BY PERRY BROTHERS
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A Los Angeles investment group has closed a $16.5 million deal to buy the former U.S. Shoe Corp. complex in Madisonville.
The 50-acre campus in has been for sale since 1996, after Stamford, Conn.-based Nine West Group Inc. bought part of the company and moved its headquarters in White Plains, N.Y.
William Schneller and Jeff Bender, CB Commercial brokers, sought a buyer for 18 months before finding Principal Capital Group LLC. It will renovate and then lease the complex, which includes 200,000 square feet of office and 700,000 square feet of warehouse and distribution space.
Greater Cincinnati likely will see more property sales to investment groups, Mr. Schneller said.
Both the three-story office building and the warehouse and building were built in 1981. The office space has 529 parking spaces, a fitness center, a cafeteria that can accommodate 100 people and a kitchen.
Al Neyer Inc. will build a $4 million, multi-tenant office - warehouse project in Fairfield.
The company plans to complete two buildings, totaling 88,200 square feet, this fall at Interstate Business Center, a 20-acre piece of land across Muhlhauser Road from Al Neyer Inc.'s 1.5 million-square-foot industrial park, Interstate Properties.
The company is seeking tenants for the planned office warehouse and office showroom buildings, which will use about nine of the 20 acres.
Al Neyer decided to build in the Tri-County area after it bought, renovated and quickly leased Union Enterprise Center -- the former Panda Express building -- less than a mile from the company's Interstate parks.
Drug firm selling 2 buildings in Reading
Hoescht Marion Roussel is selling two pharmaceutical research-and-development buildings on Galbraith Road in Reading.
The buildings -- with space of 362,366 and 80,636 square feet -- once housed about 350 workers. Hoescht moved the research arm to Somerset, N.J. in 1996.
Caleb Fox is marketing the buildings for the Binswanger Cos., the Philadelphia-based real estate group that landed the exclusive listing.
ML Barnard Inc. builds credit card bank office
ML Barnard Inc. is building a 31,300-square-foot office building for Spirit of America National Bank. The credit card bank will relocate its 190 employees this fall to the building on Allen Drive in Miami Township, Clermont County.
Wayne Hach, of Cincinnati Commercial Realtors, represented the company, which has been in Milford since 1991. Star Bank is financing the project, designed by KBA Architects.
