Boeing Oklahoma City Campus Commands $125M

Boeing Oklahoma City Campus. Image courtesy of Gardner Tanenbaum Holdings

Gardner Tanenbaum Holdings, the developer of three build-to-suit office properties for Boeing in Oklahoma City, has sold the 33.3-acre campus to OKC Aerospace 1 LLC for $124.7 million. The sale is one of the largest commercial real estate transactions in Oklahoma City history.

READ ALSO: Oklahoma City’s $288M Convention Center Nears Completion

The California-based investors acquired the entire Boeing OKC campus, including the three buildings that were developed between 2007 and 2016 and total more than 810,000 square feet. The property at 6001 S. Air Depot Road is located directly west of Tinker Air Force Base and 10 miles southwest of downtown Oklahoma City’s central business district. The buildings currently house more than 3,155 Boeing employees and contractors who work with Tinker Air Force Base personnel performing support and modernization for U.S. defense aircraft programs.

Mark Beffort and Brett Price were part of the Newmark Grubb Levy Strange Beffort brokerage team that represented the buyer and seller in a transaction they described as historic for the market.

GTH declined to release the names of the California investors that make up the newly formed limited liability company. But The Oklahoman newspaper reported California resident Michael Schau and Tenmark Industrial LLC, which owns property in Tulsa County, Okla., may be involved in the transaction.

“There was an existing relationship with the buyer. The buyer approached GTH regarding the Boeing campus,” GTH CEO Richard Tanenbaum told Commercial Property Executive. “Aerospace continues to grow in Oklahoma City, therefore West Coast investors are taking notice.”

Tanenbaum said his firm, a full-service real estate development, design and construction management company based in Oklahoma City, has developed more than 1 million square feet of aerospace real estate in Oklahoma. Other aerospace projects include the Field Hangar Complex at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, two 92-foot clear hangars with office space attached to the airport runway in Oklahoma City, and office and warehouse space for Northrop Grumman built at 6400 and 6401 SE 59^th St. in Oklahoma City. GTH, one of the largest developers in the region, also manages more than 1 million square feet of multifamily properties, 6 million square feet of industrial and office space and has an inventory of more than 250 acres of land for development.

The Boeing OKC campus comprises a four-story, 200,000-square-foot building completed in 2008; a six-story, 320,000-square-foot building completed in 2012; and a 290,000-square-foot building completed in 2016.

Price said in a prepared statement the transaction shows the importance of Boeing, Tinker Air Force Base and the diversity of the Oklahoma City economy. He described the Boeing OKC campus as the fastest-growing Boeing site in the U.S. over the past five years.

Convention center development

The sale of the Boeing OKC campus to the California investors’ group comes as the new Oklahoma City Convention Center nears completion later this year. The $288 million project, located on the east side of Robinson Boulevard between SW Fourth and SW Seventh streets, began construction in June 2018. The convention center will have a 200,000-square-foot exhibition hall; a 30,000-square-foot ballroom with an adjacent 10,000-square-foot pre-function space and 4,000-square-foot balcony; 45,000 square feet of meeting space; informal meeting spaces and administrative offices.