Equity Office Pays Pru Fund $40M for 211 Perimeter Center

ATLANTA-Chicago-based Equity Office Properties Trust has increased its four-million-sf Central Perimeter portfolio with the $40-million purchase of the 11-story, 26-year-old, 225,924-sf 211 Perimeter Center from US Property Investment Fund LP owned by Prudential Real Estate Advisors Inc. The 9.5-acre property is 97% leased.

Dean Patterson represented Prudential. Lyle Patterson, no relation to Dean Patterson, negotiated for entrepreneur Sam Zell’s Equity Office Properties. Patterson says the deal gives Equity “the largest contiguous development site in the [27-million-sf] Central Perimeter…providing a nice complement to Equity Office’s nearby 219, 223 and 245 Perimeter Center buildings.”

The acquisition price equates to about $177 per sf. By comparison, locally based TMW Real Estate Group Inc., acquired by Prudential in 2002, bought 211 Perimeter Center in 1997 from MetLife International Inc. for $29 million or about $128.36 per sf, according to area brokers familiar with the transaction.

Ten tenants occupy 211 Perimeter Center whose parking garage accommodates 865 vehicles. The building’s anchor tenant is EchoStar Communications Corp. of Englewood, CO which leased 49,978 sf for six years in May of this year, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. The building’s occupancy at that time was 85%.

Other Equity Office properties in the Central Perimeter are Perimeter Center Office Park, Lakeside Office Park, Sterling Pointe I and II and the two-building, one-million-sf South and North Terraces buildings.

One loser in the 211 Perimeter Center deal is the Atlanta office of Houston-based PM Realty Group which has been the leasing manager for the building. Equity Office will lease and manage the property now, area brokers intimate with the company’s plans, tell GlobeSt.com.