SMA Equities Pockets Overlook at Las Colinas

The uptick in the Las Colinas office market proved to be an extra boon, with the 95,510-sf building's occupancy climbing 7% and its class A rate gaining up to $1 per sf as SMA headed into the final negotiating stretch with Hartford, CT-based Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, an affiliate of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. When the dust settled, SMA began its reign of the urban center prize at 251 O'Connor Ridge Blvd. with 92% occupancy and new rates of $19 per sf to $21 per sf.

"The play in this building is more a long-term hold. The long-term prospects for it are very good," says John Alvarado, managing director of investment sales for Jones Lang LaSalle. "There are leases in place that are already well below market. The owner has to hold onto those leases for a couple years and then they'll flip to higher rents."

Transwestern retained the leasing assignment, bringing the Bruning law firms, now at 3102 Maple Ave. in Dallas, to the three-story building's top floor as the acquisition pushed toward closing. The building primarily houses smaller offices in a niche mix of regional and local firms heavily weighted by the financial services' industry. The lead tenant is Darling International Inc., which has its headquarters in 26,772 sf.

Alvarado says the new owner, like the tenants, was drawn to the location. "It's a very unique location, overlooking the golf course and Four Seasons," he says. "It's one of the few irreplaceable locations in Irving because of that."

Alvarado tells GlobeSt.com that SMA Equities' principal Sina Mahfar brought other partners to the deal as he so often does, syndicating the equity and taking down new debt to make the close. "He did that in this case as well. And, did it very quickly," he says, adding the equity partners are all New York-area investors.

JLL's Jack Crews, also a managing director, and Alvarado began the sales campaign under the Trammell Crow Co. name and edged it right up to the finish line as a CB Richard Ellis team. It closed it two days ago, rolling the fourth deed in the Dallas area into the New York City-based SMA's portfolio.

Crews says the Overlook's marketing lasted 30 days, with the interest being stirred by the building's quality and location as well as the residential construction that's underway or on the planning docket for a long-time favored pocket of regional offices and headquarters for corporate America. Cornerstone owned the 22-year-old building, situated on 4.67 acres, nearly a decade.