$17M Office Buy Marks AmeriVest Inroad

Seller Cross Timbers Capital Inc. of Dallas developed the 2201 W. Royal Lane property in 1999 and refinanced the debt in August 2002 with a 10-year note at a 7.1% fixed-rate interest from New York City-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to a GlobeSt.com archived article. AmeriVest bought the 95.8%-leased, class A building at first-year cap rate of 9.4%.

To land the Las Colinas asset, AmeriVest took a slight turn from its normal operating procedure by acquiring an asset with just 11 tenants and an average lease of 10,000 sf. The sweet spot is no leases roll until 2006, John Greenman, AmeriVest's chief acquisitions officer, tells GlobeSt.com. He says he's been looking for awhile at Las Colinas, but the right opportunity just wasn't there.

"It was a combination of high-quality product, location and stabilization of the rent roll with the ability to over time become a small tenant-oriented building," Greenman says of the attributes that drove AmeriVest to join in the Hackberry View chase steered by David Tuttle with Marcus & Millichap in Dallas. The office building, assessed at $10.5 million, is situated on 5.2 acres near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Hackberry Country Club golf course.

AmeriVest isn't planning any immediate capital expenditures, but will make interior changes down the road in keeping with its signature "Smart Space for Small Business," which always includes dedicated common space for a conference room and technological upgrades with corporate-style services for small office users.

The purchase pushes AmeriVest's North Texas holdings to four, totaling 680,000 sf in multi-tenant office buildings in Uptown, Plano and Addison and now Las Colinas. "We are by no means at capacity," Greenman says of AmeriVest's eye to buy in North Texas. He says he's actively looking in select DFW submarkets, hoping "to at least double the number in a couple years."