Griffin Essential Asset REIT II Buys Illinois R&D Office Property for $60.1 Million
Griffin Capital Essential Asset REIT II Inc., a publicly registered non-traded real estate investment trust, purchased a five-story, Class A office building occupied by Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ZBRA). The REIT purchased the property for $60.1 million from The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Originally constructed in 1991, the approximately 283,000-square-foot property underwent a complete renovation in 2015 in order to transform the building into a world-class headquarters for Zebra, the company said. Renovations included the addition of a customer solutions center to provide a hands-on showroom for Zebra’s products, a redesigned and upgraded full-service cafeteria, new electronic laboratory spaces for testing and development, and new, redesigned modern office areas with collaboration spaces and various break-out seating areas. Zebra’s long-term triple-net lease expires November 2026.
“In creating this headquarters building, Zebra consolidated personnel from two other locations and made a major capital investment in the property,” said Shawn Carstens, Griffin Capital’s vice president of acquisitions. “The improvements, coupled with attractive increases in the rental stream, and the capacity to accommodate future expansion of Zebra’s business contributed to making this an excellent investment for the REIT.”
Zebra is a publicly-traded global firm in enterprise asset intelligence, designing and marketing specialty printers, mobile computing, data capture, radio frequency identification products and real-time locating systems.
Griffin Capital Essential Asset REIT II commenced its initial public offering in July 2014 and oversees a portfolio of 26 office and industrial buildings with an asset value of approximately $665 million. The company stopped offering class A shares in October 2015, but continues to offer class T and class I shares. As of May 13, 2016, the REIT has raised approximately $450.2 million in investor equity.
