Future of Miami Koger Center Uncertain

MIAMI-The 120-acre business park known as Miami Koger Center could be headed to market, along with another 1.2 million sf of affiliated office properties in Virginia and North Carolina.

Property-ownership affiliates of Morgan Guaranty Trust of New York have retained Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. to take over leasing and property management responsibilities for the 1.5 million-sf office park in west Miami-Dade County.

The leasing and property management contract, which also cover office properties in Raleigh, NC, and Richmond and Norfolk, VA, contains a provision for the evaluation of the portfolio’s disposition and financing options.

It is uncertain whether disposition is a serious option for the Morgan Guaranty affiliates, because a spokeswoman in the Chicago offices of Jones Lang LaSalle would not discuss details of the deal and even expressed initial hesitancy about disclosing the identity of the property owner.

The spokeswoman briefly acknowledged a need by the company to disclose the deal, because of events apparently related in some way to the aftermath of last week’s terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC.

Acquired in 1995 from Koger Partnership Ltd., the properties belong to an affiliation of companies incorporated as Koala Miami Realty Holding Inc., Koala Norfolk Realty Holding Inc., Koala Raleigh Realty Holding Inc. and Koala Richmond Realty Holding Inc.

Each of the Koala entities is wholly owned by a co-mingled pension trust, with Morgan Guaranty acting as trustee and J.P. Morgan Investment Management Inc. as investment manager. Both Morgan Guaranty and J.P. Morgan Investment are subsidiaries of New York-based J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

In the announcement released Thursday, Jones Lang LaSalle described Miami Koger Center at Northwest 87th Avenue and Northwest 53rd Street as 90% occupied with “an excellent mix of national, regional and local tenants.”

“We look forward to providing the highest degree of service in order to increase asset value for this office portfolio,” John Padgham, Jones Lang LaSalle managing director, says in the prepared statement.(Please see related story on the Atlanta page.)