Firm Acquires Darien Green for $19M

The Darien Green property totals 81,283 sf and is fully leased. Earlier this year Normandy Real Estate sold its only Connecticut holding at the time--the seven-building, 145-190-sf Riverside Properties portfolio in Westport--to Investcorp for approximately $55 million. In March 2003, Normandy and partner Lexham Private Investors of Stamford acquired the Riverside Properties portfolio for $37 million.

Jeffrey Dunne and Steven Bardsley of CB Richard Ellis represented Fairfield Darien Green and also procured the buyer in the deal. "We were attracted to the asset because of its quality and stable cash flow and the opportunity to enhance value in the near term," says David Welsh, managing partner of Normandy Real Estate Partners.

Normandy has purchased more than 2.5 million sf of space valued at more than $1 billion since its founding in 2002. In July, the company acquired 2100 North Central Road in Fort Lee, NJ for $33.7 million.

W&M Properties executive vice president Jeffrey H. Newman says Darien Green consists of two buildings. 320 Post Road East is a 50,000-sf building that is occupied by Alcone Marketing Group, a subsidiary of Omnicom. 330 Darien Green is a 35,000-sf building that is fully leased by health care publishing firm Cliggott Publishing. A third tenant occupies a portion of the complex under a sublease.

Newman says that the Malkins took controlling interest in Darien Green in 1997 and since then completed a number of upgrades to the property. W&M had served as the property manager for the property prior to the sale.

CBRE's Dunne notes that the new ownership acquired "a reliable income stream, given the quality of the tenants, and a quality property immediately accessible to Interstate 95 which occupies an ideal location from which to draw executive-level tenants from neighboring towns." Darien Green was named "the Office Building of the Year" for 1999 by the Building Owners and Managers Association's Westchester and Fairfield Chapter.