Genesis Pays $53.5 Mil for AutoNation Tower

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL-The 30-story, 390,320-sf AutoNation Tower at 110 SE 6th St. is the prized trophy today of Dallas-based Genesis Capital Advisors LLC, a real estate advisor to offshore pension funds.

Genesis paid Corporate Properties Holdings Inc. $53.5 million or $137.06 per sf for the asset at 110 SE 6th St. Corporate Properties is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AutoNation.

Although the total price is a one-building record for Broward County, on a per sf basis it is in line with recent sales in the market, according to industry sources. The price might even be at the lower end of the spectrum if this were a straight sale and not a sale-leaseback.

As part of the transaction, Cushman Wakefield’s Miami office, which negotiated the sale, also arranged for the seller to lease back the entire building for 10 years. No dollar figures for the lease were released but comparable Downtown space rents average $27.53 per sf gross. That would bring the aggregate value of the leaseback to more than $100 million.

AutoNation, which owns the country’s largest network of new-car dealerships, has been selling non-essential real estate since it decided to shut down 23 used-car superstores last year.

Under the leaseback, it will have the opportunity to continue its occupancy of more than half of the tower’s space.

Other current tenants, who will continue to sublease from AutoNation, include the law firm of Tripp, Scott, Conklin & Smith, the Florida Department of Legal Affairs, Republic Services and Mellon United National Bank. About 5% of the space is vacant.

The 12-year-old brown-granite-clad structure is across from the county courthouse, making the asset attractive for legal tenants. AutoNation, then known as Republic Industries, gained control of the property when it bought Alamo Rent-A-Car in 1997.

Alamo, which was the tower’s largest tenant at the time, had a lease that included a purchase option that it exercised in 1994 for about $30 million. The seller was Travelers Insurance Co., which had been the primary lender. Travelers took over ownership by foreclosure in 1990 when developers Herbert Sadkin and Arthur Franza ran into financial difficulties.