"This company has experienced explosive growth in the last couple of years and felt they needed a presence in Arizona," Pete Wentis, with CB Richard Ellis Inc. in Phoenix tells GlobeSt.com. "They wanted a nice, clean campus environment close to amenities and our Chandler office park offered all of those."

Built in 2001, the two-building, class A office complex is located on 26 acres at 2555 W. Chandler Blvd., near Chandler's Fashion Center Mall and the Loop 101. Wentis said the nearby retail shops and restaurants along with easy freeway access and a strong employee base were factors in the Calabasas, CA, financial institution's decision to purchase the property.

As part of the deal, Countrywide also secured an 18-month option to purchase an additional 10 acres that would allow the firm to build an additional 150,000 sf of office space, bringing its Chandler facilities up to 225,000 sf, Wentis said. Countrywide, which is expected to employ about 400 people at the new facility, is scheduled to move into the space in August. It will use the Chandler location to expand its processing, underwriting and servicing operations from California and Texas, with some space dedicated to disaster recovery.

Countrywide was assisted in the purchase by Jim Travers of Travers Realty in Los Angeles and Karsten Peterson, previously with the Phoenix office of Insignia/ESG. Wentis, along with Brad Anderson, Luke Walker and Kevin Cosca, all with CB Richard Ellis' Phoenix office, represented the building's owner, Lowe Enterprises of Brentwood, CA, and TIAA-CREF in New York City.