PHOENIX-A purchase offer is the latest chapter in the troubled story about a 530,856-sf build-to-suit plant for Le-Nature Inc. Financial details of the offer aren't available, but an unidentified beverage company has offered to buy the real estate and equipment.
Harry Davis & Co. of Pittsburgh and Gordon Brothers Group LLC of Boston are still scheduled to auction the equipment at 9:30 a.m. Thursday at Le-Nature's 30-acre plant at 615 N. 48th St. Peter Klees, senior vice president with Grubb & Ellis/BRE Commercial LLC's Phoenix office, tells GlobeSt.com that the latest offer for the Phoenix plant needs a little massaging, but there was a court hearing over the equipment on last Friday's docket. The outcome was pending at deadline. "Once that hearing takes place, and the offer is discussed, I think there'll be a lot more headway on this," Klees says.
Klees and Grubb & Ellis senior vice president Tony Lydon and vice president Steve Mardian got the assignment in July to market the building for lease or for sale from Le-Nature's receiver, Michael Wilson, a property manager from nearby Scottsdale. LNR Property Corp., the building's lender, filed for foreclosure in Arizona Superior Court in June, roughly six months after Latrobe, PA-based Le-Nature filed bankruptcy.
The Phoenix asset is on the market without an asking price although its rent quote is 95 cents per sf. CB Richard Ellis previously had the assignment and was marketing it for $104 million on behalf of Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis Investors LLC.
Le-Nature's headquarters and primary production site at 11 Lloyd Ave. in Latrobe in western Pennsylvania was sold in early August to Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle Inc. Because of the Phoenix asset's unique situation, Klees doesn't foresee an immediate closing even if its purchase offer is accepted by all parties. "I have to think that even if this thing were to materialize next week, the buyer would want the balance of the third and fourth quarter to get their arms around the situation before they close," he adds.
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