MINOT, ND—Officials from Investors Real Estate Trust say they will over this year explore the sale of substantially all its commercial office and retail properties. The move is an update to its current strategic plan, under which they direct most new investments toward multifamily residential and healthcare properties. And streamlining the business model will allow the Minot, ND-based company to direct the expected sale proceeds toward further investments in the multifamily and healthcare sectors.
IRET's retail portfolio consists of 24 small- to mid-sized properties located in MN, NE, ND and WI. The group includes the Jamestown Buffalo Mall; a 213,271-square-foot center in Jamestown, ND, and the Chanhassen West Village Retail Center; a 137,572-square-foot center in Chanhassen, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis. As of October, tenants occupied 86.1% of the 1.2 million-square-foot portfolio.
The company will exclude the portion of its office portfolio that is used as collateral for a CMBS loan, as well as property owned as part of a joint venture. The remainder consists of 50 office properties with about 3.5-million-square-feet, located in nine states, mostly in the upper Midwest. The segment was about 80.1% leased as of last October.
"Over the past several years we have improved our portfolio through the acquisition and development of high-quality multifamily residential and healthcare properties in our upper Midwest markets,” says IRET's president and chief executive officer Timothy Mihalick. "We believe that completing these sale initiatives will result in a more growth-oriented portfolio, provide us with greater financial flexibility and strengthen our overall occupancy levels and other operating metrics."
IRET has brought CBRE, Inc. on board to help assemble and market an office and a retail portfolio. It expects to make the sale packages for both available by mid-to end-February.
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
