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AUBURN HILLS, MI-EastGroup Properties recently sold a 114,000-sf office/research and development facility here for $17.85 million. The company, which acquired the property as part of a merger in 1998, reported that the sale generated a net gain of about $4.5 million.

David H. Hoster II, president and chief executive officer of the Jackson, MS-based company, tells GlobeSt.com that Detroit was never a core market for EastGroup, which typically targets the Sunbelt region of the US. The Auburn Hills property is fully occupied by a single tenant, which renewed its lease shortly before EastGroup decided to sell. "It was a long sales process," Hoster says. "The buyer was an investor who owns other properties in Detroit and is comfortable with the market." He declined to name the buyer.

Hoster adds that the recent sale is part of the company's ongoing strategy to dispose of non-core assets. In another recent disposition, EastGroup sold the 106,000-sf Crowfarn Distribution Center in Memphis for $2.75 million. The company's Memphis portfolio is now 264,000 sf with a net investment of less than $5 million.