KANSAS CITY, MO-LaSalle Investment Management has purchased a 702,000-sf distribution facility here, to be fully leased by a division of Guitar Center Inc., from Panattoni Development Co. Completed for $45 million for Musician's Friend, the newly constructed building includes 20,000-sf of office space and a 15,000-sf retail showroom space.

Musician's Friend is almost tripling its space, moving from 252,000 sf at Executive Park about 10 miles southwest of the new building. The company now has a 10-year lease at the new building, in the 2,200-acre Northland Park. "There's an intermodal facility not to far away," says John Rose, managing director of the Dallas office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP. "I think they wanted to expand into an area that's close to highways, near central Kansas City." His firm arranged a 10-year, $24.2-million loan for the purchase of the property for LaSalle. Rose says he cannot divulge the purchase price of the property.

Musician's Friend will employ more than 520 people at the facility, which has the capacity to expand to one million sf, according to the Kansas City Area Development Council. Rose says he could not comment on the lease rate being paid by the tenant. The average asking lease rate for distribution/warehouse space in the Kansas City area is $2.89 per sf, according to a fourth-quarter CB Richard Ellis report.