Hertz Buys Bank of America Tower in Jacksonville from Parmenter for $88M

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

 Hertz Investment Group, of Santa Monica, Calif., has paid $88 million for the tallest building in Jacksonville, Fla., the 42-story Bank of America Tower, Hertz and the seller, Parmenter Realty Partners, of Miami, announced separately on Friday, the day the transaction closed.

The 696,600-square-foot tower is at 50 N. Laura St. in Jacksonville’s CBD. Designed by Helmut Jahn and featuring granite cladding and a marble-and-mahogany lobby, the building was completed in 1990.

Jubeen Vaghefi and Jeff Morris of JLL represented Parmenter in the sale.

“This acquisition perfectly matches our criteria of ‘Best in Class’ CBD assets in secondary markets,” Jim Ingram, executive vice president & CIO of Hertz, said in a release.

“During our ownership of the Bank of America Tower, we made significant improvements on the building’s sustainability, and the building became the first office tower in Jacksonville to achieve LEED certification in 2011,” Darryl Parmenter, chairman & CEO of Parmenter Realty Partners, said in a release.

The tower has received BOMA’s “Outstanding Building of the Year” award nine times in the last 15 years and has also received BOMA’s “Best of the Best” in 2002, BOMA’s “7 Point Challenge,” and the “BOMA 360” designation.

The building is currently 70 percent occupied. Besides Bank of America, other major tenants include Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Price Waterhouse, Florida Bank and numerous regional, national and international law firms, a Hertz spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive.

The Jacksonville CRE investment market is “quite strong,” with “record pricing across product types” and interest from foreign capital, Tarik Bateh, a vice president in JLL’s Jacksonville office, told CPE. This level of activity is being driven in large part by the city’s robust economy and excellent employment numbers, he added.