The longtime owners of One Canal Place, the 32-story office tower at the foot of Canal Street, have sold the building, marking the fourth downtown high rise to change hands in less than three years.<\/p>\n
Skysoar Capital Partners, an Israeli investment firm with offices in New York, acquired the building from New York-based Loeb Partners Realty and insurance giant Aetna, which had jointly owned the building since 2002.<\/p>\n
A sale price was not disclosed. Sources with direct knowledge of the transaction say the price for the 650,000-square-foot building was between $25 million and $30 million, or roughly $45 per square foot.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s significantly less than the $50 million, or $80 per square foot, that north Louisiana investors paid earlier this year for 400 Poydras Tower<\/a>,\u00a0which is roughly the same size and age as Canal Place.<\/p>\n But the Poydras Tower sale included a garage. The Canal Place sale did not include the garage, which is available to building tenants but is separately owned.<\/p>\n Skysoar Capital, which is owned by Moshe Meir, did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n The recent sales after several years of uncertainty in the office market are a positive sign that investors have \u201csome level of optimism\u201d about New Orleans, according to Mike Siegel, president and CEO of Corporate Realty, which was the local brokerage on the deal and will continue to handle management and leasing for Canal Place.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving new owners in town, new blood, new ideas is healthy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Strength and weakness<\/p>\n One Canal Place was developed in 1979 by the late Joseph Canizaro as part of a mixed-use complex that also includes a luxury mall, the Shops at Canal Place, the Westin New Orleans hotel and the 1,650-car parking garage.<\/p>\n All would eventually change hands and come under different ownership groups.<\/p>\n The Shops at Canal Place, which will lose its anchor tenant next month<\/a> when Saks Fifth Avenue shuts down, the Westin hotel and the parking garage are not part of the office building sale.<\/p>\n One Canal Place has an occupancy of just under 75%, including its newest tenant, law firm Baker Donelson, which has not yet moved into the building. The firm recently signed a long-term lease for 40,000 square feet on the building\u2019s top two floors \u2014\u00a0about 15% of its total space.<\/p>\n The building\u2019s occupancy is slightly below the overall market average downtown of around 80%.<\/p>\n One Canal Place was built at a time when several other high rises were under construction in New Orleans\u2019 Central Business District, then still home to major banks, energy companies and maritime firms.<\/p>\n Unlike most of those buildings, built along a one-mile stretch of Poydras Street, the Canal Street tower is at the foot of Canal on the edge of the French Quarter, which can be a strength and a weakness, experts say.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the gateway of the French Quarter,\u201d said Evan Stone, a broker with Goodwin Advisors in Dallas, who has handled the sale of several major office buildings locally. \u201cBut when you are trying to get employees to get butts on seats, it\u2019s not as convenient. It just takes longer.\u201d<\/p>\n Benson is still mulling plans for its future, said Siegel, whose firm is also owned by Benson.<\/p>\n In late 2024, the Energy Center, a 39-story tower, was purchased out of foreclosure<\/a> by a New York investment firm. A sale price was not disclosed.<\/p>\n