PRESS RELEASES

Hines Breaks Ground on City Center Pitic in Hermosillo, Mexico

03/26/2007

(HERMOSILLO, MEXICO) – The Mexico office of Hines, the international real estate firm, broke ground recently on its first retail project in Mexico, called City Center Pitic, located in Hermosillo.  The Wal-Mart-anchored neighborhood shopping center will be comprised of approximately 60 stores.  City Center Pitic is funded through HCM Holdings LP, a joint venture between Hines and the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS).

City Center Pitic will offer 7,360 square meters (79,223 square feet) of retail space for lease, segmented in boutiques, restaurants and services.  The project will feature an open- air, storefront design that blends into the Sonoran desert landscape.  Designed by the Mexican-based architecture firm Oikonos, City Center Pitic is slated for completion in September 2007.

With 750,000 inhabitants, Hermosillo is the capital of the State of Sonora, which shares a common border with Arizona, just 250 miles south of Phoenix.  City Center Pitic is situated in the fast-growing up-town area of the city.  Target tenants represent an assortment of restaurants, banks, mobile phone stores, dry cleaners, boutiques, jewelers and other retail offerings that complement Wal-Mart.

“Hermosillo and Hines are a great match,” said Pierre Arriz, general manager of Hines Mexico. “The city is extremely entrepreneurial and is growing fast.”

Hines Project Director Alejandro Espinosa commented, “City Center will create a new destination in Hermosillo.  The center’s diverse mixture of retailers will generate a dynamic blend of client traffic.  This is our first 100-percent retail project in Mexico, and part of a more ambitious countrywide program, which includes two additional shopping centers being developed under the same City Center brand.”

Created in January of 2005, HCM Holdings LP has sponsored 14 development projects, including: three neighborhood shopping centers with a combined gross rentable area of 46,000 square meters (495,000 square feet); four for-sale, multi-family housing developments, including 600 residences; four single-family home communities, including more than 1,000 units; and three industrial projects totaling more than 65,000 square meters (700,000 square feet).

Hines entered the Mexican real estate market in 1975.  Since that time, the firm has completed office, residential and industrial properties in Mexico totaling more than 5.6 million square feet and has developed more than 900 acres of land.  Currently, the company has operations in markets including Acapulco, Ciudad Juarez, Guadalajara, Hermosillo, Irapuato, Los Cabos, Merida, Mexico City, Michoacán, Monterrey, Querétaro, Reynosa, San Luis Potosí and Toluca.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is the nation’s largest public pension fund with assets of more than $230 billion, of which $16.8 billion are invested in real estate.  The System provides retirement and health benefits to approximately 1.5 million State and local public employees and their families. For further information on CalPERS, please visit the system’s Web site at www.calpers.ca.gov.

Hines is a privately owned real estate firm involved in real estate investment, development and property management worldwide. The Hines portfolio of projects underway, completed, acquired and managed for third parties includes more than 950 properties representing approximately 380 million square feet of office, residential, mixed-use, industrial, hotel, medical, retail and sports facilities, as well as large, master-planned communities and land developments.  With offices in 67 U.S. cities and 15 foreign countries, and controlled assets valued at approximately $16 billion, Hines is one of the largest real estate organizations in the world. Visit www.hines.com for more information.