Unico Properties Sells Final Utah Office Tower to Exit State Market

Unico Properties has put its last remaining Utah asset on the market, a move that signals the Seattle-based developer is fully exiting the state. The company listed 250 Tower, a 16-story glass office building located at 250 E. 200 S., for sale on Monday. This transaction concludes Unico's presence in the local real estate market after years of scaling back its holdings.

CBRE’s National Office Partners team is marketing the property to investors as a value-add opportunity. Brokers Phil Brierley, Cole Macadaeg, and Charley Will are leading the effort, though no asking price was disclosed in the initial listing materials. The building, constructed in 1984, was formerly known as the CenturyLink building and is currently marketed as a Class A, LEED Gold property.

The tower offers 374,772 square feet of space and includes a five-story garage with 461 stalls, plus 31 surface spots, resulting in 1.31 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet. A 2017 renovation added an auditorium conference center, a second-floor outdoor terrace, and a fitness and yoga center to the facility. Unico previously owned the data center across the street, which it sold to Dart Interests in 2023, and also held the Boston Building and City Centre, the latter of which was sold to the University of Utah in 2023.

The University of Utah has anchored the tower since 2017 and renewed its lease in 2022, occupying 38% of the leased space. The university operates on a three-day-a-week return-to-office mandate that began in August. Other tenants, including Forvis Mazars, Reaveley Engineers, and Stride Bank, have renewed or signed new leases since 2021. The remaining leases carry an average term of 4.6 years, while the building currently holds 108,638 square feet of vacant space across contiguous full floors.

CBRE brokers argue that this vacancy represents a rare opportunity in a tight market. They state that no other downtown block larger than 50,000 square feet is currently available, making the tower a primary option for large tenants seeking to move into the urban core. The listing suggests a buyer could acquire the stabilized, all-in cost at more than 70% below the expense of constructing a comparable new tower.

The sale aligns with recent market data presented by Phil Brierley at the ULI Utah Trends conference on Oct. 20. Brierley noted that while overall office vacancy stood at 21.8% in the third quarter, prime vacancy near downtown was only 6.5%. Class A asking rents in the central business district reached a record $40.08 per square foot, up 10.9% from the previous year. No new office projects are under construction downtown, and none are expected to deliver within five years.

The area surrounding the tower has seen residential growth, with seven Type I projects adding more than 1,500 apartments within four blocks over the past five years. The rebuild of 200 South as a bus rapid transit corridor has also improved access to the site. The sale follows a period of negative absorption in the regional office market, where nearly 1 million square feet of space went vacant in 2023.