Gilbane Properties Sells One Financial Plaza

PROVIDENCE, RI-One Financial Plaza, this city’s tallest building, has changed hands for $46.2 million. The new owner of the 322,284-sf, class A office tower is a joint venture comprised of an affiliate of pension plan investment advisor GE Asset Management and Commonwealth Ventures LLC. The building is 87% leased, with the bulk of the space occupied by Bank of America, Edwards & Angell, Sovereign Bank, Holland and Knight and Morgan Stanley. The seller was Gilbane Properties, the development arm of locally based Gilbane Inc. Gilbane closed on the building in May 2003 as part of a $48-million package deal from FleetBoston Financial Corp. that included the neighboring former Hospital Trust Headquarters and a parking structure located several blocks away.GE Asset Management manages about $170 billion in retirement money for the General Electric pension fund and other institutional investors. Commonwealth Ventures is a real estate firm based in Southport, CT that also is developing the headquarters of the locally based G-Tech, a publicly held lottery supplier. Chris McManus, a principal of Keystone Realty Capital LLC, represented Gilbane in the disposition of One Financial Plaza and also procured the buyer. McManus tells GlobeSt.com that Gilbane made some improvements to the building and did some leasing and renewal work during its brief ownership. Gilbane decided to retrade the asset in part because it is a developer and redeveloper more than a long-term holder of institutional-quality real estate, he says.Speaking of which, Gilbane is currently renovating the Hospital Trust Bank headquarters, located at 15 Westminster, for use by the Rhode Island School of Design. The 310,909-sf, 12-story building was built in 1915. According to published reports, Gilbane purchased the Condominium II portion of the building, which covers 241,418 sf, and will lease the space to the school for use as housing for upper classmen and graduate students. The Condominium I portion, covering 69,491 sf on the basement, first and second/mezzanine levels, was donated by Fleet to the school for library use.