1M-SF Met Square Trades for $166M

ST LOUIS-Trizec Properties has sold the one-million-sf Metropolitan Square office building here for $165.8 million. The publicly traded company from Chicago says the new owner is Metropolitan Square LLC, an entity formed by a private investment partnership. The sale closed July 29.The 42-story marble, granite and glass tower is located at 211 North Broadway in Downtown. It was completed in 1989 and acquired by Trizec in late 1997 for $139.3 million, according to SEC filings. At the time, it was 95% leased. Trizec invested an additional $6.35 million in the property over the years for a total investment of $145.6 million, according to the filings. As of March, the property was 87.1% leased and encumbered with an $83-million loan that carries an interest rate of 7.05% and matures in January 2008. Trizec Properties did not return a phone call seeking comment on, among other things, whether the loan was assumed as part of the sale or paid off.Met Square has been one of Trizec’s top 10 performers in terms of rent revenue, generating 2.3% of the company’s total rent revenue while totaling 3.1% of the company’s total owned square footage. However, since Trizec’s sale of St. Louis Place last summer, for which it posted a loss of $8.84 million, Met Square has been the company’s only asset in St. Louis. “This disposition enables us to exit another non-core market…,” says Trizec chief investment officer Brian Lipson in a prepared statement. Since the beginning of 2003, Trizec has been repositioning its real estate portfolio. It has sold $1.9 billion of assets, including 23 non-strategic office properties. As of this sale, the company has exited nine non-core markets in the past 30 months. Trizec is now primarily focused on seven core markets. Two of those are Washington, DC and Los Angeles, where in the last year the company and has purchased four premier CBD properties for approximately $1.1 billion. The company now has ownership interests in and manages 37 million sf in 52 office properties.