Forest City Enterprises Offloads Coveted Office Property in Downtown San Jose

By Alex Girda, Associate Editor

One of San Jose’s largest office buildings recently traded hands after Forest City Enterprises Inc. agreed to the terms with CBRE Global Investors for sale of Fairmont Plaza. CBRE Global Investors paid $93.1 million for the Bay Area asset.

The property, also known as the Knight-Ridder building, was sold in order to generate net cash proceeds for the Cleveland-based owner. Also part of this strategy was the recent sale of the company’s Emerald Palms apartment community in southwest Miami.

Fairmont Plaza is a 17-story office building located in San Jose’s downtown area. It offers 405,000 square feet of quality office space in the emerging San Francisco Bay Area. Built in the late 1980s, the property is one of the most coveted Class A office properties in the downtown area.

Its tenant roster currently includes names such as Accenture and KQED, as well as the members-only Capital Club.  The $93-million sale has earned Forest City approximately $28 million in net cash proceeds, according to data provided by the company.

The sale of Fairmont Plaza, along with the aforementioned southwest Miami apartment complex, marks the company’s focus on core markets, with assets in non-core markets being traded away in order to generate cash. In fact, the company’s 12 recent sales have, until now, provided Forest City Enterprises with more than $125 million in net cash proceeds. The company currently handles $10.7 billion worth of commercial and residential real estate assets which it owns, develops and manages.

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Image courtesy of HarshLight via Wikimedia Commons