The property, which bears the name of the former location of the Kimball Art Center, was purchased by Columbus Pacific Properties in 2015 for $7.5 million.
Tony Tyler, a partner in Columbus Pacific Development, says due to confidentiality provisions, he can’t disclose the purchase price, but confirmed the property closed on Monday.
According to Summit County records, the new property owner is a Limited Liability Corp. known as SRC Main Street Owner 1, registered as a domestic LLC based out of southern California. The property’s market value is assessed at nearly $9.4 million, with an annual property tax bill of more than $71,000.
Tyler wouldn’t say how much Columbus Pacific put into redeveloping it over the past seven years, but says it was more than they intended.
I'll put it this way, I think we spent more than we anticipated over a longer period of time, in order to get the project really up to the place where we kind of dreamed it would be. And if we were happy with the result.”
He says they thought they would own the project long term, but opportunity knocked.
“Every project has a little bit of a different lifecycle and exit strategy. But this is one that we were, you know, passionate about, we love the location, it's, you know, effectively irreplaceable. And I think the sale was just an opportunistic one. So, we had interest in, significant interest in the building. And, and I think it was just a good time to, you know, transition into a new to a new owner.”
The former Kimball Art Center was redeveloped and is completely leased with L.L. Bean as its anchor tenant. The special event space was added as a second story to the building. While it shut down just months after it opened due to COVID, Tyler says business – for private events like weddings and conferences, is starting to pick back up.
Sometimes, things are just outside of your control, and I had my crystal ball and, you know, in 2000, you know, 15 - 16 when we're looking at the event space there, you know, and was able to forecast COVID, you know, maybe we would have done something differently there.”
Tyler adds that the ownership change won’t affect the way the building operates, it’s just someone else footing the bills and receiving the rent checks.
