Daimler Group Plans Three Offices for $38M

The public-private partnership plans to build three office buildings on the Water's Edge site, including two buildings at 108,000 sf for $15 million each, and then a 60,000 sf office building for $8.5 million, says Jennifer Chrysler, director of the village's community development. The spec buildings would total about 276,000 sf.

The village has about 1.5 million sf of office space, but most of it is used by companies taking up 200,000 sf and more, Chrysler tells GlobeSt.com. "We don't have much of a multi-tenant community, our speculative office already built is about 85% leased," she says. "We get a lot of requests for space, and we'd like to be able to respond to some of the demand for users of 10,000 sf and up. It would be nice to expand our portfolio."

She says there are a couple users already lined up for the first building. "I can't talk about who the are, but I can confirm they are technology orientated," Chrysler says. Though the village is looking to find smaller users, they would accept a build-to-suit tenant for the buildings, she says. She says she couldn't say yet what the lease rates would be at the buildings. The average office lease rate for the village is $18.87 per sf, according to a second quarter Grubb & Ellis report.

The first building should start late this year, Chrysler says. The village is also offering, through an economic development agreement, a property tax abatement for 10 years for the buildings. New Albany has also set aside another $200,000 for incentives for future tenants of the Water's Edge site, for programs like relocation grants and revolving loan programs.

The Columbus-based Daimler has been busy in the area. The company is about to start construction on a five-story, 141,121-sf speculative office building at 915 Oletangy River Rd. in Columbus. The building is going up just south of a 160,000-sf office building that the company built for Time Warner for $30 million. A spokesman for the company did not return calls for comment.