by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The ink is still drying on the contract, but ownership of the Greenleaf Building has changed hands for the second time this year.
Allied Capital Corp., the Washington, D.C. investment firm that took over the building during the summer from the Foley Lardner law firm, found a buyer unsolicited and signed them to a contract in the last several weeks, according to Mike Greenblatt, an asset manager with the firm. Citing a confidentiality agreement, Greenblatt wouldn’t reveal the buyer’s name or the deal’s terms. Greenblatt said the sale was pending while both parties perform due diligence. The buyer was one of several interested parties he said.
Several people familiar with the deal said the purchase is the buyer’s first in the downtown market. The new owner apparently wants to turn the 12-story building at 200 Laura St. into office condominiums. The property manager has recently begun showing the building to possible tenants. Fred Kaiser, who managed the building for Foley Lardner and Allied, said the property would be sold by individual floors.
“I’ve been showing it to prospective buyers on a per-floor basis,” said Kaiser. He said he didn’t know their asking price or the building’s value.
Some floors need paint and carpeting, but Kaiser said the building as a whole is in good shape.
A former owner estimated the Greenleaf to be worth about $4 or $5 million. Charles Commander, a partner at Foley Lardner and in the building’s original ownership group, said the building was an attractive property because it had a lot of potential uses. “Like office condos,” he said. The building was worth $90,000 when it opened a quarter century ago.
The building now sits vacant except for Jacob’s Jewelers on the ground floor. Jacob’s owner Roy Thomas said he’d seen potential tenants viewing the floors recently. The building’s lower nine floors were emptied when Foley Lardner moved to 40,000 square feet in Independent Square. The law firm also had a long-term lease on more than 100 parking spaces in a nearby parking garage that will apparently transfer to the new owner.