ST. LOUIS — PPM/Keller Plaza LLC has acquired a retail center in St. Louis for $3.7 million. Keller Plaza includes a 52,842-square-foot shopping center and 11,034 square feet of ground leases. The property is located at 4500 Lemay Ferry Road. PPM acquired the property from Phillips Edison & Co. Jack in the Box, Firestone, Jiffy Lube and the Keller Plaza Cine 8 theaters anchor the property. There is a total of 1,020 square feet of in-line vacancy.
ST. LOUIS — HREC Investment Advisors has arranged the sale of the 440-guestroom, full-service Crowne Plaza St. Louis Hotel in St. Louis. 200 STL Holdings LLC purchased the property for an undisclosed sales price. The 29-story hotel is located directly across from Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Park and includes views of the Gateway Arch, Mississippi River and St. Louis skyline. The buyer plans to convert the property into a mixed-use project, with a 140-key boutique hotel and 300 residential units. Geoff Davis and Ted Anka of HREC Investment Advisors, along with Scott Kaniewski of SVP – Chicago, represented Hallmark Hotels LLC in the transaction.
ST. LOUIS — Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls has purchased a 57,000-square-foot building in St. Louis for $1.75 million. The property, located at 1901 N. Kingshighway, will serve as a new charter school, which is Missouri’s first all-girls public school. The school plans to open this fall. Hawthorn is a college preparatory middle and high school with a focus on science, technology engineering and math. Peter Newton of Hilliker Corp. represented the seller, Imagine Schools. John Ross of Summit Development represented the buyer, Hawthorn School.
O’FALLON, MO. — Mid-America Real Estate Corp. and St. Louis, Mo.-based Pace Properties have brokered the sale of O’Fallon Walk, a 157,779-square-foot community shopping center in O’Fallon, a St. Louis-suburb. Boca Raton, Fla.-based PEBB Enterprises purchased the property, which is located at the southwest corner of Highway K and Feise Road, for an undisclosed sales price. Gordmans, Justice, Kirkland’s, and Catherines anchor the center. Ben Wineman of Mid-America and Scott Seyfried of Pace Properties brokered the transaction on behalf of New York-based Special Servicer for a CMBS Trust.
ST. LOUIS, MO. — Gramercy Property Trust has purchased Alpha Packaging’s 211,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in St. Louis for $11 million. The property, located at 1555 Page Industrial Drive, is under a long-term triple-net lease to Alpha Plastics Co. until 2029. The facility serves as the headquarters for Alpha Packaging’s eight plants located throughout the country. Alpha Packaging handles production of plastic bottles and containers for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. The plant has been the home of Alpha Packaging since 1999. In 2002, the company spent more than $4 million to renovate the facility. Hilliker Corp. and affiliate company Westwood Net Lease Advisors, represented the seller, Big Sky Properties, and coordinated the sale with New York-based Gramercy Property Trust.
The Kansas City industrial market continues to be an incredibly strong performer. At the end of the third quarter of 2014, the industrial vacancy rate stood at a tight 6.1 percent. Absorption totaled more than 2.5 million square feet during the first nine months of the year, while new deliveries were slightly over 2.6 million square feet in the same period. Let’s examine some contributing factors that are encouraging new deliveries while still driving vacancy rates down and absorption up. Spec Is King The biggest story in the Kansas City industrial real estate market during the first three quarters of 2014 was the delivery of over 2.5 million square feet of Class A distribution facilities on a speculative basis. It can be argued that, in the past, many prospective tenants considered locating a distribution center in Kansas City, but they ultimately selected a different market based on a lack of available inventory and the inability of some companies to wait on the extended timetable for a build-to-suit project. Developers that took notice of this trend and reacted by delivering space to the local market are currently being rewarded for their actions. Much of the speculative development in 2014 centered around …
LEE’S SUMMIT, MO. — Lee & Associates has brokered the $2.7 million sale of an 18,500-square-foot office building in Lee’s Summit. The property is located at 3350 Ralph Powell Road. Jon England and Nathan Anderson of Lee & Associates’ Kansas City office represented the seller, MJB of Missouri LLC. Valley Oaks Investments LLC, a private investment company, purchased the multi-tenant property.
MARYVILLE, MO. — Chicago-based Baum Realty Group LLC has brokered the $5.3 million sale of a single-tenant property in Maryville net-leased to Walgreens. The property, located in northwest Missouri, was sold at 99 percent of its asking price. Walgreens has 20 years remaining on the triple-net lease. Patrick Forkin and Brad Teitelbaum of Baum represented the seller, a Missouri-based private developer, in the transaction. A West Coast-based private investor purchased the property in a 1031 tax-deferred exchange.
ST. LOUIS — The Masonic Temple, located at 3681 Lindell Blvd. in St. Louis, is now on the selling block. The asking price is $6 million. Hilliker Corp. agents Scott Martin, Powell Kalish and Ben Hilliker are representing the owner, the Masonic Temple Association of St. Louis. Named a city landmark in 1976, the more than 386,000-square-foot building stands 185 feet tall and has more than 6 million cubic feet of space. Construction of the Masonic Temple began in 1923 and the building was dedicated in 1926. Created by well-known architectural company Eames and Young with consulting architect Albert Groves, it features classic Greek Ionic style exterior architecture with various styles throughout the interior.
CHESTERFIELD, MO. — The new $150 million Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) global headquarters will open this month in Chesterfield, a suburb of St. Louis. Fox Architects designed the 405,000-square-foot stone, glass and steel building, which is one of the largest projects in the St. Louis region since Centene Plaza was completed in 2010, and the largest local headquarters project in at least 20 years. The headquarters’ two five-story towers are linked by a two-story atrium lobby and amenities bar, which features 10,000 square feet of training facilities; a 7,500-square-foot fitness center; a 20,000-square-foot café, kitchen and barista; and a 500-seat cafeteria that can function as a 700-seat auditorium. The complex also includes 580,000 square feet of parking. Built on a 17-acre site, the complex will accommodate RGA’s workforce expansion over the next several years, and is master planned to include a third building for long-term growth. Fox Architects designed the interiors and was RGA’s consultant to international architectural firm Gensler on core and shell design. Clayco was the design-build contractor.