Successful Lease-Up after Office Repositioning

How do you re-position a large, single tenant, high-quality office building in a market surrounded by a good labor force, with great visibility and access, but not known for its office product?

This was the challenge for the office building at 6499 University Avenue. Initially constructed for Target Corporation’s northern operations in the mid-1980s, this well-designed and constructed building had stood the test of time. Designed for a single tenant, the building benefits from abundant light throughout the space with an open atrium capped by skylights.

For two years, the building was promoted as a single-tenant building. Then, in late 2018, KimbleCo was retained as the listing broker for the property. As this property was not located in a traditional office market the first question we asked was, “why has the building been marketed as a single-tenant building?” It was not situated in a strong office corridor and so it seemed the likelihood of attracting a 74,160 square foot single user was unlikely. The answer was that the building’s HVAC system made the property unable to be demised for multi-tenancy. The team decided to probe further making a trek to city hall to look at old plans and the history of subcontractor work over the years. We identified HVAC contractors from the city files that knew the building and had them meet us on site. We learned there was no reason we could not demise the space for multitenancy. The next step was a code study which also proved positive. Some critical thinking, hard work and “voila” – we had created an opportunity for lease-up!

Even better, the building improvements the Landlord had to make were relatively minimal. This is a building with “great bones” that needed just a bit of updating in addition to creating secure elevator lobbies. The use of 100% glass walls retained all of the fabulous light streaming into the building.

The team hit the ground running to reposition the building for more than one tenant. Broker outreach, on-site events, drip marketing campaigns, cold/warm calls and production of a digital bubble tour and soon the building was 60% leased, well on its way to the goal of 100% lease-up for the building.

We have been delighted to work with this landlord on three buildings and respect their deep knowledge of the industry. KimbleCo values relationship and we are happy to have a trusted rapport with this important client.

PRODUCT TYPE

Office

SCOPE OF SERVICES

Landlord Representation
Project Management

CLIENT

Gladstone Commercial

GOALS & VISION

100% lease-up

CHALLENGE

Single tenant building in a non-office market corridor

Outcomes

Ability to transform building for multitenancy
Progressive lease-up
Building updated