By: Brian R. Ball
Columbus Business First
A 16-year-old office building at Mill Run has sold for a healthy price to investors out of New Jersey.
The 99,553-square-foot Mill Run Business Center at 3641-3731 Ridge Mill Drive at Fishinger Boulevard sold for $11.3 million to Atkins Roxbury Associates and Mill Run Investors LLC. Public records show the buyers financed the purchase through a $10.1 million mortgage from Aetna Life Insurance Co.
Deal broker Brad Kitchen, president of Alterra Real Estate Advisors, told me the $113.50 per foot price and 6.9 percent cap rate marks one of the highest prices paid in recent years for comparable transactions.
The building is anchored by medical offices affiliated with the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Pediatric Physicians Inc. The OpenText (NASDAQ:OTEX) software company also has an office there.
“The whole Mill Run area is really becoming a destination for medical offices,” Kitchen told me.
The building is nearly 25 percent vacant with 9,917- and 14,830-square-foot holes. But Kitchen said the property has strong rent rates because of its medical focus.
“They still have a lot of upside on the property,” Kitchen said of the new landlords’ prospects. “We have good interest on the space.”
An affiliate of property seller Mill Run Business Center of Powell purchased the building in January 2001 for $9.6 million, according to public records.
Mill Run has seen heavy investment and reinvestment activity in the last year or so.
- The former Big Bear store owned by Kroger Co. sold a year ago for a call center operation.
- A fitness center will move into the same building.
- The fully leased, nine-story One Mill Run office building sold in late August for $18 million, or $103.26 per square foot.
- A real estate partnership affiliated with the J.D. Equipment Inc. dealership in Hilliard bought the former Kyo Hibachi Grill building at 3727 Park Mill Run Drive last fall as it relocated its John Deere dealership.
- More recently, the Arhaus home furnishings retailer leased the last remaining portion of the former Kmart at 3780 Park Mill Run for a furniture clearance store.