Office Building Sells at $36M Loss

(This story, in slightly different form, originally appeared in the Daily Business Review.)

WEST PALM BEACH, FL-After being on the market for about a year, the 20-story Esperante office building here has sold–but the seller, New York-based Clarion ING Partners, has taken a $36 million loss. The investment fund, which purchased the property for $104 million in late 2005, sold the 246,000-square-foot building at 222 Lakeview Ave. for $67.6 million to CB Richard Ellis Investors, a Los Angeles-based global investment management firm affiliated with CB Richard Ellis. CBRE paid cash for the property.

ING, which set a South Florida record for office deals with its purchase price of $418 per square foot, listed the property for sale with DTZ Rockwood in early 2008 for $115 million. The tight credit market made it difficult to sell the property, says John Bell, managing director of DTZ, who declined further comment.