Southwest Value Partners has purchased Continuum Business & Technology Park, located at 2501 S. Price Rd. in Chandler, from Capital Commercial Investments. The business park, which currently consists of a ±463,300 SF, Class-A office building on 152 acres, commanded a sale price of $51.75M.
Luke Walker and Dave Carder with CBRE’s Phoenix office were awarded the leasing assignment of Continuum and negotiated the sale with Kevin Miller with Capital Commercial Investments. Cassidy Turley’s Executive Managing Director Jeff Wentworth brought an unsolicited offer to CCI on behalf of Southwest Value Partners. Cassidy Turley’s Wentworth, Mike Beall, Sean Spellman and Chris Walker have been awarded the assignment by SVP to secure tenants and users for the Continuum. The seller was Austin, Texas-based Capital Commercial Investments, Inc. The buyer was Southwest Value Partners of Scottsdale.
“Continuum is one of the preeminent business parks in Arizona and its location is in the heart of the most active office submarket in metro Phoenix,” said Justin Merritt, Senior Investment Professional with SVP. “We look forwarding to working with the City of Chandler and putting our energy towards driving new development and employers to the project. Continuum provides our firm with a tremendous opportunity to grow our real estate portfolio by taking advantage of the market recovery in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. This includes implementing a build-to-suit strategy to develop office buildings on the remaining vacant land parcels.”
SVP also owns an additional 38-acre parcel that is immediately adjacent to the Continuum business park that will effectively expand the size of the business park to nearly 190-acres. “As a result of our expanded ownership, we can develop buildings ranging from 30,000 to 500,000 square feet,” said Merritt
. “This submarket has seen a profusion of build-to-suit activity recently, with Garmin, General Motors, Shutterfly, GoDaddy and Amkor Technologies,” Wentworth explained. “There is not a more active market in Phoenix right now and the quality of labor, housing and amenities is driving the demand.”
“The sale of Continuum validates the vision, investment and hard work shared by Capital Commercial Investments and the City of Chandler. The successful public-private partnership allowed the former Motorola campus to be completely redeveloped into a world-class business park, attracting several new companies while bringing net new jobs to the City of Chandler. We congratulate everyone involved in the success of bringing Continuum to this exciting milestone,” said CBRE’s Carder.
Continuum currently features an existing, redeveloped, two-story ±463,000-square-foot, class A office building. The building was entirely renovated with a new three-story atrium lobby, curtain wall glass, upgraded HVAC systems and state-of-the-art electrical and fiber infrastructure. These renovations were completed in January of 2013.
Additionally, the redevelopment of the former Motorola campus included the construction of major infrastructure and horizontal improvements across the 152-acre property, including new landscaping, roads, sidewalks, lakes, water features and public gathering spaces. The City of Chandler was an integral partner in the redevelopment process and made joint investments in the park infrastructure and horizontal improvements.
In June of 2013, Continuum Business & Technology Park signed its first major tenant, Nationstar Mortgage. Nationstar, one of the nation’s leading mortgage servicers and lenders, initially placed 1,200 new jobs in 164,000 square feet of space with an option to expand.
Shortly after landing Nationstar, Continuum secured its second major tenant with the signing of a lease with OnTrac, also represented by CBRE’s Carder. The locally based overnight delivery service moved its headquarters from Phoenix to Chandler and into 65,000 square feet of space that was customized for the tenant. OnTrac employs around 300 employees with aggressive plans for growth; the company’s president has been quoted saying OnTrac plans to bring 850 jobs to Chandler over the term of the lease.
Continuum also includes a 10,000-square-foot University of Arizona learning center, where the higher-education institution is able to meet the educational needs of Chandler’s high-tech workforce by offering programs, classes and research, as well as recruiting other educational institutions.
Continuum currently has 81 acres of developable land remaining and businesses and developers have opportunities for unique ground-up development in the form of build-to-suit and spec building options. Depending on densities and product type (industrial vs office), between 2 MSF and 3 MSF can be developed moving forward.
The existing office building at Continuum was built in 1986 by Motorola and was renovated in 2012 by Capital Commercial. The building is currently 48 percent leased with two tenants, Express Messenger Service (OnTrac) in ±60,000 square feet and Nationstar Mortgage in ±163,000 square feet, leaving ±230,000 square feet of available space for prospective tenants. “The building’s unique design with an on-site cafeteria, large floor plates and high volume ceilings provides office users with the exact environment that today’s office tenants desire to attract the best employees” said Wentworth.
