Ann Arbor, MI-based Borders will continue to occupy the property under a triple net lease with a 15-year term. BentleyForbes paid roughly $7 million for the 15-acre property, which includes a single tilt-up concrete building built in 1992. The office portion of the structure is 6,016 sf or 3.5 percent of the total space.
The asset is located in about six miles southwest of Columbus in Grove City, OH, a major Midwestern commercial and industrial centers and an increasingly important national distribution centers.
According to BentleyForbes spokesman Paul Sewell, the company's first transaction with Borders was more a matter of the right seller at the right time than the advancement of any grand strategy. "It just looked like a good deal, a good opportunity to buy a piece of property that would give us a reliable location and a reliable tenant," he tells GlobeSt.com. "We're interested in anything that meets our criteria. We like the single tenants. We like the industrial properties, especially where buildings like this one in Columbus is concerned."
With more than $2.2 billion in assets, primarily through subsidiaries Borders Inc., Walden Book Co. and Books etc., Borders Group operates more than 1,200 stores in the US, UK, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and Puerto Rico. Its online sales for the first three quarters of 2001 totaled $2.18 billion.
"Borders has the reputation for quality service and management known throughout the business community," says BentleyForbes president C. Frederick Wehba II. "And our ability to stake a presence in this great Midwestern industrial and distribution center reflects well on BentleyForbes' reputation for wise investment practices."
BentleyForbes has traditionally specialized in sale/leaseback deals of single-tenant, income-producing properties in the office and industrial sectors. Currently, however, the privately held firm is expanding its portfolio to include multi-tenant trophy properties occupied by high-quality credit tenants.
"We actually have two buildings in Woodland Hills, CA that have two tenants, both insurance companies," Sewell says. "That was a first for us. The value of the property was hard to surpass." The company has completed transactions valued at more than $1 billion.
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