The Overland Park International Trade Center has sold at auction for $20.6 million, but the buyers remain unidentified, pending closing of the deal.
"They're still in due diligence," saidBeth Johnson, senior vice president of economic development for theOverland Park Chamber of Commerce.
Johnson said she didn't know who the new out-of-town owners are but had heard that representatives were planning a site visit soon.
The 651,648-square-foot trade center was built in 1986 at 6800 W. 115th St. It was sold for special servicer LNR Partners LLC via Feb. 10-12 bidding on auction.com. The buyers have 30 days from the end of the auction to close on the deal.
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Prior to the auction, Rod Jones, aColliers International broker marketing the property, predicted it would fetch about $27.5 million.
Jones also sold the trade center in 2006 for a group led by Greg Walton, founder of Walton Construction Co. LLC. Atlanta-based Rubicon Investments LLC bought the property for $46.5 million and unsuccessfully attempted to flip it for $70 million a year later.
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In 2009, the Kansas City Market Center moved out of the building, vacating 261,000 square feet. Two years later, Rubicon defaulted on the loan it used to finance the building's purchase.
At the time of this month's auction, the trade center was 48 percent occupied by a single tenant. OptumRx, a unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc., leases 313,085 square feet of the building, including a 237,000-square-foot call center and 76,000-square-foot prescription fulfillment operation.
UnitedHealth, which has invested $60 million in its trade center space, is expected to renew its lease, which expires in December 2016, Jones said. It also may expand into an adjacent 25,000-square-foot space within the trade center complex.
The complex also includes a 51,000-square-foot exhibit space that has been generating about $250,000 worth of trade-show revenue a year. It and the vacant 261,000-square-foot space, which is located on a single floor, were marketed as key value-add components.