Columbia Departs Dallas, Phoenix with Office Property Sales

By Barbra Murray

CHV Health Tower in Irving, Texas

Dallas and Phoenix—Columbia Property Trust Inc.’s portfolio is looking more and more like the CBD-heavy collection of office assets the REIT has been working toward all year, with the recent disposition of the 315,000-square-foot CVS Health Tower in Texas, and the 267,000-square-foot SanTan Corporate Center in Arizona. Atlanta-based Columbia sold the properties in transactions totaling $109.5 million, bidding adieu to the metropolitan Dallas and Phoenix markets.

Columbia didn’t disclose the identity of the buyers in the announcement of the sales, but during the REIT’s third quarter earnings conference call on October 27, Nelson Mills, president & CEO of Columbia Property Trust, spoke about the assets, saying “These properties are being actively marketed and there is a nice depth of potential bidders for each.”

The Class A office properties are quite a catch. The 12-story CVS Health Tower, sited at 750 W. John Carpenter Freeway in Irving, roughly 15 miles outside Dallas, first opened its doors in 1999 and boasts CVS Caremark as its anchor tenant. Completed in 2003, SanTan Corporate Center consists of SanTan Corporate Center I and II, which carry the respective addresses of 3100 and 3200 West Ray Road in the suburban Phoenix city of Chandler. SanTan I is fully leased to Toyota Financial Services, and the 100 percent occupied SanTan II features a diverse multi-tenant roster.

Columbia had acquired both CVS Health Tower and SanTan Corporate Center in separate transactions in 2006. “We completed successful leasing programs at both these properties over the last several months, which, combined with their respective locations in solid metro submarkets, positioned each to attract high demand among potential buyers,” Mills said in a prepared statement. “We felt the time was right to realize the value of these assets and exit both markets as we continue to sharpen our focus on a select group of CBD, high-barrier markets.”

Columbia previously announced its plan to sell approximately $700 million to $1 billion of non-core assets in 2016 in pursuit of its portfolio repositioning strategy. Earlier dispositions include the 653,000-square-foot building at 100 E. Pratt St. in Baltimore, which fetched $187 million, and 80 Park Plaza in Newark, N.J., a 973,000-square-foot office complex that traded for $174.5 million.

Image courtesy of Yardi Matrix