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Lowe, GE Commercial Buy Former Searle Campus

SKOKIE, IL-The vacant three-building, 350,559-sf property at 5200-04 W. Old Orchard Rd. goes to a joint venture between Los Angeles-based Lowe Enterprises and GE Commercial Finance Real Estate, which plans an $8-million renovation.

By Mark Ruda | Updated on January 10, 2005

SKOKIE, IL-Los Angeles-based Lowe Enterprises, which entered the market last year with the acquisition of a Doubletree Hotel near O’Hare International Airport, has bought the vacant Old Orchard Towers office campus here for a rock-bottom price. Sources tell GlobeSt.com the former G.D. Searle corporate campus sold for $16.5 million, with a joint venture of Lowe Enterprises and GE Commercial Finance Real Estate planning to spend another $8.1 million upgrading the three-building, 350,559-sf property at 5200-04 W. Old Orchard Rd.

The Denver office of LaSalle Bank arranged acquisition and redevelopment financing. In addition to the planned renovations, the joint venture has hired U.S. Equities Realty to oversee construction during the first quarter, then provide property management and leasing of the repositioned asset. “Though previously used as a corporate facility, the complex can readily be reconfigured and repositioned as a class-A, multiple-tenant office campus,” says Lowe Enterprises vice president of acquisition Tim Schlichting.

The joint venture is buying into the beleaguered suburban Chicago office market as overall vacancy including sublease space stands at 17.5%, down 1.5 percentage points from a year ago, according to Trammell Crow Co. However, the north suburban submarket is the healthiest with a 13% vacancy, down a full point during the last year, according to Trammell Crow Co.’s most recent market report.

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