Griffin Partners of Houston has joined forces with Urdang Capital Management in Plymouth Meeting, PA to buy the 85%-leased, class A building at 1301 Fannin St. for the value-add opportunity it presents in the CBD. "There's vacancy on the property we think will be valuable. And, we'll have little trouble leasing it up in the current market," says Edward Griffin, president of the local firm.
Griffin tells GlobeSt.com that the mix of tenants also was attractive from an investment perspective. It consists of Fortune 500 and government tenants, which are on a staggered roll. Major tenants are ExxonMobil Corp., AIM Management Group and JPMorgan Chase Bank. The fact that about one-half of the building's space is dedicated to a data center didn't hurt its appeal, either. When the building came on line in the early 1980s, it was the former operations center for First City National Bank.
The San Diego-based Shidler Group, which had bought the building in 1998 for $60 million, has invested more than $5 million into upgrades. The new owner says there are no further renovations planned.
Griffin says the building's upside potential is its occupancy and rents. "The market occupancy as a whole is north of 90%. The occupancy of the building is in the lower-to-mid 80s range, which is an opportunity to lease up space," he says. With market rents rising, he says some of the lower rates in the building can be increased as well.
Adam Edwards and Daniel Broderick with Eastdil Secured's San Diego office represented Shidler, led by Matt Root, and the New York City-based Angelo, Gordon & Co. Griffin Partners, which handled its side of the bargaining, will lease and manage the asset.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.