Ulteig Engineers, which provides engineering, planning and surveying services to a wide range of public and private clients, currently occupies 30,000 square feet in the River Road Business Center in Fridley, Minn. Seeking a larger space, the company will be moving to Arden Hills Corporate Center IV in Arden Hills, Minn.

The 52,379-square-foot space is currently leased to FICO through June, and will be enhanced with the addition of a new 2,000-square-foot garage for the company’s vans and equipment.

Construction on the garage is slated to begin July 1, and Ulteig will move into the building Sept. 1.

“As a service provider it is imperative our business is never interrupted for our employees and customers,” said David Karels, chief business officer of Ulteig.  “Ulteig’s current location and lease will allow us to complete all the tenant improvements, including a state-of-the-art data center, which will allow a seamless move and virtually no business interruption.”

Built in the 1960s, the facility is located at the southeast corner of Lunt Avenue and Nicholas Boulevard with direct access to Interstate 90 in the heart of the O’Hare submarket. It is currently leased to stationery company House of Doolittle and trucking firm CR Express.

Bridge plans to redevelop the property into a state-of-the-art air cargo building with 32-foot clear ceiling heights and 35 docks. Construction is currently scheduled for spring 2013.

“As the Chicago industrial market continues to stabilize, we are confident that the O’Hare submarket will be one of the first to see new construction.  We are excited to have a position in this infill submarket for future development,” said Tony Pricco, principal with Bridge.

David Bercu, Thomas Rodeno and Patrick Turner of Colliers International represented Welsh in the sale and will continue as exclusive leasing agents for Bridge.

The numbers bear this out: According to the report, the suburban office vacancy in Lexington fell 1 percent in 2011, while office vacancies in the Central Business District dropped 1.16 percent.

The news was good on the retail side, too: According to the NAI Isaac report, retail vacancies fell 6.65 percent during 2011. And industrial saw the biggest decline in vacancies in the past year, a solid drop of 15.06 percent.

Lexington has been a fortunate market, though. It certainly suffered during the worst days of the Great Recession; I don’t know of any city that didn’t. But Lexington didn’t seem to suffer quite as much as many other Midwest markets. The Lexington commercial real estate professionals to whom I’ve spoken always point to the same factors: Lexington features a diverse employment base. It’s a fairly conservative market, meaning that it doesn’t suffer the high highs or the low lows that more volatile markets do. And Lexington boasts a solid, centralized location.

Add to this the fact that the city has managed to carve out a presence in the still-thriving healthcare market, and you understand why vacancies dropped last year in this city, even in the struggling office segment.

Joe Hamway of Signature Associates represented the tenant, Merrill Technologies. Merrill is a defense contractor.

Signature negotiated the lease of 121,704 square feet of industrial space in Canton, Mich.

Steve Gordon and Gary Sallen of Signature Associates represented both the landlord, 4280 Haggerty LLC, and the tenant, Poof-Slinky, Inc.

The property was built in 1987. It features 7,668 square feet of corporate offices, 16 truck level docks and a 3,000 amp power service. Venture One purchased the building in a sale-leaseback transaction with Colony Inc., which signed a lease for the entire facility. Colony designs, manufactures and delivers fixtures and point-of-sale products for national retail chains in the U.S.

The seller was represented by Nick Eboli, John Sharpe and Mike Androwich of Lee & Associates of Illinois. VK was represented by Shaun Burke of H and B Realty. 

Venture One’s VK Industrial fund has acquired more than 822,000 square feet of industrial property in 13 separate transactions in the Chicago market since opening in September of 2010. 

“Over the past 16 months we have been actively expanding our industrial portfolio through acquisitions in the Chicago market. We continue to find opportunities that meet our investment criteria and plan on expanding at a similar pace in 2012,” said Matt Goode, a principal at Venture One.

ARCO/Murray was contracted by the developer to complete the full design and construction consisting of a warehouse distribution facility and office build-out. Founded in 1952, Lawson Products, a business of Lawson Products Inc., is an industrial distributor of maintenance and repair supplies.

ARCO/Murray was represented in the transaction by Brad Dannegger, vice president, Christian Evangelista, the senior project manager, and Mark Houser. Jack Rosenberg, Fred Regnery and Mike Senner of Colliers International represented Lawson Products in the lease transaction.

James Young, a broker with Milwaukee-based Cassidy Turley Barry, represented the seller in the transaction. Barry Chavin of NAI/MLG Commercial represented the buyer.

Greco and Sons will relocate and expand from its existing location in the City of Milwaukee.

Consolidation of facilities within Actuant resulted in the need to dispose of its 104,000-square-foot facility located at 2525 Gardner in Broadview, and at the same time relocate the administrative, accounting, sales and product/lab-testing offices of TK Simplex to new office space in the East-West Corridor.

Actuant engaged Timothy Cahill, Robert Tamillo and Chase Macleod of UGL Services, to secure a buyer for the Broadview property and to lease approximately 7,000 square feet of new office space for TK Simplex.

The client preferred an office location relatively close to the existing facility to ensure employee retention and close proximity to a main highway in order to accommodate their global customers. The team identified an office location at Executive Place 1 at 777 Oakmont Lane in Westmont, a single-story property situated in the Oak Brook area.

The landlord is UBS REIT, represented by Jim Whiteside, president of Heartland Commercial.

TK Simplex already has relocated into the new space. The sale of the Broadview property closed in December.

Additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

John Godwin, a vice president of investments, along with associates Deno Bistolarides and Ryan Vinco, all in Marcus & Millichap’s Detroit office, represented the seller and the buyer. Michael Glass, vice president and regional manager of Marcus & Millichap’s Cleveland office, was the broker of record in the transaction.

“Long steel serves the civil construction, industrial and agricultural sectors, and is a vital part of the structure of homes, shopping centers, hospitals, bridges and hydroelectric plants,” says Godwin. “The building was constructed in 2001 as a build-to-suit for the tenant and is in great condition. The lease has five years remaining and is guaranteed by Gerdau’s North American subsidiary.”