Little Rock Real Estate Fund Closes on NWA Properties

Northwest Arkansas

by Paul Gatling ([email protected]) July 23, 2014 10:29 am 124 views 

The ownership group of Village on the Creeks in Rogers has voted to become affiliated with a Little Rock-based private real estate partnership.

According to a special warranty deed, the 270,000-SF mixed-used development near Interstate 49 has shifted ownership from VOC LP, led by Dewitt Smith, to CAPROCQ VOC LLC.

The deed was filed at the Benton County courthouse July 14.

The ownership is a related entity to CapRocq Core Real Estate Fund LP, which was announced in January 2013 with an initial capitalization of $50 million. The announcement was accompanied by news that the group hAd already completed two acquisitions at its initial closing, one involving a group of five office buildings off South Dixieland Road in Lowell, just north of the headquarters of J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc.

Tenants in three of those buildings are UAMS, Mercy Health System and Transplace, a third-party logistics provider created in 2000 by J.B. Hunt and five other trucking companies.

The remaining two buildings have multiple tenants.

Smith said further details about the Village on the Creeks transaction would be formally announced in the coming weeks.

Smith, Kevin Huchingson, Franklin McLarty and Ted Dickey are the co-founders of CapRocq, which buys assets throughout the Midwest and Southeast portions of the country.

A group of 16 limited partners, led by Smith, bought Village on the Creeks in August 2010 for $22.25 million.

“They are still in the game, they’ve just added some new partners,” Smith said of the previous ownership group.

Village on the Creeks is about 70 percent office space and the rest a mix of retail and service tenants.

Smith said the property has been operating at about 95 percent occupancy for the past year.

Also part of the latest deal, Smith said a CapRocq entity is making a health care-related real estate investment, a 38,000-SF medical office building on Willow Creek Drive in Johnson.

The previous owner, Smith said, was the LaFrance family of Pine Bluff.