GlobeSt.com UPDATE: Lexington Closes $42M Acquisition

SAN ANTONIO, TX-Lexington Corporate Properties Trust closes today on its acquisition of an 80-acre campus here that includes 560,000 sf of net-leased office and industrial buildings and excess land for an additional one million sf of development. The purchase price is $41.8 million, including the assumption of the existing debt on the property. The seller is Westminster Harcourt LP, a private trust of the Boca Raton, FL-based Comparato family, which owns Compson Development. Michael Comparato tells GlobeSt.com his company acquired the property in January 2003 for about $37.7 million and invested nothing in the property before re-trading the asset at a $4-million premium. “We assumed the loan that was in-place and basically benefited from cap rates,” says Comparato.The existing facilities include two buildings with a combined 146,180 sf of office and 413,078 sf of warehouse. All built space is net leased through 2016 to Harcourt Inc., parent of Harcourt Brace, which uses the space for its assessment division and affiliated entities that design and administer a battery of standard psychological and educational testing products. Mike Garrido, the president of Trident Realty Advisors in Los Angeles, brokered both sides of the transaction with Ted Gibbons of Investment Realty Advisors Inc. Garrido tells GlobeSt.com that Lexington’s cap rate on the investment is 8% based on the in-place lease agreement. The base rent for the 15-year lease by Harcourt was $3 million when the lease commenced in 2001. The rent increases 2% per annum.Lexington has not made any statements with regard to its plans for the excess land. Company president Will Eglin on Monday declined any comment on the transaction until the transaction is completed.Last week, Lexington closed on the $13.2-million acquisition of a 245,000-sf warehouse in High Point, NC that was built to suit office furniture maker Steelcase Inc., which has net leased the facility through September 2017. As part of the transaction, Lexington assumed $8.9 million in non-recourse fixed-rate financing bearing a coupon of 5.75% and maturing in September 2009. The property is utilized by Steelcase subsidiary Brayton International. The seller, Lexin Capital LLC of New York, was represented in the transaction by Sonnenblick-Goldman Co.