The REIT had acquired the land in the Hilltop Business Center in January for $2.5 million, after committing to buy it in May 2000. The sale is part of a planned move to leave Colorado in order to concentrate on the northeast market.
The New Jersey-based REIT owns 1.8 million sf in the Denver area and Colorado Springs. In addition to the Hilltop land, which is approved for a four-story, 128,000-sf, class-A building, it owns about 20 buildings in the state. Most holdings are flex-office buildings.
Mack-Cali had entered the Colorado market in a big way in 1998 by paying $180 million for 1.4 million sf from Pacifica Holdings Corp. It had represented one of the largest industrial office portfolio purchases ever made in Colorado.
"At the time we committed to this (Hilltop) property, we planned to use this site to expand our presence in the Colorado market," says Mitchell E. Hersch, Mack-Cali's CEO says. "However, in September 2000, we announced our decision to sell all of our assets in Colorado and exit the market as part of our capital recycling program." He says the acquisition had been completed to protect the non-refundable deposit and other pre-development costs" that had been incurred during the contract period. "Consistent with our focused northeast strategy, we anticipate selling this site along with our other Colorado assets, which we plan to market for sale within the next twelve months," says Hersch.
© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to asset-and-logo-licensing@alm.com. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
