Heller family pays $4.2M for second Tulsa warehouse

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Mar 9, 2007 by Kirby Lee Davis

For the second month in a row, Heller Family Investments LLC paid just over $4 million to Kansas City Life Insurance Co. for a Tulsa industrial building.

In this, the fourth sale this year from the five spec industrial buildings Kansas City Life built between 2004 and 2006, Heller Family Investments joined with JEG1111 LP and MEG1111 LP to pay $4.2 million for the 100,000-square-foot Airpark Distribution Center 2 at 11427 E. 27th St. North.

Finished in 2006, that building just off south Garnett Road and U.S. Highway 169 offers 30-foot ceilings, 18 dock-high doors and two grade-level doors. United Warehouse Co. leases the entire site.

"It's a good quality industrial building with all the latest bells and windows," said Matt Klimisch, first vice president with the Tulsa office of CB Richard Ellis of Oklahoma. "Just a very good, strong, functional warehouse."

Klimisch represented the seller. Patrick Coates of Coates Commercial Properties handled negotiations for the buyer.

Last month Heller forked over $4.1 million for this building's neighboring predecessor, the 100,000-square-foot Airpark Distribution Center 1. That industrial site opened in 2004 at 11401 E. 27th St. North.

Preceding both these deals, in January a group of Tulsa investors paid $7.25 million for two Kansas City Life industrial warehouses in south Tulsa. ASI 400 LLC acquired the 100,000-square-foot structure at 13555 E. 61st St., as well as the 57,450-square-foot building next door at 13105 E. 61st St.

That leaves Kansas City Life holding just one of its original five centers - the 100,000-square-foot Airpark Distribution Center III at 11605 E. 27th St. North, which now stands 100-percent vacant.

All three Airpark properties are managed by the Tulsa office of CB Richard Ellis of Oklahoma.

This latest deal provides the 20th property in the Heller Family portfolio, 90 percent of those in the Tulsa area. It also marks the family's second industrial warehouse investment.

That move comes as that Tulsa sector's vacancy rate fell to 6.56 percent at the end of 2006, according to preliminary CBRE figures. It had stood at 7.36 percent at midyear 2006 and 7.42 percent at the close of 2005.