PLEASANTON, CA—Meridian acquired The Atrium located at 5776 Stoneridge Mall Rd. in January of 2015. At the time of the acquisition, the building was 100% leased to more than 50 tenants. The rents in the building averaged approximately 25% below the current market rents at that time. During its ownership, Meridian renewed or replaced approximately 60% of the tenants in the building.

In addition, Meridian made more than $1 million in capital improvements to the building. Meridian has recently closed escrow on this 74,000-square-foot multi-tenant office building for $15.5 million, representing a cap rate of slightly less than 7%.

“This presented an opportunity for Meridian to modestly improve a building that had been owned by the previous owners since 1992. With an average tenant size of less than 2,000 square feet and loyal, long-term tenants, our plan was to increase the average rent in the property towards the prevailing market rent while giving tenants more value with our improvements. We acquired the project with the current property manager, Tony Long of Spectrum Interests, in place. Tony had very strong relationships with the tenants and knew this property like the back of his hand. He was crucial to our success at this property,” says Meridian's general office division senior vice president Dan Rosenbaum. “This acquisition, reposition and sale are a perfect model for the value-add general office platform that we formally launched when I joined the firm this past spring. Joe Crist, acquisition manager for Meridian's medical office division in Northern California, championed this deal for Meridian. It is a credit to him that we were able to buy, improve and sell this property in less than two years.”

Simon Vogt of Lee & Associates sourced the property for Meridian, as well as assisting in the leasing efforts during ownership. Vince Schwab and Collin White of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller. The buyer, a private investor based in San Francisco, was represented by Steve Song of Bay Properties in Oakland, CA.

“Many owners and developers in the greater Bay Area are focusing exclusively on developing or repositioning office buildings for the larger high-growth companies for which the area is well known,” Rosenbaum tells GlobeSt.com. “We see the opportunity to give smaller, more-stable tenants a similar quality of space and experience through a repeatable, thoughtful approach. Our construction and entitlement capacities as a developer of both office and medical office lend themselves to this new line of business. Our access to capital, primarily through our parent, Marcus & Millichap Company, is a critical resource in all investment climates.”

Meridian is a full-service real estate developer and owner of general and medical office properties, and is in talks about a multi-location roll out with a major healthcare provider. The rollout involves building on smaller shopping center pads that are the size that are traditionally used by single-tenant retailers and financial institutions.

“Meridian has a healthy pipeline with a half dozen projects currently in escrow, more than a dozen letters of intent outstanding and several completed projects listed for sale across our healthcare and general office business platforms. With more than 150,000 square feet currently in development/redevelopment, plus another 500,000 square feet in the acquisition pipeline, we are still looking for more. We really have an appetite for land and buildings where we can bring our expertise to bear and create value,” adds John Pollock, Meridian's COO.

Instant Insights /

Appetite for Value Leads Investor to Buy, Improve and Sell Quickly

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