10-Year, $25-Mil Lease Pushes Project Off Drawing Board

SCOTTSDALE, AZ-Phoenix-based Ryan Cos. has closed the largest office lease of the year and opened the door for a construction start on a 140,000-sf build-to-suit in Scottsdale. Dallas-based Pegasus Solutions Inc., a leading provider of hotel reservations, has reserved 100,000 sf in the class A office building in a 10-year signing valued at $25 million.

Ryan is developing and will own the three-story building that will come out of the ground at 140000 N. Pima Rd. Construction on Pegasus Solutions Plaza should get under way in early 2002.

Office leases have been rare this year, let alone a 100,000-sf deal. Through the third quarter, the Valley posted just 330,000 sf of positive net absorption. Until now, Scottsdale had a year-to-date negative net absorption of 17,600 sf.

Pegasus Solutions, which now has offices in Phoenix, will use the 100,000 sf to consolidate local IT, customer support and data center operations into the regional office location by January 2003. The company currently has 23 offices in 16 countries, with the Phoenix site recognized as its largest regional office.

Pegasus Solutions is a leading global provider of hotel reservation technologies. Its customers comprise more than 100,000 travel agencies around the world, including nine of the 10 largest US-based travel agencies. It also services more than 44,000 hotel properties around the globe, including 48 of the 50 largest hotel brands in the world, based on total guestroom count, and more than a thousand Web sites and services.

The build-to-suit project is going up the Northsight business park, positioned at the northwest corner of Pima Road and Northsight Boulevard. The office building will be less than a quarter mile from the Pima Freeway section of Loop 101 and just east of Scottsdale Airpark Municipal Airport.

The Phoenix office of CB Richard Ellis, with brokers Chuck Nixon and Kit Tiedemann, represented Pegasus. Ryan’s president John Strittmatter negotiated on his firm’s behalf.