Quadrant Investment Properties has spent the last three years repositioning The Centrum, a 392,000-square-foot office and retail mixed-use project in Oak Lawn. Now, on the heels of a few leasing wins, Dallas-based Quadrant and capital partner Angelo, Gordon & Co. are listing the 1980s-era property for sale, along with the adjacent Park Creek Place.
Since purchasing the portfolio in 2015, Quadrant, founded and led by Chad Cook, brought in new restaurant concepts such as Mille Lire in December, and used a redesigned courtyard to attract big-name tech tenants, most recently Austin-based Capital Factory. Quadrant snapped up neighboring property Park Creek Place, a 13-story office tower, in September 2016. The two properties, which Quadrant is marketing as a portfolio, could fetch as much as $170 million, according to the Dallas Morning News.
We caught up with Cook, who founded QIP in 2012, to learn more about the sale.
D CEO: Why is now the right time to market The Centrum for sale?
Cook: The capital markets are telling us it is a good time to explore a sale, and we are generally within our original underwritten time frame to exit for this partnership. That, coupled with the fact that we are putting the final touches on the renovation and have reached an occupancy of approximately 80 percent.
D CEO: What types of buyers have already shown interest?
Cook: It is still very early, but the interest has largely been from institutions, several of which are investing on behalf of sovereign wealth funds.
D CEO: You’re doing something a little unusual with the building management at The Centrum, yes?
Cook: We do have a slightly different model, where we focus on curating community engagement using technology, as well as the atmosphere we have created through the renovation. We use a new technology called Honeycomb, which is a web-based platform that facilitates constant communication through asset-specific social media with alerts on building events, news, and services. Honeycomb is the brainchild of one of QIP’s principals, D’Arcy Young.
D CEO: QIP bought Saint Paul Place exactly one year after The Centrum. You’ve renovated the asset and signed some leases since then. Does that mean Saint Paul is headed for a sale in the near future?
Cook: We are not quite ready at Saint Paul. We have a new platform we are working to roll out mid-year that we believe will provide a next-level experience for our tenants.
D CEO: You’ve acquired and repositioned several assets in Dallas since 2012 . What’s next?
Cook: We have two new local projects. The first is a partnership with Harbert Management Corp. and Denali Properties on the Plaza at Solana [in Westlake], where we are modernizing the office and retail while creating a central community amenity within the green space in between. We have also been working for the last nine months on a new project that will be the largest renovation QIP has tackled to date. We are extremely excited about the plans.
