Edward Jones Pays $14.4 Mil for Motorola Center

TEMPE, AZ-Edward Jones & Co., the St. Louis-based financial services firm, has shelled out $14.4 million for Motorola’s 97,686-sf training center in the Arizona State University Research Park in Tempe. Motorola is selling off and subleasing its office building stock amid a nationwide downsizing.

The Edward Jones purchase at 8333 S. River Parkway neighbors a Motorola-controlled data center.

The four-year-old building, built by Motorola, was on the market two months before Edward Jones inked its purchase option, William Blake, founding principal of Lee & Associates Arizona, tells GlobeSt.com. The new owner is familiar with the property, having leased classroom space periodically from Motorola.

Blake and Lee & Associates’ Craig Coppola represented Motorola in the sale. Mike Haenel and Larry Downey, both of Grubb & Ellis Co.’s Phoenix office, negotiated on behalf of Edward Jones.

Edward Jones started moving into the center as soon as the ink dried on the closing papers, says Blake. The park is situated in Southeast Tempe, right along the Price Freeway.

Meanwhile, Blake and Coppola still have a job cut out for them as they scour for sublease tenants for 70,000 sf of back-office space and another 132,000-sf building that Motorola wants to fill. The three-year-old, 132,000-sf, class A building, also in the research park, is owned by an Atlanta-based REIT.

“They are two good properties,” Blake says. And, he adds, there are several “interested parties” starting to surface for the top-of-the-line space. In all, Motorola owns or leases some 8 million sf in the Tempe area. With the building sale, the sublease space is “it for now,” he confides.