Few changes planned after Chase Tower sale

Publication: CHARLESTON GAZETTE
Published: 03/02/2007
Byline: Sarah K. Winn , Staff Writer 

Despite a new landlord, JPMorgan Chase’s banking operations in West Virginia aren’t changing, the company said Thursday.

“For us, this is business as usual,” Chase spokeswoman Nancy Norris said. “We prefer to have a long-term lease rather than owning property.”

With little fanfare, JPMorgan Chase sold 33 properties nationwide to Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management Inc. for $460 million in October 2006.

Among these properties was the Chase Tower in downtown Charleston as well as buildings in Huntington and Clarksburg .

The entire nationwide deal involved 5.3 million square feet in 10 cities, including Chicago, Phoenix, Dallas and Milwaukee .

Because the West Virginia buildings were sold as a package deal, they were not individually priced, Norris said.

The Charleston-based commercial real-estate firm McCabe Henley LP will serve as local leasing agent for the building, associate broker Howard Swint said.

The Chase Tower has 277,000 square feet of commercial space in its 20 floors and is 90 percent occupied, he said.

As the leasing agent, Swint said the firm will “aggressively pursue new tenants starting in the spring.”

“We will target market [tenants] that we believe are well-suited for the tower,” he said.

One of the largest commercial spaces is the 10th floor, which has more than 12,000 square feet “ready to go,” he said.

The selling process for the JPMorgan Chase properties began in August 2006, said Katherine Vyse, spokeswoman for Brookfield . The Brookfield Real Estate Opportunity Fund bought the properties in September 2006, she said. The deal was finalized in October.

Being a tenant rather than an owner is a company-wide strategy, even before the JP Morgan Chase and Bank One merger in 2004, said Mark Prince, head of Chase’s operation in West Virginia.

The selling of the property had nothing to do with merger, he said.

While Chase will no longer own its home in Charleston , Prince is confident the bank’s business in the community will remain unfazed.

“Across the country, Chase’s strategy is to invest capital directly into loans in our communities rather than having our capital in real estate,” he said. “We are reinvesting in our core business.”

To contact staff writer Sarah K. Winn, use e-mail or call 348-5156.