Dealmaker: Transwestern Brokers Two Office Property Deals Totaling $29M

Transwestern, Houston, brokered two recent sales, in Jacksonville, Fla. and Highlands Ranch, Colo., totaling $29 million.

In downtown Jacksonville, LNR Partners, Miami Beach, Fla., sold the 18-story BB&T Tower to Talara Investment Group LLC, led by Ash Properties, Jacksonville.

The 285,500-square-foot asset at 200 W. Forsyth Street traded on the Ten-X auction platform.

Transwestern Managing Director John Bell marketed the asset, which has received $3.8 million in recent property upgrades including north Florida’s first “destination dispatch” elevators, which group passengers for the same destination into the same elevator car to reduce wait times.

Bell called the listing an opportunity for the buyer to acquire a Class A property with value-add characteristics. “It is 63 percent leased with in-place income, positioned to experience an expedited lease-up with new and committed long-term ownership,” he said. “In addition, the property offers a prospective anchor tenant signage at the top of one of downtown’s most prominent locations, a rare point of differentiation.”

In Colorado, Transwestern helped LNR Partners sell EastRidge Medical Office Building to NexGen Properties, Greenwood Village, Colo., for $4.7 million. Brad Cohen, Larry Thiel and Lauren Quiram of Transwestern’s Denver Capital Markets Group brokered the transaction.

Built in 2005, the 23,000-square-foot medical office property is 89 percent leased to nine tenants.

“It’s rare that a bank-owned medical office building comes on the market, much less in Highlands Ranch where there are only 11 medical buildings total, so this asset generated a substantial amount of interest among investors,” Cohen said.

NexGen Director of Acquisitions and Asset Management Matt Bernstein said the firm plans to add value to the building by improving its position in the marketplace and monetizing unfinished space in its lower level.