Cotton Center Business Park Goes for $24.3M

PHOENIX-Bedford Property Investors Inc. has acquired a 214,173-sf, two-building research and development complex for $24.3 million or about $113 per sf from San Diego-based Douglas Allred Co. The acquisition came with a freshly stamped 40,637-sf lease by Siemens Building Technologies.

The Cotton Center Business Park is located at the southeast corner of 40th Street and Cotton Center Boulevard. The buildings’ leases are expected to generate a first-year cash yield in excess of 9%. In addition to Siemens, the tenants are Vax Global, Aether Systems and Care Mark.

David Carder, one of the CB Richard Ellis brokers in Phoenix who handled the lease negotiations, tells GlobeSt.com that Allred developed the project about three years ago. The property, the REIT’s 20th acquisition in the Greater Phoenix area, brings the firm’s total holdings in the region to about 1.5 million sf. Bedford Property Investors is a California-based REIT that invests in suburban office and industrial properties in the western US.

Buffalo Grove, Ill-based Siemens Building Technologies, a subsidiary of Zurich-based Siemens AG, signed an eight-year lease. Three Phoenix-area offices–Tempe, Central Phoenix and one near Cotton Center–will be consolidated into the 40,637-sf spot.

At the time the lease closed, Allred was the owner. In addition to Carder, CBRE’s Bob Krum and Mark Krison negotiated the lease terms for Allred.

Siemens, which is planning a December move-in, was represented by Jerry McCormick and John Werstler, also with CBRE in Phoenix. McCormick says the search was confined to a 10-mile radius of the airport. Fourteen buildings met the criteria until the parameter dropped to five miles. Aside from location, Siemens was taken by the room to grow, says McCormick.