NEW YORK (Reuters) – Macerich Co (MAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) isn’t usually in the business of hosting religious processions in its mall parking lots.

But when it allowed a Good Friday event featuring a costumed Jesus, prisoners and Roman guards at a Phoenix mall last year, hundreds of shoppers turned out from the heavily Hispanic community, where re-enactments of the Stations of the Cross are a major occasion.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc agreed to sell property group Archstone to two real estate investment trusts for about $6.5 billion, taking advantage of a strong market for apartments and marking an end to a 2007 gamble that helped push the investment bank into bankruptcy.

The buyers, Equity Residential (EQR.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and AvalonBay Communities Inc (AVB.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), will split the assets 60-40 and will also take on Archstone’s debt, for a total transaction value of $16 billion.

NEW YORK, Nov 26 (Reuters) – Equity Residential and
AvalonBay Communities Inc have agreed to buy apartment
owner Archstone from Lehman Brothers Holdings for about $6.5
billion in cash and stock, the companies said on Monday.

The deal would expand Equity Residential’s presence in
mid-Atlantic and Northeast states. While AvalonBay would expand
its base in Southern California.

NEW YORK, Nov 26 (Reuters) – Lehman Brothers has agreed to
sell the assets of apartment owner Archstone to rivals Equity
Residential and AvalonBay Communities Inc for
about $6.5 billion in cash and stock and the absorption of debt,
bringing the total value of the deal to $16 billion, the
companies said Monday.

The deal comes shortly after Archstone filed for a $3.5
billion initial public offering. It also follows an Equity
Residential’s unsuccessful bid earlier this year to buy the
entire company, which includes apartment buildings and
communities major U.S. cities.

By Ilaina Jonas

(Reuters) – Archstone Inc, the apartment building owner and developer owned by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, said on Monday it plans to raise up to $3.45 billion in its initial public offering, making it the biggest U.S. commercial real estate IPO ever.

If the offering is launched this year, it would be the third largest U.S. IPO of 2012, behind Facebook Inc (FB.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Banco Santander’s Mexican unit (SANMEXB.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

NEW YORK, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Blackstone Group LP will
likely take Hilton Hotels public in the next two years and sell
other properties as it looks to cash out of some of its U.S.
commercial real estate, a senior Blackstone executive said on
Tuesday.

Given Hilton’s size, taking the company public would make
the most sense, said Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s Global Head of
Real Estate, at the Bloomberg Commercial Real Estate Conference.
Hilton has 630,000 rooms worldwide.

NEW YORK, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Some Manhattan office buildings
badly damaged by SuperStorm Sandy two weeks ago are coming back
on line faster than even their owners predicted.

One New York Plaza will allow the first group of its tenants
to move back in Monday, and the rest will be able to return
within a week after that, Richard Clark, chairman of building
owner Brookfield Office Properties Inc, said Tuesday at
the Bloomberg Commercial Real Estate Conference. Tenants include
law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP and
investment bank Morgan Stanley.

NEW YORK, Nov 7 (Reuters) – Lower Manhattan office building
values are likely to suffer as a result of damage inflicted by
Superstorm Sandy that has left thousands of downtown Manhattan
workers unable to return to their offices, major real estate
executives said at a conference on Wednesday.

“I think there’s been value erosion downtown,” Howard
Lutnick, chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald LP and BGC
Partners Inc, said during the New York University
Schack Institute of Real Estate Capital Markets in Real Estate
conference. “It had just started to come back. The concept now
of fear of flooding is going to affect values.”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The breakdown in services that lingers in lower Manhattan a week after super-storm Sandy may make tenants think twice before moving to or re-leasing office space in the area whose rebirth since September 11, has been painfully slow, some brokers said.

Thousands of people who work south of 34th Street in Manhattan have been told that they may not be able to return to their offices for at least a couple of weeks due to power outages and flood damage.

NEW YORK, Nov 4 (Reuters) – A housing crisis loomed in New
York City as victims of superstorm Sandy struggled on Sunday
without heat in near-freezing temperatures, and officials
fretted displaced residents would not be able to vote in
Tuesday’s presidential election.

Fuel shortages and power outages lingered nearly a week
after one of the worst storms in U.S. history flooded homes in
coastal neighborhoods, leaving many without heat and in need of
shelter. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said 30,000 to 40,000 people in
New York City alone would need housing.