Bucheleres and Roeser Join Forces
You may have spent last month trying to stick to your New Year’s resolutions (step away from the fridge), while two Chicago commercial real estate vets launched a new firm and closed their first acquisition.
Triton Real Estate Partners combines the 60 years of experience shared by John Bucheleres (left) and John Roeser (right). The pair first crossed paths at real estate syndicator Equitec Properties, John B. tells us, but his wife also knew John R. from growing up in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and attending MSU. (Most of the people we went to college with ended up working at various traveling carnivals.) John B. then had stints at BCE Development, John Buck, Fifield, Prime Group, Beitler, and CBRE. He’s also been doing some private deals through a company called Triton Capital since ’98, he adds. John R. worked at European American Realty, where he oversaw a 6M SF portfolio in the Midwest. He spent the last 10 years at American Landmark Properties, overseeing a national portfolio of office and industrial properties (including the acquisition of Willis Tower, below, which Triton now calls home).
John B. spent 28 years working for larger firms, and always had the itch to do something on his own. A conversation with John R. last year about investment opportunities in Detroit revealed he felt similarly (people with the same name often do), and the two began looking at more deals and formulating a plan for Triton. They did their first deal last month: a $5.5M acquisition of a 79k SF commercial building (below, fully leased to Bellsouth Telecommunications, an AT&T subsidiary) in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. They liked the quality and credit of the tenant (and negotiated a new eight-year lease), John B. says, in addition to Florida’s population growth and strong fundamentals.
Triton will target office and industrial properties (more value-add than stabilized), with its attention on Detroit (a contrarian play), South Florida, and the Chicago neighborhoods and suburbs. It’s deal range, $2M to $25M, won’t get you much at Madison and Dearborn, John R. jokes. But the neighborhoods have interesting adaptive reuse and existing office plays, while the suburbs are still out of favor and shunned by most institutional capital. “We’re opportunistic and entrepreneurial,” he says. “We’ll let the opportunities dictate where we go from here. Inside the office, they’re thrilled to have the Internet up and running (no more working off of cell phones). Outside, both Johns love skiing, golfing, and traveling with their families.
