Olympic Plaza

 

MEI has always been a firm which has excelled in creating value for its clients. It started with the very first deal closed by its Founder, Ed McKeegan, in 1987. At the time Ed was assigned the task of acquiring and stabilizing the Olympic Plaza, a 250,000 SF West LA office building.   The 25% occupied building was hemorrhaging cash as 187,000 SF of space had yet to be built out. Tucker Anthony, a Boston based syndicator, provided equity to complete the acquisition, and together with favorable financing, monies were made available to lease up and buildout the vacancy within 18 months at a combined total acquisition and capital improvement cost of $42M. During this period, Mr. McKeegan as an asset manager for Jones Lang LaSalle, deployed a leasing strategy that initially included enticing a large national firm to lease 10% of the vacancy with low teaser rates, generous TIs and considerable rent concessions.  This deal attracted a considerable amount of attention on the westside and lead to the lease up of a large remaining portion of the vacancy.  Once the rent concessions bled off, the higher long-term rental rates provided a significantly higher value basis.  Poised for a sale, Mr. McKeegan, now having formed MEI, was retained to sell the building as its first assignment. Using his connections with offshore investors, a Buyer was successfully located. The building was sold for $62M within 12 months providing investors with a $20M profit on an original investment of $2.5M, in just over 36 months. Creating wealth through real estate is still what we’re in the market to achieve for our clients. Thirty years later, we are still exceeding client’s expectations.