BIRMINGHAM, ALA. — A partnership of Net Lease Capital Advisors, a private investor and Rainier Capital Management has purchased Birmingham’s Social Security Administration Center from 8th and 14th LLC for $147 million. The LEED-Silver office building, which was completed in January 2008, stands eight stories tall and is complimented with a 1,750-space parking garage. The General Services Administration has a 20-year lease on the building, which serves as the Social Security Administration’s regional processing center in the Southeast. According to Net Lease, the transaction is the largest single-asset office sale in the Southeast this year.
The seeds for the deal were sown in April when the building’s developer, Opus South Corp., filed for bankruptcy. Suddenly, the 587,528-square-foot Social Security Administration Center became an asset of Transamerica Life Insurance Co., which won the Section 363 bankruptcy auction. The firm then selected the buyer and provided financing for the purchase.
Jay O’Meara and Will Yowell of CB Richard Ellis’ Atlanta office represented the lender in the transaction. Rob Jones of the firm’s Dallas office represented the buyer. The quality of the asset attracted more than 20 qualified buyers, Yowell says, because of the quality of the space and the stability of the tenant.
“It was a very secure and safe investment,” Yowell says, noting that the asset has what can be seen as a guaranteed cash flow. “This thing got a lot of interest from all over the country — actually, all over the world.”
— J. Howard Ross