Nimbus Oaks Sells for $25M

Located at 9000 – 9560 SW Nimbus Ave., the 20-year-old park sits across Highway 217 from Washington Square Mall. The park is 94% occupied, but pending leases are expected to take that to 98% by the end of June, while the Washington Square submarket as a whole has an average occupancy of about 92%.

The net blended asking lease rate for the remaining space at Nimbus--about 4,100 sf--is $1.20 per sf per month. Current tenants include DEX Media, XO Communications, Alpha Community Development, Acrymed Inc. and Arrow Electronics.

"This property is a strong performer," says M. James Mark, CEO of the Melvin Mark Cos., which has co-owned the development since the early 1990s. "Over the past two years, the partnership has invested over $3.5 million in the property, which has paid off in very low vacancy rates and strong tenant relationships."

Melvin Mark Cos. has developed, owned and managed property in Portland since 1945. It currently owns or manages for third parties about 2.8 million sf of commercial space in the metro area.

The Kruse Way-Washington Square area south of Portland was the first area to fully recover from the economic downturn in the first half of the decade. The recovery has been pushing north and west into the tech-heavy Sunset Corridor west of Portland, where average vacancy had been in the 30% range.

For example, Melvin Mark in February sold Evergreen Corporate Center, a Sunset Corridor flex-office park that is 55% larger than Nimbus Oaks, for the same price as the Nimbus Oaks. The discount was due to the fact that Evergreen's four buildings were more than half empty at the time of sale. The new owner of Evergreen is Broadreach Capital Partners of Palo Alto, CA.

Schnitzer Investment Corp. also has been a net seller as of late, looking to capitalize on pricing that may mark the peak of the market. The company owns about eight million sf in 100 properties across the US, primarily in the Pacific Northwest. Its portfolio includes business parks, industrial and warehouse properties, office buildings, multifamily residential properties, and vacant land. Schnitzer also has interests in US flag shipping operations, publicly traded REITs and hotels.

At the end of April, citing local sources, GlobeSt.com reported that Schnitzer Investment Corp. had agreed to sell its 2.3-million-sf Columbia Business Center on the Columbia River in Vancouver, WA, to Portland-based Killian Pacific. The 26-building industrial-flex property is more than 90% leased to national and regional tenants. The negotiated is believed to be somewhere between $55 per sf and $60 per sf, which equates to between $126.5 million and $138 million. The sale has not yet closed, according to local sources familiar with the transaction.

Pat Schreck and Tim Parker of Melvin Mark Brokerage Co. represented all parties in the Nimbus Oaks transaction.