DEERFIELD, IL-CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust, a subsidiary of Los Angeles-based CBRE, has purchased its first Chicago office property here in a $25 million deal for a 100,000-square-foot property. Ten Parkway North is 100% leased to Richmond, VA-based Markel Corp., an insurance firm.

 The John Buck Co. had purchased the building, along with the other five office buildings in the Parkway North Office Park, from a partnership of Blackstone and the New York State Teachers Retirement System in 2008 for about $169 million. At the time there were only five buildings on the site with about 775,000 square feet, resulting in a purchase price of about $228 per square foot, meaning Buck made a slight profit on this recent sale.The three-story Ten Parkway was built in 1999.

 Phil Kianka, EVP and COO with the trust, tells GlobeSt.com that it has been difficult to find a good property in Chicago. “We’ve been looking, but we’ve not been very successful,” he says. “We’ve been finding other opportunities in other locations, we have 84 properties across the country, the United Kingdom and Europe. We do like this property, we’re happy about the park that it’s in.”

 Parkway North is 91% occupied, with tenants such as United Stationers Supply, Astellas US LLCand Fujisawa. Kianka says this result is much better than the local North Shore market, which has a vacancy of more than 23%. “It’s still a significantly bifurcated market. There’s a good stream of buyers looking for good income-flowing assets. We try to avoid the bidding wars, which only benefit the seller. We’ve been an active buyer over the past three years, there’s definitely been a flight to quality,” he says.

The trust also owns a 185,000-square-foot industrial building in Bolingbrook, IL, purchased in 2007. In September, the trust acquired the 208,000-square-foot 100 Tice Blvd. building in Woodcliff Lake, NJ for about $67.6 million. The property is fully occupied, used as pharmaceutical maker Eisai Inc.’s North American headquarters.