Suburban office parks Patewood and Brookfield Plaza also listed for sale
It’s not just new construction fueling Greenville’s robust commercial real estate market. The nine-story Wells Fargo Center in downtown Greenville, along with two large suburban office parks, Office Park Patewood and Brookfield, have been listed for sale.
“The market in Greenville is outstanding right now,” said Patrick Gildea, senior vice president of CBRE’s Charlotte office, which has the properties listed in conjunction with the local Greenville office. “It’s a market that hasn’t had a lot of institutional-quality office sales in the past, but we are now seeing a lot of interest from investors. Greenville is a market they are very intrigued with.”
Wells Fargo Center
The Wells Fargo Center is a class-A mixed-use asset in downtown Greenville at the corner of South Main and East Washington streets. Positioned on 1.4 acres, the 159,813-square-foot building is mostly office space with 5,540 square feet of street-level retail.
The office tower was built in 1973, and expanded and renovated in 2003. Additional renovations last year included a newly completed common area and restroom upgrades, elevator cab refurbishment, HVAC upgrades, and Brown Street lobby refurbishment. The attached residential and retail building was built in 2003, and is made up of 26,241 square feet of 22 luxury apartments plus 14,598 square feet of street-level retail, which includes Port City Java, Sticky Fingers restaurant, Charles Schwab, Ivy Aveda Salon and Pita Pit, among others.
“The buildings are in great shape, and investors like the location,” said Gildea, adding that the “mixture of uses is attractive to investors and unique.”
Wells Fargo is the largest tenant in the center, which is currently 80 percent leased overall. There is one 1,000-square-foot retail space available and one multifamily unit available. Office space is about 75 percent occupied with space available ranging from 3,800 square feet to 10,500 square feet. Average remaining lease term is 6.4 years with no more than 9.5 percent expiring in any given year until 2022.
The property was placed on the market just a few weeks ago, and so far Gildea says they have “been very pleased with the interest level.” Investors interested so far have been private equity firms, life insurance pension and fund investors. No asking price is specified. “We will let the market tell us where it’s valued,” he said.
Gildea says he expects to select a buyer in the next two weeks.
Patewood and Brookfield
CBRE has also listed two suburban office parks, Office Park Patewood and two buildings at Brookfield Plaza, together as one offering.
While the existing owner, Garrison Investment Group, would consider separate offers on the Patewood buildings, Gildea says that collectively they may be more attractive to institutional investors.
“This is a pretty rare and unique opportunity in that it is probably the largest contiguous block of Class-A space in the suburban Greenville office market,” said Gildea referring to the Patewood space. Also, the current owner has completed capital improvements totaling $3 million, further elevating the quality of the portfolio.
The suburban portfolio (Greenville Office Portfolio) has an 81.4 percent occupancy and consists of eight multi-tenant office buildings totaling 686,680 square feet with a total of 55.3 acres in two separate parks. The institutionally managed and maintained Class-A buildings were developed from 1985 to 2001 and are set in a mature, landscaped park setting. Major tenants at Office Park Patewood include The Gordian Group and RealPage. Brookfield’s large tenants include Metlife, GE Gas Turbines and Ahold.
The Greenville Office Portfolio is located in the Greenville suburban submarket, which posted the highest-ever absorption of 424,253 square feet over the last four quarters, and an eight-year record-low Class-A vacancy of 5.6 percent in first quarter 2016, according to CBRE.
Gildea said he expects to select a buyer on this portfolio in late May or early June.
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Fast fact // According to CBRE, Greenville posted double-digit office rent growth during 2015, and was the only metro area in the U.S. outside of California to do so.
