Needing to complete a 1031 exchange, a Baton Rouge investor closed Friday on the purchase of Unit A in the Bluebonnet Palms Office Park for $1.2 million, or $200 per square foot.
John Cooper, who also owns another building in the office park, and his wife, Helen Cooper, purchased the 6,000-square-foot condo from 4210 Bluebonnet Blvd LLC, represented by real estate broker Hank Saurage, according to sale documents filed with the city-parish Clerk of Court’s Office.
Chris Pike, a broker with Mike Falgoust & Associates who represented the buyers, says his clients had no problem paying a relatively high price per square foot because they needed to buy a property to complete a 1031 exchange from the recent sale of land on Coursey Boulevard. Pike adds that it’s a “great building in a great office park on a great street with a great tenant.”
The 1031 exchange allowed the Coopers to defer capital gains taxes on the $1.99 million sale of land on Coursey in September, but required them to reinvest the money from the sale into another property. After selling the land, the Coopers bought Unit D in Bluebonnet Palms for $725,000. Bluebonnet Palms is located near the intersection of Bluebonnet and Jefferson Highway.
The tenant of both spaces owned by the Coopers is the law firm of Bienvenu, Bonnecaze, Foco, Viator & Holinga. Pike says the firm has a five-year lease, and the Coopers have no reason to believe the law firm will move after it’s up.
Pike says the sales price shows there are no deals or steals to be had in commercial market along the Bluebonnet corridor. Though he says the $200 per square foot price point—which Pike says he has never seen in office buildings along Bluebonnet or Jefferson—may seem exorbitant, if a buyer wants a good building with good tenants in a good area, it will cost them.
“Everybody wants a deal or a steal, but they just aren’t there,” Pike says, adding: “You can’t really buy cheap right now.”
Article provided by The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report | Ryan Broussard