EverWest Sells Kansas City Office Tower for $118M

With the assistance of HFF, the real estate investment management company landed Platform Ventures as a buyer for the 243,700-square-foot, fully leased trophy asset.

Plaza Vista. Image courtesy of HFF

With the assistance of HFF, EverWest Real Estate Investors has completed the disposition of Plaza Vista, a 243,700-square-foot office building in Kansas City, Mo., in a transaction valued at $118.3 million. EverWest sold the 100 percent leased trophy property to Platform Ventures.

EverWest had owned Plaza Vista since 2014, when it acquired the building from its developer, VanTrust Real Estate, for $104 million. Designed by 360 Architecture, the office property first opened its doors at 900 W. 48th St. in the coveted Country Club Plaza submarket in 2013 as the headquarters of law firm Polsinelli. The firm continues to anchor the 10-story tower, which also features 16,000 square feet of retail space. Plaza Vista garnered a notable amount of attention from an investment community that has grown increasingly keen on the Kansas City office market over the years.

“The investment interest in the Kansas City area continues to be strong, with a growing number of national investors considering the market,” Peter Merrion, senior director with HFF, told Commercial Property Executive. “The region’s work in infrastructure improvements such as the Streetcar and Airport renovation, combined with strong job growth by many corporate users is helping to drive new interest to the market and giving our team continued optimism for the investment fundamentals in the KC market.”

HFF’s Mark Katz and Danny Kaufman, both senior managing directors, joined Merrion in the representation of EverWest on the Plaza Vista transaction.

Secondary market, primary interest

As noted in a first quarter 2019 report by Colliers International, investors continue to chase yields in fundamentally sound secondary markets; Kansas City is one such market. The list of office investors that have set their sights on Kansas City over the last year includes City+Ventures, an Omaha, Neb.-based company that entered the market for the first time with the $88 million acquisition of the 784,557-square-foot Southlake Portfolio during the first quarter of 2019. Last summer, Glen Allen, Va.-based Lingerfelt CommonWealth Partners announced its first foray into the market with the joint venture purchase of 2345 Grand Blvd., an approximately 538,700-square-foot office building. “Over the past 5 years, we have increasingly seen a more national audience pursue deals here,” Merrion added.