(For more retail coverage, click GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)

TEMPE, AZ-In his first entree into the Phoenix metro market, a private investor from Dunmore, PA has purchased a 60,697-sf building, previously occupied by Office Depot and Jumbo Sports. The buyer has paid $5.1 million to Priest Capital Group LLC of Phoenix for the value-add chance.

Grove Parkway Plaza at the corner of Priest and Elliot roads has been dark for awhile. More than half of the space was used as an Office Depot store. "Office Depot pulled out of the Phoenix market a couple of years ago so we'd been working to try to sublet the space for them," says Cliff Johnston, senior vice president of Grubb & Ellis/BRE Commercial, LLC's Phoenix office. The other half of the property had been vacant for longer. "The building had originally belonged to Jumbo Sports and they went ahead and split the space into two 30,000-sf spaces," Johnston says. Jumbo Sports, like Office Depot, is no longer in the Phoenix market.

Cliff Johnston and Brian Kocour with Grubb & Ellis|BRE Commercial represented the seller during the transaction. Michael Assadi with Phoenix-based 1st USA Realty represented the 1031 exchange buyer, Max Tabat.

Tabat tells GlobeSt.com that he isn't certain, as yet, what he will do with the building since he isn't involved in a retail business. "We have a number of plans," he says, "and will likely make a decision in a month or two."

Despite the fact that the property has been dark for awhile, Johnston says "it's a good piece of real estate. There will ultimately be one or two tenants who take it, but it'll be a matter of timing and price, on the part of the new owner."

Tabat says he's still studying the Phoenix metro market, but is likely to buy again. "We don't know, yet, what area we're going to become involved with, whether hotel, retail, apartment buildings or something else," he says.

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