Drury Southwest purchases Lorimont Place, development

Lorimont Place, a corporate development with a distinctive clock tower and home to several Cape Girardeau businesses, was sold recently, according to Tom Kelsey, broker with Lorimont Commercial Real Estate.

Kelsey, who handled the sale, said Drury Southwest, through its affiliate, DSW Development Corporation, has acquired Lorimont Place.

The building, at 240-280 S. Mount Auburn Road in Cape Girardeau, is about 90,500 square feet, occupies nearly 6 acres and is home to office and retail space -- 88 percent occupied with 11 tenants.

Vizient, a Dallas-based health care purchasing company, is the largest tenant there, with a three-story, 47,000 square-feet office building on the site, Kelsey said.

Other tenants include McAlister's Deli, Edward Jones, Simply Swirled, Landmark Holdings, State Farm Insurance, Renaissance Beauty Academy, Dille Traxel Architects, Parmele Law Firm, Missouri Well-Care, Benton Hill Investments and Lorimont Commercial Real Estate.

The current tenants will not be affected by the deal, Kelsey said.

"We are excited to expand our commercial real estate presence even further in Cape Girardeau and continue the successful management of this highly visible property in a bustling part of the city," Larry Westrich, senior vice president of DSW, stated in a news release.

Lorimont broker Kelsey said the complex originally was built in 1993 by Cape Girardeau businessman Earl Norman.

The high-rise office building was occupied by Norman's company, Health Services Corporation of America (HSCA), and in 1993, was hailed as "an architecturally stunning multimillion-dollar retail-professional office complex" in an article from the Southeast Missourian archives.

The article noted Lorimont Place's 45-foot brick clock tower and "classical and modern Williamsburg styling" as unique architectural elements.

Norman sold his company in 2001 to MedAssets, eventually purchased by Vizient, Kelsey said.

DLJ Cape LLC of Arnold, Missouri, acquired the development in 2003 in a "multimillion-dollar" transaction.

That company was the owner and seller to Drury Southwest in this most recent sale, Kelsey said.

No sales price was disclosed.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630