Pacific Office Properties Trust Inc., the owner of seven Honolulu office buildings, plans to sell one of them — First Insurance Center — to a Massachusetts company that owns close to 400 properties nationwide.
San Diego-based Pacific Office, which was founded by local commercial real estate investor Jay Shidler, announced Wednesday it has an agreement to sell the building to Newton, Mass.-based Senior Housing Properties Trust for $70.5 million.
The sale price includes the assumption of $52 million of debt secured by the 11-story building on the makai-ewa corner of Ward Avenue and Beretania Street. The transaction is expected to close by June 30.
Senior Housing Properties is a health care real estate investment trust expanding its portfolio of primarily senior-living communities and medical office buildings.
The company owned 369 properties across the nation at the end of last year, and reported last week that it has bought or arranged to buy 21 properties since Oct. 1.
First Insurance Center is a 202,966-square-foot office building mauka of Straub Clinic and Hospital. Many tenants are in the medical profession, as well as insurance and other fields.
The building was one of several Honolulu office buildings Shidler had owned privately and contributed to form publicly traded Pacific Office in 2008.
Selling the building would reduce the number of Honolulu buildings wholly owned by Pacific Office from five to four.
Besides First Insurance Center, Pacific Office wholly owns Waterfront Plaza, Davies Pacific Center, the Pan Am Building and Clifford Center.
Pacific Office last year sold a partial ownership stake in a building at the corner of Kalakaua Avenue and Ala Wai in Waikiki.
The firm also owns a partial stake in the Bank of Hawaii Waikiki Center.
In total, Pacific Office owns 21 office properties, including 16 with joint-venture partners, that encompass 39 buildings and 4.4 million square feet of space in Hawaii, California and Arizona.
Shares of Pacific Office stock closed down 2 cents at 55 cents Wednesday on the American Stock Exchange after the sale announcement.
Shares in the past 52 weeks have closed as low as 30 cents, on Jan. 3, and as high as $2.49, on March 23.
