Tampa office properties on the market as part of behemoth portfolio sale
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jul 15, 2014

Some of the biggest names in Tampa's business community - among them Outback Steakhouse, Carlton Fields Jorden Burt and T. Rowe Price Group - may soon have a new landlord.

Corporate Center One at International Plaza, where those companies are located, is on the market, according to real estate sources who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the deal. The property - along with the three other buildings that comprise Corporate Center at International Plaza in Westshore and the Hidden River Corporate Center - are said to be part of a behemoth office portfolio being marketed for sale to a very small, very exclusive group of potential buyers.

Parkway Properties Inc. (NYSE: PKY) owns a 30 percent stake in the Corporate Center Four. A Parkway spokesman declined comment Tuesday morning.

HFF LP, a Pittsburgh-based capital markets firm with offices throughout the United States, is marketing the portfolio, sources said. The portfolio includes properties in multiple cities, though it's not clear which other properties or cities are included in the portfolio. The portfolio, sources said, will likely attract the interest of very large institutional buyers.

If a deal were to come to fruition, it would likely be meaningful to the tenants in those buildings and to Tampa's office market. New owners, if the market is strong enough, typically raise commercial rents in order to make the projected returns on which they based their offer. At the end of the first quarter, CBRE Group. Inc. was predicting upward pressure in rental rates in the Tampa Bay area, caused by more tenant expansion and no new construction.

Large commercial properties are typically not taken to market with an asking price. But the potential deal - top-tier suburban properties which could fetch a top-dollar sales price - could be a bellwether transaction for the market and set a comparable sales price that could raise values in similar properties across the city. The owner of the properties has gone to great lengths to keep their identity confidential.

Each building is owned by a different corporate entity, some of which appear to be affiliates of New York-based Interventure Capital Group. Interventure, according to CoStar Group Inc., is a family trust for the family of Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd of Saudi Arabia.

Ashley Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.