KOIN Center Trades Below Loan Value

PORTLAND-New York Life Insurance Inc. has sold a downtown class A office building here this week for less than it was owed. The lender took back the 415,000-square-foot (net rentable) building from a CalPERS joint venture that paid $108 million for the 25-year-old property and two adjacent parcels in 2007 using a $70-million acquisition loan that went into default this summer.

The new owner is America Pacific International Capital Inc., a multi-national private corporation that has been headquartered in Portland since 1998. Company chairman Wilson Chen tells GlobeSt.com the short-sale price was between $50 million and $60 million.

The CalPERS JV that gave the building back included Commonwealth Partners. The foreclosure proceedings by New York Life led to the appointment of a locally-based receiver who subsequently retained the brokerage firm Eastdil Secured to sell building.

Located at 222 SW Columbia, KOIN Center has 23,000 square feet of street-level retail, 324,000 square feet of office space on floors four through 19, and 44 residential condominiums on the top 11 floors that were not included in the either sale. Below grade are 68,000 square feet of studio and broadcast facilities for KOIN-TV, the local CBS affiliate, and parking for 300 vehicles. Major tenants include KOIN-TV, Aetna Life Insurance, First American Title Insurance, AIG Domestic Claims, Inc., Lucy Activewear, Inc., Bank of the West, Willis of Oregon, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP, Pacific Continental Bank, Morton’s of Chicago and Charles Schwab.

There is currently 72,000 square feet of available space in the building, the largest contiguous availability being 19,000 square feet on the 17th floor, according to officespace.com. The full-service asking lease rate range is $26- to $29.50 per square foot per year.

The new owner, America Pacific International Capital, describes itself as having assisted d several public and private Chinese companies in pursuing both investment opportunities and business expansions, including merger and acquisitions.

Included in the 2007 sale of KOIN Center were two adjacent parcels. They included 140 SW Columbia St., a full-block immediately east of the office tower that is slated for a high-rise office tower that has been marketed as 100 Columbia, and 202-218 SW Jefferson St., a half-block parcel immediately north of the office tower that held the former headquarters of Pendleton Woolen Mills but has been envisioned as a residential high rise.

Chen tells GlobeSt.com in a brief interview Wednesday morning that his company’s acquisition of KOIN Center did not included those two additional parcels. Chen also says he is considering moving his company’s offices into KOIN Center in the future.

Going forward, KOIN Center will be managed by APIC’s subsidiary APIC Property Management LLC. The individual property manager will continue to be Ron Beltz, who has been the VP of KOIN Center for approximately 15 years. Beltz, formerly with Louis Dreyfus Corp., was not immediately be reached Wednesday morning for comment. Also not immediately available Wednesday morning was Jeffrey Sackett of Capstone Partners, which reportedly looked at acquiring KOIN Center but walked away when the price crested $50 million.