Southern California Investors Buy IGT Offices in Southwest Las Vegas
Friday, September 30th 2016
LAS, VEGAS, NV – Southern California investors have bought a slot machine company’s offices in southwest Las Vegas, paying more than triple the average rate for a local office property.
Griffin Capital Corp. this week bought International Game Technology’s three-story, 222,268-square-foot office building at Buffalo Drive and Post Road for $66.5 million.
The sale closed Tuesday, Clark County records indicate, and it’s a lucrative deal in more than one way.
The seller, Panattoni Development Co., bought IGT’s roughly 38-acre campus, including 4.5 acres of vacant land, in December for $75 million. It’s now flipped a 12.7-acre portion for almost 89 percent of its original purchase price, county records show. The campus also includes industrial space that Panattoni apparently still owns.
Moreover, the sale amounts to $299 per square foot. According to brokerage firm Colliers International, investors are paying an average $93 per square foot this year for Las Vegas-area office buildings.
IGT is renting the building on a 15-year lease with annual rent hikes, said broker Kevin Shannon of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, who worked on the deal. He declined to say IGT’s rental rate.
In a statement Thursday, Griffin’s chief investment officer, Michael Escalante, said the building met his company’s “criteria of investing in business essential, institutional-quality properties leased to corporate tenants with healthy credit dynamics on a long-term basis.”
In a phone interview Escalante said the company paid a fair price, given the quality of the tenant and the building. He noted that it’s a newer, Class A building and that Colliers sales data likely includes all types of office properties.
Panattoni partner Doug Roberts, who oversees company projects in Nevada, declined to comment.
IGT has occupied the facility since it was built in 2008, Griffin says. It sold the campus to Panattoni last year after Italian lottery operator Gtech acquired IGT for a reported $6.4 billion.
Griffin, meanwhile, is no stranger to Las Vegas. Last year, the company bought three office buildings just south of McCarran International Airport for $30.3 million.