Wilcox Capital Partners Parlay $30M-Plus Offer Into Class A Win

The two-building office complex at 4100-4160 International Plaza is clearly a value-add play, says the Dallas-based buyer, who was up against a dozen other offers for an 85%-leased asset that's on the verge of dipping to the high 60% range. "We're rapidly working on the backfill," Todd K. Ashbrook, COO for Wilcox Capital Partners, tells GlobeSt.com about an 80,000-sf block that's coming back at the end of August when Atlanta-based United Parcel Service Inc.'s lease expires. He says Wilcox's sister firm, GVA Cawley Realty Services, has 50,000 sf under negotiation for the class A complex, which is being marketed at $16 per sf plus electric.

Barry Brown, managing director for Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP's Dallas office, says the leasing activity created "a lot of moving pieces" that delayed the deal's closing. The Chicago-based CMD Realty Investors put the 21.5-acre asset and an extra four-acre tract on the market in fall 2004 in a routine fund close-out of a nine-year hold of the three-building asset--a pair of nine-story towers, totaling 417,465 sf, and a single-story structure with 30,452 sf.

Brown says Wilcox wasn't the top offer of the dozen that rolled in from local and regional entrepreneurial, private equity investors. "From the standpoint of surety of close, we felt they were the best group to go with," says Brown, who partnered with HFF managing director Jim Batjer to sell the holding.

Ashbrook says Wilcox put together a partnership of eight investors from Dallas/Fort Worth to seed the acquisition, bought on a free-and-clear basis. The deal, negotiated by Bill Cawley with GVA Cawley, included the land that CMD bought for additional parking for UPS, which moved into the complex just five years ago. "It's possible there may be some additional development or it could be used to accommodate a heavy parking user," Ashbrook says. There's added incentive to develop because Overton Centre sits right at the interchange of the planned Texas 121T with Interstate 20.

Overton Centre is Wilcox's third purchase and second office property in Fort Worth in three years. "We just feel like the timing is right to buy in Fort Worth," John Conger, managing partner of GVA Cawley Realty Services.

"These are 25-year-old buildings, but they're in great shape," Ashbrook says, adding no immediate renovation is planned. Overton Centre has about 30 tenants on the roster. Other top space takers are Lockheed Martin Corp. and CBCA Administrators Inc., an insurance plan manager, each occupying 40,000 sf.

With the Fort Worth portfolio now resting at 846,882 sf, Conger says a local office opens today in Overton Centre. John Grace, previously with Dalcan Management Services, has come on board to head up the leasing drive for Overton Centre and Ridgelea Bank Building and build a Fort Worth team of tenant reps for the future. Joan Matteson, who was CMD's property manager, was hired to manage both office properties. "Our plan is to grow the Fort Worth office with acquisitions and third-party management and leasing," he says. "Fort Worth has a lot of potential for future relocations and growth companies."