The Pointe sells for $186 per square foot

BUYER: PKY Fund II Tampa III LLC (Parkway Properties Office Fund II LP), Jackson, Miss.

SELLER: Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America, for the benefit of the Real Estate Account

PROPERTY: 2502 Rocky Point Drive, Tampa

PRICE: $46.89 million

PREVIOUS PRICE: $41.15 million, October 2002

LAW FIRM ON DEED: Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr PC, Houston

PLANS, DESCRIPTION: Jackson, Miss.-based Parkway Properties Inc. purchased the 252,000-square-foot The Pointe office building in Westshore for $46.89 million.

The price equated to $186 per square foot.

Located at the southern tip of Rocky Point Island, the class A, 10-story office building is 88.4% occupied, with 28 tenants. It features a four-level parking garage, cafe, fitness center and 24-hour access and security.

Dale Peterson, Paul Carr and Christian Lee of CBRE represented the seller.

“This was one of [Parkway Properties'] bullseye assets,” says Peterson. “The teachers associations review their assets annually both on product and orientation, and they made the decision to exit the Tampa market building to take advantage of a fair amount of recent leasing activity. It sold in the upper end of the price range for the current market. Achieving that per-square-foot price has raised a lot eyebrows among other owners in Westshore.”

Sale prices in Westshore were bumping the $200-per-square-foot range at the peak of the market.

Peterson says the 10 largest sales transactions last year in Tampa -- each involving more than 75,000 square feet of space — came down to REITs and non-traded private equity firms buyers. Parkway Properties was the most active of the former. It purchased the three Cypress Center buildings in Westshore for $21.02 million, equal to $73 per square foot.

The property was purchased for the public real estate investment trust's Parkway Properties Office Fund II LP. Created in 2008, the $750 million discretionary fund is focused on buying high-quality, multitenant office properties in a few high-growth U.S. markets. Parkway Properties Inc. owns 30% of the fund. As of Jan. 11, the fund owned 11 assets with a combined total of 3.9 million square feet.

Parkway Properties Inc. itself owns or has interest in 57 office properties in 11 states, with an aggregate of 11.7 million square feet of leasable space. With this purchase, Parkway now has an ownership interest in more than 788,000 square feet in Westshore and manages another 299,000 square feet for third-party owners.

The purchase entity PKY Fund II Tampa III LLC mortgaged the property to Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. for $23.5 million.