Crown West Realty

By Brian K. Miller – Globe St. com

SPOKANE, WA-Crown West Realty LLC has closed on a $55-million refinancing of Spokane Industrial Park, the largest contiguous business park in a multi-state region.

The long-term loan, from JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management’s Real Estate Debt Group, pays off the seller financing Crown West Realty utilized when it acquired the 4.2-million-sf park seven years ago from publicly-traded Avista, previously known as Washington Water Power.

Crown West President Richard Rollnick tells GlobeSt.com the loan was low compared to the value of the park and carries a rate that is below 6%. Rollnick says the refinance allowed “a return of capital to investors,” but did not specify the amount. The loan was sourced by David Stinebaugh and Greg Wellington of L.J. Melody’s Seattle office and Rocco Mandala from the firm’s Phoenix office.

Spokane Industrial Park was originally developed by the military as a navy depot in the 1940s. It was converted to a business park in the 1960s. Rollnick says that when Crown West acquired the behemoth, it invested millions of dollars in infrastructure improvements and enhancing the buildings’ amenities and aesthetics before building out another 400,000 sf to keep up with demand.

The park now boasts 120 tenants including several tenants leasing more than 100,000 sf and another handful leasing more than 200,000 sf. Major tenants of the assets covered in the loan include Boeing Commercial Airplane, Boise Cascade, Weyerhaeuser Company, IEDS, Huntwood Industries, Columbia Lighting and CXT Corp. Other major tenants include GE, Honeywell, 3M, AT&T and Agilent.

Crown West Realty, L.L.C. owns and manages more than 6 million sf of office, commercial and industrial real estate in Spokane, Wash., Phoenix, Ariz., and Charlotte, N.C. and is a fully integrated commercial real estate investment, development and management company. It is an operating subsidiary of the New York-based investment company, Petrus Partners Ltd.