SoCal Firm Takes $12M Ticket for Inroad

FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ-In its first area transaction, CT Realty Corp. of Newport Beach, CA has acquired the 31,000-sf Firerock Office Center and Retail Shops on 3.4 acres for $8.54 million from a joint venture partnership. Another $4 million has changed hands for an abutting 3.73-acre tract for a planned 32,000-sf office project.

The sellers of 17110 E. Shea Blvd. are Shea Boulevard LLC and Collegiate Partners I LLC, both from nearby Scottsdale. "Groundbreaking on that is scheduled for January 2007 and we hope to deliver them on July 1, 2007," says Samuel Haynes, CT Realty's vice president. "Fountain Hills is a bedroom community with a lot of private business people and entrepreneurs. We're finding there are a lot of people there who are tired of commuting to Scottsdale or Phoenix for office space."

In addition to the land, another lure of the asset is the fully leased existing development. "The buildings are in great shape. The previous owners did a great job with them, which is one reason why we were attracted to them," Haynes tells GlobeSt.com. He adds that the lease roll also is reassuring because no large users are scheduled to up and leave anytime soon.

Haynes says Firerock became available at almost the ideal time for CT Realty Corp. because it had wanted to enter the Phoenix market for awhile. "This kind of popped up," he says, "and we thought this would be the time to do it."

CT Realty's "product appetite" is broad-based plus it takes on a lot of infill projects. Haynes says Fountain Hills isn't exactly "infill," but it's a developing market. "It's a great market and this was an existing product with an income stream," he says. "It allowed us the ability to buy into an existing income stream and develop new product."

Mark Phillips with Sperry Van Ness' Phoenix office represented the seller. CT Realty was self-represented.