Courtesy / Cardente Real Estate
The package at 511 Congress St. includes a brand-new parking garage that opened in August.
November 11, 2019
Downtown Portland office tower and parking garage up for sale
Courtesy / Cardente Real Estate
Ocean Gate Plaza, at 511 Congress St. in Portland, was rebranded and renovated over the past five years and is now being marketed for sale by sealed bid.
A 130,000-square-foot Class A office tower in downtown Portland and its new parking garage are up for sale through a sealed bid format.
Ocean Gate Plaza at 511 Congress St. is a nine-story office building with two attached, multi-level wings consisting of office, retail and food service space, plus a courtyard. The tower was built in 1973; renovations were performed in 1996, 2003, 2007 and 2013-19. It is anchored by long-term tenant Wood., a global environment and engineering solutions firm.
The parking garage, accessed from Brown Street, Casco Street and Cumberland Avenue, is newly constructed and opened in August. It has 256 parking spaces.
“This is one of the largest quality investment portfolio offerings in downtown Portland,” Matthew Cardente of Cardente Real Estate, who is handling the marketing, told Mainebiz.
Sealed bids are due Dec. 6. Cardente began offering property tours last week. Two are scheduled this week, on Monday from 1-5 p.m. and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Due to the amount of interest in the property, additional tours have been scheduled for next week: Tuesday, Nov. 19, and Wednesday, Nov. 20, both from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Registration is required to attend a tour.
The sealed bid format is useful for allowing the seller to review bids in an orderly fashion, Cardente said. A minimum price has been established but isn’t publicly available.
Much of the property is occupied; several small offices are available to lease and two leases are pending.
The seller is Ocean Gate Plaza LLC, which is owned by Ed Gardner of Gardner Real Estate Group, which has offices in the tower. Gardner plans to focus on his real estate company and intends to remain in the building, reported Cardente.
Cardente Real Estate represented Gardner when he bought the property in 2014 for $12.45 million.
Gardner subsequently rebranded the property as Ocean Gate Plaza, seeing it as the gateway between the city’s arts district and the financial district. He also changed what type of tenants are on plaza-level ground floor and upgraded the building’s interior.
The space was mostly office space or vacant when Gardner bought the building. A flurry of leasing activity has since taken place, with the arrival of companies such as San Mateo, Calif.-based revenue management company Model N, MuniciPAY, CashStar and Troubh Heisler. Other tenants include Soakology, Golden Lotus restaurant and Embrace Home Loans. Gardner also brightened up the lobby.
In November 2018, Nordic AquaFarms, which proposes to build one of the world’s largest land-based aquaculture facility in Belfast, leased office space on the fifth floor for its corporate headquarters.
“Ed’s vision was to rebrand the building and focus on changing the synergy of the first level so it was more vibrant and had mixed-use retail appeal,” Cardente said. “He’s a meticulous owner who had a vision when he bought the building.”
Construction of the garage came about due to the availability of an existing surface parking area that came with the property, Cardenete noted.
“There’s always a need for parking in the area,” he added.
In addition to tours, Cardente has been conducting showings twice a week. For the four scheduled tours, 25 to 30 parties have registered so far, he said.
The potential buyer pool includes in-state and out-of-state investors, he said.
“That’s been the same scenario every time,” he said, adding that the Time and Temperature Building at 477 Congress St. in downtown Portland was similarly marketed a year ago.
“To date, it’s been a mix of some of the larger holders of commercial real estate in the Maine and northern New England market and some regional and national investors and real estate holding companies,” he said.
Cardente said he sees a solid investment market throughout the nation.
“There’s not much supply and there’s a significant amount of demand,” he said.
This property combines three excellent attributes, he said: a new garage, completed renovations and modernizing updates on the office tower and a nearly full slate of tenants.
“It’s a good time for a seller to sell and it’s a good investment property for someone who’s fairly conservative who wants to invest in the area,” he said.
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