Mesirow Buys Verizon's Dallas HQ for $344M

Chicago-based Mesirow Financial announced this week that it has acquired the 1.15 million square foot regional headquarters for Verizon in Irving, Texas in a sale-leaseback deal worth $344 million, one of the largest real estate deals in North Texas this year. Mesirow Financial’s Sale-Leaseback Capital group in partnership with Kawa Capital financed the purchase in collaboration with Mesirow Financial’s Credit Tenant Lease and Institutional Sales and Trading groups. Under the terms of the deal, Verizon will lease back the full property for 20 years with optional extensions. Cushman & Wakefield served as Verizon's real estate adviser on the transaction.

"This transaction once again signifies the strong collaboration between our capital markets businesses. We continue to enhance our full-service platform in acquiring single-tenant properties on a national basis, complemented by our strong capabilities in mezzanine and senior debt placement," said Richard Price, chairman and chief executive officer of Mesirow Financial, in a press release.

"This transaction provides our company with immediate financial benefits and does so in a way that supports our continuing interests in the development of Las Colinas. The extension of our tenancy through a sale and restructured lease affirms the value we see of having located in such a dynamic area for so many years," added John Vazquez, senior vice president and head of global real estate for Verizon.

The 51.2 acre campus on Hidden Ridge Drive near State Highway 114 was built in 1991 and sits adjacent to a planned $1 billion mixed-use project dubbed Hidden Ridge, to be developed by KDC and include offices, a new commuter rail station, shops and a hotel. Mesirow Financial plans to invest $20 million to upgrade the parking and facilities at Verizon in the next three years, according to a Dallas Business Journal article. Last May, Mesirow Financial acquired Verizon's campus in New Jersey, which was valued at $650 million, which are among the two largest non-government single asset credit tenant lease deals ever consummated, said Stephen Jacobson, a senior managing director of Mesirow's credit tenant leaseback and structured debt products group.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Partners.

CNL Buys Former Fossil HQ in TX

Orlando-based CNL Commercial Real Estate, Inc. announced this week that it had acquired what was formerly the Fossil Watch Headquarters at 2280 N. Greenville Ave. in Richardson, Texas. CNL purchased the property through a joint venture investment with CenterSquare Investment Management; terms of the deal, representation or a sale price were not disclosed. KDC sold the property to the CNL-CenterSquare joint venture after it originally acquired the asset when Fossil relocated to a larger location in 2011.

"This will be a really cool adaptive reuse of an existing facility," said Jimmy Grisham, managing director of CNL Commercial Real Estate. "We are going to be one of the few large blocks of contiguous space in a rapidly growing market, and will have the competitive advantages of large floor plates, high parking ratios and more than 400 covered parking spaces."

"This investment aligns with CenterSquare's objective of partnering with best in class local operators that have the vision and market experience to develop asset-specific business plans that create significant value enhancement upon execution. We certainly believe we have the right team members in place across the board to achieve the desired results," added Jeffrey Reder, senior vice president for CenterSquare Investment Management.

Originally built in 1994 and expanded in 2001, the 190,000-square-foot, 2-story office building and adjoining 130,000-square-foot warehouse property is located in close proximity to State Farm Insurance's regional hub, as well as a Raytheon's business unit that's relocating to Richardson from Garland. According to a Dallas Business Journal report, CNL plans to immediately convert the existing warehouse building into a 400-space covered parking facility, which increases the office building's parking ratio from three per thousand square feet to more than seven per thousand square feet. This gives CNL the ability to lease the space to a tenant seeking a high parking ratio, such as a call center.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.