Courtesy / KW Commercial/Magnusson Balfour
The Bryant Pond location includes a 14-foot-tall sculpture of a hand-crank telephone.
Updated: May 13, 2024
Properties with USPS as tenant offer dependable investment
Courtesy / KW Commercial/Magnusson Balfour
The retail building at 1 North Main St. in Bryant Pond was one of three properties in a portfolio that included the U.S. Postal Service as a tenant.
The buyer of a portfolio of three small properties viewed it as great investment, thanks to having the U.S. Postal Service as a tenant in each.
Alexandria Trust LLC bought retail buildings at 744 Main St. in Monmouth, 1 North Main St. in Bryant Pond and 13 Park St. in South Paris from RESAM Properties LLC for $845,000.
Monmouth is in Kennebec County. Bryant Pond is a village in the town of Woodstock. Woodstock and South Paris are in Oxford County.
Dennis Wheelock of KW Commercial/Magnusson Balfour brokered the deal. The listing received a lot of interest as soon as it was posted, said Wheelock.
“There are people around the U.S. looking just for post offices. It’s a highly desirable segment,” he said.
Properties leased by the U.S. Postal Service generate reliable revenue, he said.
“The government’s going to pay you,” he said. “They’re not going to close down the post office. When you look at these smaller towns, everyone goes to the post office.”
Hand-crank phone
An added attraction at the Bryant Pond location is a 14-foot-tall sculpture of a hand-crank telephone, installed in a small park that’s part of the same property. Bryant Pond Phone Co. was the last hand-cranked phone company in the nation, according to mainememory.net.
The buyer’s agreement to allow the public common space to continue to exist was an important part of the deal, said the seller, who didn’t want to be named.
The properties had been with the seller’s family for over 30 years. The U.S. Postal Service was a tenant at the time the seller’s father bought them.
“We decided that if we had a buyer willing to keep them all as post offices, because they are a pivotal point of each community, that we would do it,” the seller said.
MA buyer
The buyer, Alexandria Trust LLC, is led by Yasser Fares, a Massachusetts resident who is involved in the food business in the Bay State.
Fares said in recent years he diversified into commercial real estate investment, first Massachusetts, followed by Rhode Island.
“This is my first purchase in Maine,” he said.
The tenancy made the properties attractive, he said.
“If a commercial tenant leaves, it can take a long time to get another tenant,” he said. “The good thing about these leases is that post offices stay.”
The plan is to visit the properties regularly to see if any improvements or repairs are needed.
“We’ll see what needs to be done, if anything needs to be remodeled or renovated,” he said.
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