Marti Zenor at mzenor@ARAusa.com or 561-988-8800 ext. 112.

Downtown Miami's 1450 Brickell Office Tower "Tops Off" At 35-Stories

Rilea Group's 586,000-SF 'class-A' office toweron track for January 2010 completion

MIAMI, FL – Jan. 29, 2009 – 1450 Brickell, (top right photo) a 'class-A' office tower currently under construction at the entrance to downtown Miami's Brickell Financial District, reaches an important milestone on January 30 when it tops-off construction at 35-stories.

The occasion will be celebrated during a special 'topping-off' party held at the 1450 Brickell construction site at 1 p.m.

The 586,000 square-foot tower is scheduled for delivery in January 2010, when it will become the first of three new downtown Miami office buildings to come online next year.

Following its completion, 1450 Brickell will make headlines again by becoming Miami's first LEED Gold-certified office tower (the building earned LEED Gold pre-certification in 2008).

In addition to its environmentally-sound design, 1450 Brickell has earned high marks for its construction quality. The entirety of the Tower's exterior will be clad in high-impact resistant glass offering sweeping views of Biscayne Bay, Brickell Avenue, and the city of Miami.

Further, 1450 Brickell's safety installations will remain functional during a power outage, thanks to a generator that will run the air conditioning system for humidity control and enable tenants to utilize lighting and electrical power for their basic needs.

Alan Ojeda, (middle right photo) CEO of Rilea Group, the Miami-based development firm responsible for building 1450 Brickell, believes the Tower's construction and location set it apart from other projects underway in downtown Miami.

"We conceived and designed 1450 Brickell with two words in mind: 'quality' and 'convenience,'" said Mr. Ojeda.

"Now that we're one year out from completion, I can say with certainty that the Tower's quality of construction will be matched only by its convenient location and accessibility. The building's surroundings offer tenants a mixed-use setting unique in the Miami marketplace.

"The Brickell Gateway neighborhood is home to more than 30,000 square-feet of retail space and nearly 30 retail businesses within walking distance of 1450 Brickell's front door, making location one of its many advantages.

Beyond the prevalence of retailers surrounding 1450 Brickell, the Tower benefits from traffic-free roads, direct access to I-95 and close proximity to public transportation.

In addition to 586,000 square-feet of 'class-A' office space, 1450 Brickell is adjacent to One Broadway,(bottom left photo) a luxury apartment building developed by Rilea Group in 2006, which is home to 371 rental units and ground floor retail.

For One Broadway apartment leasing and information call (305) 374-1660 or visit http://www.onebroadway.com/. For One Broadway retail leasing, contact Jonathan Carter of Cushman & Wakefield at (305) 371-4411.

1450 Brickell is a 35-story, 586,000 square-foot 'class-A' office tower in downtown Miami, Florida's Brickell Financial District.

The building offers both commercial office and ground-level retail space and is located in one of the neighborhood's least congested areas, offering convenient in-and-out access, as well as some of the area's best views of Biscayne Bay.

The tower, which is downtown Miami's first pre-certified LEED Gold 'class-A' office building, offers flexible floor plates ranging in size from 24,000 square-feet to 25,600 square-feet. 1450 Brickell is slated for completion in January 2010. Learn more at http://www.1450brickell.com/.

Miami, Florida-based Rilea Group is a full-service real estate development company that has been developing real estate projects in South Florida since 1981.

The company has experience in all facets of real estate, including development, construction, leasing, and management. Past projects include Miami's Mellon Financial Center and One Broadway.

Currently, Rilea Group is constructing 1450 Brickell, a 35-story, LEED Gold Certified 'class-A' office tower in Miami's Brickell Financial District. Visit http://www.rileagroup.com/.

Media Contacts:
Schwartz Media Strategies
Tadd Schwartz: (305) 807-3612
Aaron Gordon: (305) 962-3292

Cambridge Reports Loan Origination Requests in 2008 Relatively Strong Despite Economic Meltdown

CHICAGO, IL--In a year in which stocks imploded and the credit markets lost their way, efforts by senior housing/healthcare borrowers to improve the financial underpinning for their businesses never waned.

Cambridge Realty Capital Companies Chairman Jeffrey A. Davis (top right photo) says the company processed 333 loan origination requests in 2008, a total only slightly less than the 357 requests reviewed a year earlier.

But the total dollar volume for all processed requests in 2008 was somewhat higher, $4.7 billion compared with $4.3 billion a year earlier.

And the total number of beds/units was also up, from 53,228 in 2007 to 55,614 a year later.

Davis points out that lenders close a relatively small percentage of loan origination requests received, but believes it’s useful to track this information as an indication of market directions.

“Competitive interest rates contributed to relatively strong demand throughout the year and remain in place as the New Year begins,“ he noted.

“In the final quarter of 2008, the economic news was particularly bleak and origination requests were down 11 percent, from 110 in 2007 to 97 in 2008. However, dollar volume was not off dramatically, falling from $1.30 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007 to $1.23 billion for the same period in 2008,” he said.

Privately owned since its founding in 1983 as a real estate investment banker specializing in commercial real estate properties, Cambridge today has three distinctive business units: FHA-insured HUD loans, conventional financing and investments and acquisitions.

The company is one of the nation’s leading senior housing and healthcare debt and equity capital providers with more than 300 closed transactions totaling more than $2.75 billion since the mid-1990s.

Contact: Evan Washington, Phone: (312) 521-7603. Fax: (312) 357-1611.

E-Mail: ew@cambridgecap.com