Buchanan Street Snaps Up
Mesa Corporate Center

Buchanan Street Partners was recently revealed as the buyer of Parkway Properties' Mesa Corporate Center, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Buchanan paid $13.2M for the 106k SF office building, which led Parkway to recognize a $5.6M loss “in connection with the valuation” of Mesa. But the company states it will recognize a gain of nearly $500k in Q1 as a result of the sale. This news comes on the heels of our interview last week with Parkway's Matt Mooney, who says the firm is now considering going largely spec on Hayden Ferry III, a 260k SF office building in the Hayden Ferry office complex.

We got a chance to chat with Nabil Abou-Haidar, who just joined the Phoenix office Cuningham Group Architecture and will be leading the firm's seniors living practice. Nabil, a 20-year designer vet who came over from Orcutt Winslow, is one of the Southwest's premier seniors housing designers, an industry that could see a big surge in activity here in the coming years as Baby Boomers retire. And he tells us it makes sense that Phoenix is in the crosshairs for seniors living developers. Just think back to the winter storms that tore through much of the US. “Here we have 70- and 80-degree weather. How could you not want to retire here?” (Unless you're Santa Claus, and even he's probably tempted at times.)

Here is Nabil's latest project (with Orcutt Winslow), the redesign of the Beatitudes Campus in Phoenix. But Nabil does say the industry needs to monitor itself before overbuilding seniors housing product—which similarly broke the industry in the late 1990s. “If you think if you build it, they will come, you could be creating a bubble,” he says. If a development is targeted toward active seniors—those not yet needing specialized care—the properties need features that attract seniors: convenient amenities; open floor plans; and the right location. (They also tend to enjoy shuffleboard.) “You have to go beyond ADA,” he says.

Everything the 325-member BOMA Greater Phoenix association does is centered around advocacy, education, membership, and communications, says 2014 chapter president, LBA Realty's Karen Piper (far right, with BOMA Phoenix exec committee chairs and reps of BOMA Canada in January... this kind of winter weather must make them jealous). One of its primary objectives this year is sustaining and strengthening its current influence in the legislative, regulatory, and codes arena at the local and federal level; today, its BOMA Protect Our Properties committee is joining forces with BOMA Tuscon at the State Legislature Advocacy Day.

Above, meeting with Congressman Matt Salmon (second from left) are Diversified Property Management's Susan Engstrom, Hines' Darwyn Harp, and BOMA Greater Phoenix exec director Mark Covington in Washington, DC last month. There, they also met with aides from Sen. Jeff Flake and Rep. Ed Pastor's offices to share BOMA's state and national positions on current legislation regarding leasehold depreciation term, fire sprinkler tax incentives, and new roof tax incentives, as well as critical terrorism risk insurance. Also upcoming: its annual golf tournament April 10 at the McCormick Ranch Golf Club and LEED Associate exam prep on May 8.