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As Pathfinder Partners sells another Phoenix apartment property, its chief tells us it's also becoming harder to find similar value-add apartment plays to buy here.  We spoke with San Diego-based Pathfinder's Lorne Polger (on left with Greenberg Traurig's Neil Oberfeld) fresh from selling Shorewood Apartments, a 21-unit complex in Midtown that traded for nearly $2M to Atrium Apartments out of Washington. Lorne says Shorewood fits his company's typical investment M.O.—buy distressed, turn around, and sell after adding 85% to 90% value to the property. (That's how you flip a house and what you do with baseball players if you're the Oakland A's.)  But Pathfinder's next investment in Phoenix may not be buying existing complexes here. “We're finding it harder to find things today,” Lorne says. “I think it's becoming tougher to find deals on the buy side. It's becoming more challenging all throughout the country.” (We've hunted value nearly to extinction.) Pathfinder owns five properties still in Phoenix, including the 96-unit Aura at Midtown, the 144-unit Copper Creek condo in Tempe and the 40-unit McKinley Court Apartments in the Roosevelt district. The next strategy may be to redevelop one of existing holdings here. “Down the road, it may be to tear down and rebuild for-sale product,” he says. |
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Carlyle Development Aces With Walmart |
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 With a new Walmart Supercenter, Metrocenter Mall also gets a new lease on life for its owner. We spoke with Carlyle Development Group COO Warren Fink about its 40-year-old mall fresh from having inked a deal with the world's largest retailer, which will build a 148k SF store at the former Broadway building location. The deal, which involves demolishing the vacant Broadway anchor space and selling the land to Walmart for ground-up construction, is a win for Carlyle that's been a long time in coming. “From day-one when we bought this product two and a half years ago, we really went to Walmart right off the bat,” he says. (They probably also went to a Walmart to get printer ink, paper, pens, and anything else they needed in order to market the property to Walmart.) The demographics fit for the area, and “number one, it re-energizes the mall.” |
 Carlyle bought the struggling mall for $12.2M in early 2012, and worked to keep occupancy at 75% and bring in new anchors. While Carlyle has no plans to sell the mall now, Warren says he's more than aware that the presence of Walmart already ups the value of the property. The firm is eyeing other major redevelopment and rezoning opportunities at Metrocenter, including taking down a portion of the enclosed mall area and recreating an open-air retail environment. As for future Phoenix investments, Warren says it's not only seeking value-add retail here, but also eyeing value-add office plays. |
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Phoenix In Force At BOMA Phoenix's office of Lincoln Property Group got honored this week at the national BOMA's 2014 Every Building Conference and Expo in Orlando when the Arizona Game and Fish Building in Phoenix picked up a TOBY award for best government building. (You don't need a permit to go and enjoy that building.)  Take note of these smiling faces—you'll probably see a lot of ABM Phoenix's Toni Covington and BOMA/Phoenix's Mark Covington in January and February. The city is hosting BOMA's Winter Business Meeting, the Pro Bowl, the Super Bowl, and the Phoenix Open all in the matter of weeks. (If you ever wanted to photobomb a TV camera, there will never be a better chance.) Real estate is booming, too; Mark says there's a lot of major medical being built Downtown, and Tempe Lake is getting lots of condos and office. Even satellite areas like Mesa, Chandler, and Gilbert have big projects in the ground.  Congrats to Diversified Property Management's Susan Engstrom from Phoenix and KTR Capital Partners' Dave McFarland from Philly, the big winners of the much-anticipated BOMAPAC raffle, which raised over $8,200 for the org's political action committee. Above, Susan (second from left) is with CBRE's Mary Lantz, president of BOMA/Orlando; Cassidy Turley's Terri Walther; and BOMA's Lisa Prats. Susan won a Coach bag, wallet, and Brighton accessories (unintentionally matching her prize winnings), while Dave walked away with a GoPro camera and accessories. |
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