Hartford’s tallest, most iconic office tower is up for sale, just three years after a Massachusetts real estate investment trust purchased the property for $101.5 million, the listing broker says.
The global commercial real estate listing for CityPlace I went live Friday without an asking price, said Chris Ostop, executive vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle, which has the listing.
Ostop said he’s optimistic about CityPlace’s sales prospects, particularly since the lending environment today is much better than it was in 2012.
“It’s going to attract not only local and regional investors, but national and international, institutional-quality investors,” Ostop said.
Last August, its shorter, 18-story twin next door, CityPlace II, drew a $21 million sale price from New York investors.
Just down the block, Goodwin Square office tower is headed for a May 11 auction with a $5 million minimum bid.
At 38 stories, CityPlace I also is Connecticut’s tallest office building, two meters taller than nearby Travelers Tower downtown. The 884,669-square-foot Class A office tower at 185 Asylum St. is currently 98 percent leased and has no debt.
Major tenants include United Healthcare, Bank of America, PwC, Deloitte, Willis, Morgan Stanley, and law firms, Ostop said.
CityPlace I, which has 310 parking spaces, last sold in 2012 when Massachusetts’s CommonWealth REIT purchased the property.
Since then, CommonWealth’s business has been restructured: It got a new name, management team and relocated to Chicago, where it now being led by former Chicago Tribune CEO and realty magnate Sam Zell.
Equity Commonwealth is the entity that put CityPlace on the market and it appears to be part of a broader strategy by Zell to purge the company’s portfolio of properties in smaller U.S. markets.
Crain’s Chicago reported this week that Zell plans to sell off up to $3 billion worth of office properties in the REIT’s portfolio, to cash in on a hot U.S. office market and build up cash for future acquisitions.
The building, which has undergone significant renovations over the last decade, was designed by noted New York City architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, now SOM. CityPlace has only had two owners since it was erected in 1983.
