School Board Expected to Put 230,000-SF HQ Building in Play

The school district wants to sell the high-profile property and build or lease a less visible headquarters site, School Superintendent Ronald Blocker has previously disclosed. The school district is one of Orlando's largest landowners with a portfolio of 3,586 acres. The district, with 166 schools and 20 planned new locations, is the 16th largest in the nation and the fifth largest in Florida.

The school board is considering asking the most recent county appraisal figure as a starting price for its headquarters building--$28.9 million or $126 per sf.

"If that's what they want and that's what they get, it would still be a good deal for the board and an even better deal for the buyer," Dean Fritchen, senior associate, Arvida Realty Services Commercial Division, Winter Park, FL, tells GlobeSt.com.

That's because the $28.9 million would be below the estimated replacement cost of $34.5 million or about $150 per sf to build a new class A office building. "And I'm not so sure you could do it for $150 per sf anymore, either," Fritchen adds. "It could be higher but certainly not lower."

Thrown in as part of the sale would be the remaining seven-year lease of Lynx's 10-year lease on two floors at an estimated rent of $18 per sf. Lynx now pays the school district $918,000 a year rent.

But even at current market value, selling the copper-hued structure in a week investment market environment will challenge the brokerage community, other area brokers tell GlobeSt.com.

"A lot depends on what kind of physical condition the property is in and how much retrofitting would have to be done for a new user," Ted Gibbons, president, Investment Realty Advisors Inc., Boca Raton, FL and Bellevue, WA, tells GlobeSt.com.

Gibbons suspects the same may be true for the 1.1 million-sf, 17-year-old Agere Inc. computer manufacturing plant on John Young Parkway in south Orlando if Agere decides to have professional brokers sell the property instead of trying to do it alone.

Gibbons ought to know. He was a participating broker last week in the $18.5 million sale of another high-tech property--the one-year-old, 100%-leased, 102,239-sf Sprint PCS Regional Communications Center in Maitland.

Beverly Hills, CA-based investor Jud Ireland bought the complex for $180.77 per SF, the highest per-sf-price for an office property in Orlando in the past 15 years at least, according to GlobeSt.com research. Sprint had invested $9 million in upgrading the building last November.