Kaufman Financial Group of Michigan looked at 2301 E. Lamar two years ago, from a leasing perspective. It looked again in early 2002, again with leasing in mind. Last July, negotiations turned to acquisition talks. "It made sense as an investment," Drew Kaplan, senior managing director in Dallas for Insignia/ESG, tells GlobeSt.com. He and Marijke Lantz, senior managing director of property services, represented the buyer.

Kaufman's plan is to fill the top floor, 17,000 sf, with its operating company, Burns & Wilcox Ltd., which now offices in the nearby Copeland Tower. Finish-out is underway; moving day is to take place before the quarter ends. With its parent in charge, Burns & Wilcox gets its name on the building.

Kaplan says other buildings were surveyed, but Kaufman wanted Brookhollow One. "It's a well-located building on what we think is the best street in that submarket," he says. "The lease-up risk is small enough that it justifies it (the purchase)."

The class A office building is a 1983 product bought by Macfarlan in January 1999, along with two other Brookhollow buildings, in a partnership with Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund III. Brookhollow One fell on hard times hit in summer 2000 when St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance turned out the lights on 65,000 sf.

Stream Realty Partner of Dallas recovered about 30,000 sf of the lost space, Helen Rivero, Macfarlan's director of asset management, tells GlobeSt.com. In October 2002, the Department of Veterans Affairs took over a full floor. Under the new owner's plans, only the fourth floor will be vacant. Brookhollow One has been leasing at $20 per sf, with it and its sister buildings bringing in the top rents in the submarket. Insignia/ESG's Dennis Barnes and Rick Rensi will take over management and leasing for Brookhollow One.

Rivero, who represented Macfarlan, confirmed Brookhollow One wasn't for sale. "It made sense for it to be owner-occupied," she says. "It was a unique opportunity in a difficult market for both buyer and seller." But, she adds, "for sale" signs aren't going up on the 145,000-sf Brookhollow Two at 2221 E. Lamar Blvd. and 119,000-sf Brookhollow Riverside at 2505 State Highway 360 in Grand Prairie. Both will continue to be managed by Macfarlan and leased by Stream.