Brokers Joel Thomas, Erich Schultz, SIOR and Jay Lyons, SIOR, CCIM were awarded the Commercial Transaction of the Year Award from the Central Oregon Association of REALTORS® on April 4, 2017.
The award winning transaction was the sale of an 84-acre industrial property, with 550,000 square feet of buildings located at 1155 and 1315 North Main Street in Prineville. In this sale/leaseback, the Compass Commercial brokers were able to help establish a new 20-year lease with Contact Industries to ensure the company, currently employing 220 people, will continue operations in Prineville well into the future. Through its nationwide marketing outreach, Compass Commercial found a Southern California investor to purchase the property. Compass Commercial represented the buyer in the transaction as well as the seller.
There were some challenges along the way that made the transaction both interesting and unique. During the due diligence period, it was found that there were grave sites dating back to the 1860s encroaching on the Contact Industries property. In addition, an old building from the Contact Industries property was encroaching on the land of the cemetery. Prior to marketing of the property it was assumed the properties were correctly determined. Using some creativity and perseverance, the Compass Commercial team was able to negotiate a series of easements to resolve the encroachments. As a result of these encroachments, a full survey had to be completed in order to issue an ALTA title policy which the buyer’s lender insisted upon. This was not what any of the parties wanted to hear just a week and a half before the closing.
The brokers located a surveyor to complete the monumental task of surveying this 16-parcel property on a very short timeline. The survey came back with another unrelated issue. There was an encroachment into the City of Prineville’s right-of-way for Main Street — a potentially deal-killing issue. Within 36 hours, the team at Compass Commercial was able to negotiate a separate easement with the City of Prineville so the title company could issue the policy and the bank could fund the loan. Despite all of these challenges, the brokers were able to clear the various hurdles in order to close the transaction as scheduled.