Dealmaker: Cleveland’s Skylight Office Tower Changes Hands for $35M

Forest City Enterprises, Cleveland, sold the Skylight Office Tower in downtown Cleveland to Hertz Acquisition Group, Santa Monica, Calif., for $35.4 million.

Neither firm disclosed further financing details. 

Forest City developed the 12-story Class A tower at 1660 West Second Street in 1991 as part of Tower City Center, a 34-acre mixed-use development connected to The Avenue Shops, a fully enclosed urban retail center.

The 340,000-square-foot property sits within blocks of hotels including the Ritz Carlton and Renaissance and adjacent to casinos, restaurants and shopping. A fully enclosed “Walkway to Gateway” skywalk connects the building to two professional sports stadiums, Quicken Loans Arena and Progressive Field and 80 percent of Cleveland’s public bus lines terminate in front of Tower City.

Forest City President and CEO David LaRue said his firm plans to sell other assets as well to improve its balance sheet and debt metrics. “[These] non-core dispositions also focus our portfolio on core products in the strongest urban markets,” he said.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Forest City plans to ask shareholders to vote on changing the company C-corporation to real estate investment trust status by the end of the year.