Basin Street Buys 17-Bldg Santa Rosa Office Portfolio

Basin Street Properties has purchased 17 office buildings in Santa Rosa, CA, in another step toward re-assembling a larger office portfolio acquired from the former Equity Office Properties (EOP) office REIT in 2005.

Local media valued the deal at $70 million. The low-rise Class B buildings totaling 697,500 square feet are clustered in six business centers in Santa Rosa, the administrative seat for Sonoma County. Basin Street said in a release that the portfolio is 77% leased and it will spend millions of dollars to upgrade the buildings for tenants.

The firm, a prominent owner, developer and manager of commercial property in Northern Nevada and Northern California, said it is already in talks with potential new tenants as well as current tenants to discuss expansion options.

Basin Street previously owned the bulk of the buildings before selling them to EOP as part of a $263 million portfolio sale in 2005. Since last year, the company has acquired 25 buildings in Sonoma County, including eight buildings in Petaluma, CA's Redwood Business Park.

Of those, 23 were part of the big sale seven years ago to EOP, now called Equity Office, an affiliate of Blackstone. Basin Street has now re-acquired about three-quarters of the Petaluma and Santa Rosa properties sold to Sam Zell-led EOP, which was the largest owner of office buildings in the U.S. until being acquired in 2007 by Blackstone Group for $39 billion in cash and assumed debt in one of the largest leveraged buyouts in history.

Basin Street now owns 1.8 million square feet of CRE in Sonoma County.

"Our roots run deep in the North [San Francisco] Bay, and we are pleased to add these Santa Rosa buildings back into our portfolio," said Matt White, president of Basin Street Properties. "Having previously invested in all of these properties and with an inherent understanding of their quality locations and amenities, we are confident in the opportunities they present for existing and future tenants."

The transaction includes the following:

• Fountaingrove Center, three buildings totaling 161,055 square feet;


• Fountaingrove Executive Center, one building, 37,428 square feet;


• Oak Valley Business Center, three buildings totaling 131,725 square feet;


• Airport Corporate Center, as known as 3850 and 3880 Brickway Blvd., two buildings totaling 128,540 square feet;


• Waterfall Towers, three buildings totaling 95,056 square feet;


• The Lakes, five buildings totaling 140,645 square feet.