company Avistone buys Meridian Gateway Center buildings

BUYER: Avistone Gateway LLC, Laguna Niguel, Calif.
SELLER: Carlyle/Meridian Pinellas LP
PROPERTY: 12495 34th St. N., Pinellas Park
PRICE: $11.53 million
PREVIOUS PRICE: $9 million, September 2006
LAW FIRM ON DEED: DLA Piper LLP (US), Tampa

PLANS, DESCRIPTION:
Laguna Niguel, Calif.-based real estate investment firm Avistone purchased the four-building Meridian Gateway Center for $11.53 million.

The price equated to $70 per square foot. That figure is higher than the two-year average price per square foot for industrial space ($41) in the Tampa Bay area, according to the CoStar Group.

The industrial park features a total of 165,000 square feet of industrial office/warehouse space. The seller, Meridian Development Group, purchased the property in 2006 when the industrial park was 30% occupied. The firm invested $700,000 in a capital improvements program and was able to achieve and maintain at least an 87% occupancy.

“We liked the location and it fit our parameters for good stable tenancy in an improving market,” says Richard Kent, one of the managing principals of Avistone. “We fell that it is one of the best properties in that class in that submarket.”

Kent says the year-and-a-half-old company is looking to buy more property across the southeast -- particularly in Florida — and in Texas. He says the firm purchased 500,000 square feet of industrial commercial space over the past year principally in the Sacramento, Calif., area and San Antonio, Texas.

Rick Brugge of Cushman & Wakefield represented the seller.

Meridian Development Group has acquired three new assets in the past 18 months and says it is actively seeking to expand its portfolio of industrial, flex and low-rise office property along the East Coast from Raleigh, N.C., through Central Florida.