Graymark Capital partners with New York Life Investors in $52M office acquisition
San Francisco, CA, December, 2015 – Graymark Capital, Inc., in partnership with New York Life Real Estate Investors, has acquired the Ridder Park Technology Center, a 238,342 square foot creative office/R&D campus in North San Jose for $51.5 million.
The institutional-‐quality property is 89% leased to two tenants on long-‐term leases. A majority of the space was recently renovated to creative office with modern lab built with upwards of $100 psf invested in the space. The property is located in the booming Silicon Valley market. Located in the North San Jose submarket off of Highway 880 at Brokaw, the property provides a convenient location to both South Bay and East Bay employees and has excellent freeway visibility. The campus is in a mature setting with the best walkability to retail amenities in the North San Jose submarket.
The 238,342 sf asset was constructed in 1992 and is improved with creative office interiors, outdoor amenities and modern lab space. The property was an appealing investment for Graymark due to the long-‐term leases, strong cash yield, potential re-‐tenanting opportunity, discount to replacement cost and excellent market fundamentals. CEO Brian Hecktman stated, “This acquisition continues our program of making smart investments in infill locations that exhibit strong employment and demographic trends. We are also excited to enter into our first transaction with New York Life Investors, a strong institutional equity partner for us as we continue to grow our platform.”
Managing Director and CFO Jeff Hoppen added. “We were able to purchase an institutional quality asset at an attractive basis with long-‐term leases and some tenant issues to work through in a market where we have already bought seven assets in the past few years. Silicon Valley is one of the strongest office and R&D markets in the country and the North San Jose submarket is in very active leasing mode with companies like Apple making major investments.”
Debt financing on the acquisition was provided by the San Francisco office of Wells Fargo Bank. The property was purchased through the Silicon Valley office of Eastdil Secured led by managing director Greg Cioth.
About Graymark Capital
Graymark Capital, Inc. is a real estate investment firm located in San Francisco, California that invests in commercial properties throughout the West Coast. The company has acquired 950,000 sf of institutional quality property valued at $215 million over the last 3 years. Founded by CEO Brian Hecktman, with Managing Director/CFO Jeff Hoppen and VP of Acquisitions Rick Lafranchi, the company focuses on opportunities where it can create significant value by capitalizing on the team’s collective experience from over $5 billion of real estate investment and development over the past 20 years.
About New York Life Real Estate Investors
With over 100 years in business, New York Life Real Estate Investors is the real estate debt and equity investment arm of NYL Investors LLC, which is a wholly-‐owned subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company. NYL Investors has primary responsibility for managing the fixed income assets of its parent company New York Life Insurance Company as well as third party assets in select classes including real estate. NYL Investors, including certain affiliates, has over $210 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2015 of which over $42 billion is managed by Real Estate Investors.
Our parent company, New York Life, was founded in 1845 and is a Fortune 100 company. It is one of the largest mutual life insurance companies in the United States, holding the highest ratings for financial strength currently awarded to any U.S. life insurer funds, six of the largest insurance companies in the world and large family offices.