Nationwide Realty Investors Ltd. has landed another tenant for its speculative Grandview Yard office building at 800 Yard St.
The regional offices for the Northwestern Mutual family of insurance and financial services offerings will take 19,000 square feet on the third floor of the three-story, 75,000-square-foot spec office under construction.
Northwestern Managing Partner Troy Kemelgor told me the company has leased about 17,000 square feet 530 W. Spring St. downtown since 2002. That lease expires next June.
“That’s not built as efficiently as our operations need to grow,” Kemelgor told me. “Grandview Yard gives us fantastic space to expand and grow.”
Agents Kirk Smith and Don Matsanoff of CBRE Group have led a search the Northwestern executive said lasted nearly a year as the tenant scoured the downtown and suburban marketplace for suitable space.
“Grandview Yard came late in the game,” he said.
But Kemelgor said the amenities within the redevelopment of the former Grandview Heights industrial district proved attractive to the firm’s employees.
Two other properties, the Atrium II offices at the Tuttle Crossing office park in Dublin and the top floor of downtown’s Two Miranova Place also made the company’s list final three, Kemelgor said.
“We viewed many, many options,” he told me.
The Grandview Yard space can accommodate up to 80 financial representatives and support staffers for the operation’s Central Ohio and Southeast Ohio administrative territory, Kemelgor told me. Northwestern currently has a staff of 66 downtown.
Agents Wayne Harer and Ken Isenbarger of the Continental Realty Ltd. brokerage represented landlord/developers Nationwide Realty in the deal.
Ernst & Young LLP committed to the 800 Yard building in late December. It will take at least 15,000 square feet on the building’s second floor.
NRI spokeswoman Tina Guegold said the Northwestern deal cuts the amount of space available to 40,000 square feet, including the entire first floor. The building will get completed by late spring.
The developer still has about 8,700 square feet in the nearby building at 775 Yard St. It will begin offering the first of 28,000 square feet of street-level commercial space by mid-September within a three-building complex nearby that will have apartments on the top three floors.
Read full article by Brian R. Ball, Columbus Business First here
