GlobeSt.com UPDATE: $505M Verizon Building Deal Closes

NEW YORK CITY-Equity Office Properties Trust has closed its 1.03-million-sf acquisition of the Verizon Building at 1095 Ave. of Americas. The acquisition also includes approximately 30,000 sf of retail space. As part of the deal, Verizon is retaining ownership of approximately 200,000 sf and is taking about one million sf of office space under a short-term lease, enabling Verizon to vacate the property in 2006. In March, GlobeSt.com reported that EOP was the winning bidder of the 41-story office asset. Reckson and Trizec were also in the running to acquire the site. Now that the deal is complete, EOP plans to redevelop the property with renovations to the building’s facade, lobby, elevator cabs, common areas and retail space. The full redevelopment is slated for completion in mid-2008. The repositioning of the building includes tenant-naming rights to signs on top of the building, according to EOP.”The acquisition gives us the opportunity to deliver one million sf of office space in a submarket where availability of large blocks of contiguous space is less than 4%,” says Richard Kincaid, EOP’s president and CEO.EOP also owns seven other buildings in the submarket, including the 380,796-sf office component of 717 Fifth Ave. which the company purchased for $160.5 million. The whole property sold for $353 million with a private retail investor buying the rest of the space, consisting of an 84,000-sf, ground-floor retail space and fourth-floor office space, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.In addition to the Verizon deal, EOP closed on the acquisition of 300 W. Sixth St. in Austin, TX for $131.7 million and Clocktower Square in Palo Alto, CA for approximately $43.1 million. The Austin asset was purchased from JER Partners and Carr America Realty. Carr America developed and delivered the 23-story, 446,637-sf class A office property in January 2002. Tenants include the law firms Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld, LLP; Clark, Thomas & Winters, PC; and McKool Smith, PC; as well as Green Mountain Energy Co., Comerica Bank and Austin Ventures. The building is 78% leased. Andrea Peskind and Kenneth Page of Cushman & Wakefield acted as agents for the transaction. They were assisted by Michael Kennedy of Commercial Texas.

In Palo Alto, EOP acquired the four-building complex and a 51-year ground leasehold interest. The 97,133-sf office complex is next EOP’s Palo Alto Square building in Stanford Research Park. It is 100% leased.”These assets complement our existing local portfolios and enable us to leverage our operating platform to deliver a higher quality of customer service,” Kincaid adds.