Blue Cross Blue Shield's $12M Lease Nixes Sale

PLANO, TX-In an advance move for 2008, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas has leased a 114,655-sf flex building that the San Diego-based owner was weighing for a sale. The 15-year lease, valued at $11.8 million, has caused an about-face.

Blue Cross Blue Shield will turn on lights in April 2008 on a mail-sorting facility at 780 Shiloh Rd., one of four buildings in the original campus of Flextronics International. The Singapore-based Flextronics sold the campus in December 2006 to Westcore Properties LLC of San Diego, which also has a vested interest in its tenant’s Lundy Avenue Research Park at 2241-25 Lundy Ave. in San Jose, CA.

Flextronics occupies 437,000 sf in three buildings in the Shiloh Road complex. It emptied the six-year-old warehouse, with mezzanine office space, after it inked a sale-leaseback with Westcore. Flextronics is rooted in place for 10 years, with a termination option in the seventh year if it wants.

“We were going to sell and had several wanting to buy it,” Neil Johnson, Westcore’s acquisitions director, tells GlobeSt.com. “Blue Cross Blue Shield showed up. Given the credit, we gave it a shot.”

The inbound tenant, a division of Health Care Service Corp. of Texas, was represented by Jeffrey Ellerman, executive vice president for Dallas-based Staubach co. Colliers International Inc.’s executive vice presidents Scott Jessen and Scott Morse represented Westcore.