Office Building Buyer Banks on Richardson's Staying Power

RICHARDSON, TX-A Dallas investor, betting that the high-tech Richardson demand will return, has bought a 70,000-sf office building. In cornering the deal, the seller cut a partial sale/leaseback in a downsizing to 15,000 sf, GlobeSt.com is told.

Lou Lebowitz of SLJ Co. intends to rehab the building and sign the “two or three” prospects that he has in hand to bring some new blood to the single-story, office-flex structure at 1200 N. Bowser, confides Michelle Hudson of Henry S. Miller Commercial in Dallas. Gerber Technologies, based in Tolland, CT, was the seller.

Gerber Technologies, owner for a half dozen years, had the property up for sale for three years at an asking price of $3.5 million. Hudson, who got the listing nine months ago, won’t give on the selling price or how close it came to the asking. The Dallas Central Appraisal District pegs the 2002 value at $1.6 million for the building, constructed in phases since 1970, and 3 1/2 acres. Hudson and Janice Peters, also of Henry S. Miller Commercial, were the only brokers on the transaction.

Hudson says SLJ Co. primarily buys and develops retail. But the Richardson submarket, once the region’s high-tech darling for deals, held the appeal for Lebowitz to branch into office product. “He thinks it’s going to be a market that comes back,” she says.