Press Room

Start-up real estate firm closes on purchase of retail/office center

June 5, 2006

Less than four months after starting his new firm, Robbie King has finalized the purchase of a 60,000-square-foot mixed-use center.

King's firm, Paige Investments LP, recently bought the WestOak Office & Retail Park located at 2161 N.W. Military Hwy. in North Central San Antonio.

This is the same center that is home to noted restaurant La Scala.

Paige Investments bought the center from West Oak Center Ltd., an entity that includes Trammell Crow Co. as one of the owners.

Paul Barker, vice president of office brokerage services for Trammell Crow, represented his firm in the transaction.

King's company now owns the center under the name WestOak Office & Retail Park Ltd. The purchase price was not disclosed.

WestOak is made up of two components: A four-story office complex of about 45,000 square feet; and roughly 15,000 square feet of single-story retail space, King says.

The retail portion of WestOak is currently 100 percent occupied, he adds.

Meanwhile, over the roughly four months since King put WestOak under contract, he notes that his firm has inked 15,000 square feet worth of new deals for the office portion.

Those new tenants include locally based law firm Pulman, Bresnahan & Pullen LLP, which will occupy about 7,500 square feet on the fourth floor of the WestOak office complex.

Paige Investments will take roughly 2,000 square feet on the first floor of the office building, King says.

With the new tenants, the office portion of WestOak is now 99 percent occupied -- up from a occupancy rate of 70 percent when Paige Investments first put the property under contract, King adds.

And now begins the work to physically touch up the building -- to give it a more modern look and feel, King says.

"We like the way the project looks today," he adds. "We just want to freshen it up a little bit."

That work will include upgrading the common areas -- starting with the fourth floor, so that Paige Investments can time the upgrades with the move of Pulman, et al. into the building. The law firm is expected to take its space at WestOak in early September, King adds.

WestOak, King continues, is strategically located in a prime part of the city. It is close to Park North Plaza -- a large-scale retail development in the works by locally based Hill-Granados Retail Partners LP.

"WestOak embodies the kind of deals we want to do -- properties we can invest in and add instant value to," says King, who opened Paige Investments in February.

Paige Investments is a full-service brokerage firm specializing in acquisitions and development. It is named for King's daughter.