Eight-Building Office Complex Trades for $91M

WEST PALM BEACH, FL-Locally based Navarro Lowery Inc. has sold the eight-building Centrepark portfolio of class A office buildings to an unidentified institutional investor for $91 million. Navarro developed the buildings between 1998 and 2005.

Four each flank Australian Avenue adjacent the international airport and within minutes of Downtown. The portfolio contains an aggregate of 379,829 sf and is currently 97% leased. Among the tenants are Ocwen Federal Bank, SV Microwave, Progressive Insurance and Pitney Bowes.

The $239.58-per-sf price tag puts this sale well above the median for office property sales in Palm Beach County, which was $162 per sf, at the end of 2005, according to a first-quarter 2006 report from Miami Beach-based Terranova Corp. Other properties, however, have gone for more, including the Esperante building here, which traded for $275 per sf. The average office sale price in the county rose 15% between 2004 and 2005, according to Terranova.

Hermen Rodriguez, managing director of the Miami office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, led the team that brokered the Centrepark sale. Manny deZarraga, executive managing director, and Luis Castillo, real estate analyst, were also on the team. Rodriguez says Navarro has turned its attention to EcoPlex, which is a $20-million, 100,000-sf multi-tenant office property it is developing here as the county’s first environmentally friendly “green” multi-tenant office building.

“Centrepark offers outstanding cash flow stability given the institutional quality tenant roster and the existing long-term leases,” he says. “They combine with an outstanding location and a strong West Palm Beach office market.” The vacancy rate in this submarket is below 10%, according to a report from the Fort Lauderdale office of Cushman & Wakefield, and the average asking rental rate for class A space is $26.44 per sf.