Prentiss Properties Sells Downtown Parcel to Church

OAKLAND, CA-Prentiss Properties Trust has sold a Downtown development parcel here to the Catholic Cathedral Corp. of the East Bay for $25.5 million. Catholic Cathedral Corp. intends to use the site for a new cathedral.

Prentiss, a Dallas-based REIT, acquired the property in 2000 in a $63.3-million package deal that included the adjacent Lake Merritt Tower, a 200,994-sf 10-story office building built in 1990. At the time of the sale, the land parcel was slated for Lake Merritt Tower II and Prentiss said it hoped to begin developing the site in 2001 at an estimated cost of $145 million.

Prentiss says it was the right time to make the sale, as it saw no immediate office development opportunities Downtown, however; the company says it flipped $6 million of its total proceeds into a 65-year lease for 150 parking spaces in a nearby garage and the purchase of a 1-acre vacant lot elsewhere in the Lake Merritt district that it says is zoned for 635,000 sf of office space. For the time being, both properties will provide tenant parking for the buildings it owns in the Lake Merritt district, which also includes the 530,887-sf the Ordway building.

Prentiss says the remaining proceeds from the land sale will ultimately be utilized to invest in office acquisitions in the company’s core markets as opportunities arise. The company’s core markets include the Bay Area, Southern California, Denver, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Sacramento, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin and its corporate home, Dallas.